This is a set of articles on the death of photo Journalist Tom Hurndall, who was attempting to convey the atrocities of the Zionists occupying the Israeli Government against the humans of the Middle East. The Zionist fanatic who killed him is being charged with assault. Tom too is a hero.
ARTICLES BEGIN
Caveat Lector-

THE HOFFMAN WIRE
Dedicated to Freedom of the Press, Investigative Reporting and Revisionist History

Michael A. Hoffman II, Editor

January 15, 2004

British Witness Shot by Israelis, Dies

"... he was targeted by the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) as part of a
strategy of suppressing foreign witnesses in the occupied territories."
--Daily Telegraph (UK), Jan. 15, 2004

Editor's Note: Young Tom Hurndall's death on Tuesday merits three
articles in today's Hoffman Wire. First we have a background piece
written last summer by his Mom, then the death notice from the family,
followed by a report in today's Daily Telegraph newspaper.

There are a couple of points that should be emphasized here: the
Israelis are trying to kill all western witnesses who come to Gaza and
the West bank to document the holocaust against the Palestinians. What
about the witness of the western media? They mostly don't count, in
particular the odious CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, NY Times, AP, etc.

American reporters have witnessed all sorts of massacres and shootings
of Palestinian civilians and can be relied upon to fail to report these
crimes, or they have their reports censored by editors in New York and
do not protest the censorship, for fear of their careers, even when
innocent lives are at stake.

Tom Hurndall was a photography student at Manchester University who
hooked up with the International Solidarity Movement
(http://www.palsolidarity.org/index.php), a very important organization
that sends Americans and Europeans into Palestine to bear witness to
Israeli army atrocities.

Often when the Israeli army (IDF) shoots a Palestinian child, it lies
and says the child was "caught in a crossfire." When the IDF shoots a
hapless Palestinian teen, mother or father, the Israelis will often lie
and say the civilian was "carrying a gun." This lie was also told about
Tom Hurndall. But Tom's father is a British lawyer and he and Tom's
mother conducted their own investigation and created publicity for the
true circumstances of their son's shooting.

The US media do not generally contradict Israeli lies, ergo, independent
western witnesses are needed to document the truth about the shooting of
Palestinians, in which case the Israelis target the witnesses too, as
Hurndall was targeted. As you will discover, the Israelis even shot at
his mother after she went to Palestine to investigate her son's
shooting!

The neocons claim there were no Israeli atrocities committed in Jenin in
2002. They term the charge of atrocities in Jenin, a "myth." They can
get away with this holocaust denial because the Israelis banned the
European media from Jenin and banned a UN war crimes investigation in
the aftermath of the atrocities. With only native Palestinian
eyewitnesses (who are mocked and laughed at in true colonial fashion),
the worldwide Zionist hasbara (propaganda) machine can swing into action
and whitewash the blood of the civilians in Jenin.

The Palestinian people are not dogs, Amalek or terrorists, though they
have been called all three by Zionist "Christians" and Khazars. The
Palestinians have been driven utterly out of their minds by the routine
slaughter of their women and children, brothers and husbands before
their very eyes. For years I have advocated distributing small digital
cameras by the thousands all over Palestine, training Arab civilians in
their use and establishing a central video processing facility where the
footage could be collated, embedded on DVD and distributed around the
world.

Until then, youngsters like Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndall have paid the
supreme price to combat holocaust denial and bear witness to the low
intensity genocide that proceeds on a weekly basis in occupied
Palestine.

Michael A. Hoffman II
-------------------------------------------

He risked all for others
New Scotsman
July 19,2003

As written by Tom Hurndall's mother
http://news.scotsman.com/features.cfm?id=781552003

On April 11, my eldest son, a photojournalist, was shot in the head by
an Israeli soldier. He was trying to protect two young girls in the
Israelis' line of fire in Gaza. He is 21 and now lies in a coma, with
severe brain damage. We know he is not expected to recover and our
family are endeavouring to come to terms with this.

I was at work when I first heard Tom had been seriously wounded. The
first thing I did was to call Tom's father, Anthony, a lawyer, who was
in Russia on business. We decided he would fly to Israel the next day
with Billy, our second son, as Tom had been airlifted to Seroka hospital
in Be'er Sheva. I followed on the Monday and shortly after that Sophie,
23, and my youngest son, 12-year-old Freddy, arrived. We were expecting
the worst. The surgeon had told us Tom might not survive even a few days
and that there was shrapnel still lodged in his brain. When I first saw
him, there was a young Israeli girl beside his bed who kept repeating,
"I am so sorry for my country".

Tom was studying photography at Manchester Metropolitan University and
had travelled to Baghdad in February with some British "human shields"
for an assignment. He wanted to be a photojournalist. We had tried to
persuade him not to go but he was insistent, saying he had done
extensive research. From Baghdad he moved to Jordan and while he was in
a refugee camp, he hooked up with a Palestinian peace group, the
International Solidarity Movement. He agreed to accompany them to Rafah,
a town on the southern end of the Gaza Strip caught between the Israeli
army and Palestinian fighters. Soon after arriving, he saw a little
(Arab) boy shot in the shoulder (by the Israeli army), which profoundly
affected him.

