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Activist Dies Nine Months After Israeli Shooting
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LONDON (Reuters) -
A British activist who had been in a
coma since being shot by Israeli troops while acting as a
so-called human