He was also shot at, gassed and hit by falling debris. A few days before
he was shot, he wrote in his journal: "The certainty is that they are
watching and it is on the decision of any one Israeli soldier or settler
that my life depends."

A week later, the activists were peacefully trying to stop an Israeli
tank from blocking access to a local mosque when Tom saw soldiers in a
watchtower open fire. Numerous shots were directed at a group of
children playing in the rubble nearby. He pulled one five-year-old
Palestinian boy to safety, then returned to save two little girls. As he
reached out to grab their hands, Tom was hit in the head by the sniper
fire. He was wearing a fluorescent orange flak jacket demonstrating that
he was a civilian.

This was typical of Tom, to put another's safety before his own, to help
the underdog. Only two months before he left for Palestine, he had
squared up to a mugger trying to steal a mobile phone from a young boy
near our home. It used to worry me that his feelings for others would
override any care for his own safety.

He wanted to understand and feel at first-hand what civilians were
suffering in Palestine. He wanted to find the truth behind the
propaganda, seek out injustices. Tom is the third Westerner to have been
wounded or killed in Gaza in recent months. We have detailed evidence
and are sure now that the Israeli army has deliberately been targeting
foreigners who go into the occupied territories to help protect
Palestinians and to witness and record the conditions there.

Very soon after arriving in Israel, Anthony and I went with a military
attache from the British embassy to the spot where he was shot. We met
the activists he had made friends with and the mother of the child he
had saved.

We returned to Rafah several times and were once even shot at in the
same place as Tom. This was despite the Israeli soldiers having been
warned three times of our approach, in a clearly marked British Embassy
Range Rover.

The Israeli government has consistently denied shooting Tom with intent,
first claiming that he had been carrying a gun, which is untrue, then
saying he had been near a man carrying a gun. This is also untrue - the
family has collected 14 witness statements to the contrary. Ten weeks
later, we are still fighting for an official inquiry. We want the
officer who fired the gun and those in high command brought to justice.

=============

TOM HURNDALL DIES AS FAMILY RECEIVE NEWS OF THE INDICTMENT OF HIS KILLER


22-year-old Tom Hurndall, the British photographer shot by an Israeli
army (IDF) sniper in Gaza while protecting Palestinian children from
Israeli gunfire, died Jan. 13, 2004 in England. His death came nine
months after an incident in which he was shot in the head by an IDF
soldier which left him in a vegetative state.

At a hearing on Monday, a soldier arrested last week in connection with
the shooting has finally been indicted on six charges : Aggravated
Assault; two counts of Obstruction of Justice; Incitement to False
Testimony; False Testimony; Improper Conduct.

The decision of the court to prosecute the soldier on a charge of
Aggravated Assault rather than attempted murder is based on the
assumption that the soldier did not intend to murder Tom. The family
believes that based on its own extensive investigation and the soldiers
testimony that he shot Tom using an advanced telescopic lens, it is
improbable that the shot which entered Tom's forehead was intended to do
anything other than kill.

The family will be pressing its lawyers to ensure that the appropriate
charge - murder, is applied in this case. The family lawyers were
advised by the prosecuting judge yesterday afternoon that in the event
of Tom's death, the charges are likely to be changed. The new charges
shall be either manslaughter or murder. The maximum penalty for
Manslaughter is 20 years imprisonment and for Murder there is only one
penalty - life imprisonment.

Tom's family have made it clear that they will be satisfied with nothing
less than the full prosecution for the person responsible for murdering
Tom and they expect the imposition of the maximum penalty in this
respect. They additionally expect that the harshest penalties should be
imposed on all those involved in the obstruction of justice.

NB: A second soldier has been detained and is expected to be indicted on
charges of Obstructing Justice and False Testimony.

The indictment of this soldier and his testimony have totally destroyed
the credibility of the initial IDF investigation and Field Report. It
was this Field Report - presented to the British Embassy in Tel Aviv and
later to the family of Tom Hurndall last May, that exonerated the
soldier(s) responsible in the shooting of Tom.

If it were not for the ceaseless campaigning and lobbying on the part of
Tom Hurndall's family and friends and in particular the family's own
investigation (which amassed 14 independent eye witness statements along
with photographic and ballistic evidence), a military police
investigation is not likely to have been instigated and the truth would
have remained uncovered. The family now assert that the existing initial
inquiry procedure is by its nature flawed and prone to abuse and they
ask that the IDF immediately review its initial inquiry procedure with a
view to replacing it with an independent inquiry.

They further call on the Israeli Army to radically examine the current
rules of engagement and to take steps to eradicate the existing culture
of shooting-with-impunity which exists in the Occupied Territories. The
family hope that the prosecution of those responsible for the shooting
of Tom Hurndall and the prosecution of those responsible for the
deliberate fabrication of evidence, will send the strongest message to
all soldiers on the ground in the Occupied Territories 'that the
shooting or killing of innocent civilians and breaches in basic human
rights will not be tolerated.'

For further information please contact family spokesman
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

=============

Tom Hurndall was a young man with a dream . . . he paid for it with his
life
Daily Telegraph, Jan. 15, 2004

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/01/15/whurn115.xml


A young British photographer shot by an Israeli soldier on the Gaza
strip has died after nine months in a coma.

Tom Hurndall left England with a dream to document the lives of people
living under conflict. A first year photography student at Manchester
Metropolitan University, he hoped to emulate his hero, the renowned war
photographer Don McCullin.

He travelled first to Iraq, before moving to Jordan and then on to
Israel. It was a trip he had saved for and planned for some time, a trip
that would form part of his degree course and one he knew would prove
deeply challenging.

The son of middle-class parents from north London, Mr Hurndall was
politically aware and passionate about human rights. He took part in
anti-war demonstrations in London before leaving for Iraq.

His sense of adventure, together with his love of photography, propelled
him to document the lives of ordinary people in areas of conflict in the
Middle East.

His mother, a teacher, described him as highly intelligent, articulate
and inquisitive, a young man with an adventurous spirit who continually
asked questions. It was typical of her son, she said, to put another's
safety before his own.

"It used to worry me that his feelings for others would override any
care for his own safety," she wrote before he died.

Mr Hurndall's journey began in February last year, when the 21-year-old
travelled to Baghdad with a group who would act as human shields. It was
his passport into the country. "I want to put a real face on the
situation," he told reporters at Heathrow.

"He saw that war with Iraq was looming and saw it as his chance to do
what he wanted to do," his sister, Sophie, said yesterday.

"The college tried to stop him. While he was there he had an e-mail from
his tutor trying to pressure him to come home. But he had absolutely
decided what he was going to do."

He quickly became disenchanted with Iraq when he was denied access to
the places and people he wanted to see.
"He disagreed sometimes with what was going on. He went out there as an
observer. But they wanted him to stand in front of buildings such as
factories. Tom said he would protect schools and hospitals but that was
it," said Miss Hurndall. "So they asked him to leave."

Mr Hurndall left for Jordan, where he spent time in refugee camps taking
photographs, building tents and buying supplies. Once again, he became
frustrated, feeling he was not making enough of a difference, and tried
to return to Iraq. It proved too difficult and too expensive from
Jordan. So he chose Israel.

Although he has been labelled a peace activist, his family insist he was
primarily acting as an amateur photo-journalist in Israel. According to
his family, he wanted to cut through the propaganda. "He wanted to find
out for himself what was going on, cover these stories and bring the
truth back to Britain," said his sister.

He chose to gain access to the refugee camps by joining the
International Solidarity Movement (ISM)
http://www.palsolidarity.org/index.php, which required him to undertake
a short training course before he travelled to Gaza.

His decision to sign up with the ISM was initially a way of getting into
the refugee camps; but he also joined because he wanted to cover the
story of the death of Rachel Corrie, the 23-year-old American member of
the movement who was crushed to death by an Israeli armored bulldozer
weeks before Mr Hurndall was shot. "He also wanted to work alongside
them. He believed in their cause," said Miss Hurndall.

"Three days before he was shot he saw a (Palestinian) child shot in
front of him. That is why he acted when he saw (Palestinian) children
being shot at and tried to protect them, he knew there was a chance they
could be killed."

During his five days in Gaza, Mr Hurndall photographed children and ISM
activists opposing Israeli bulldozers. Other photographs show children
playing in the ruins of bombed homes in Rafah, members of Hamas and
Islamic Jihad, a family living in a house directly in front of an
Israeli tower.

In photographs taken of him at the time, he appears fresh-faced and
enthusiastic. On the morning of April 11, the day he was fatally
wounded, he e-mailed one of his professors to tell her how excited he
was about the pictures he was compiling. He said he would be back in
England soon.

That afternoon, he travelled to Rafah, carrying his camera and wearing
an orange day-glo jacket. It was broad daylight still, at around 5pm,
when he was shot in the head as he tried to shepherd two young girls to
safety. Witnesses said a group of Palestinian children had been trapped
under fire in the Yibna area of Rafah. Mr Hurndall twice crossed the
line of fire. He managed to get one child, a boy named Salem Baroum, to
safety but as he went back for the two girls he was shot in the head.
According to witnesses at the scene, there were no Palestinian gunmen in
the area.

At the European hospital near Rafah, a brain scan found that the bullet
had left hundreds of particles of shrapnel in his head. Mr Hurndall
never regained consciousness.

His family travelled to Gaza to begin their own investigation into the
shooting. They believe he was targeted by the Israeli Defence Force
(IDF) as part of a strategy of suppressing foreign witnesses in the
occupied territories.

"The soldier had a telescopic lens and we have been told by a military
expert that he could have taken the buttons off Tom's coat," said
Sophie.

In May, his family managed to get Mr Hurndall flown back to England
where he remained in a deep coma at the Royal Hospital for
Neuro-disability in Putney, south-west London.

He died on Tuesday night, aged 22, after contracting pneumonia, just as
his mother had left his bedside to buy some coffee.

(End Quote)

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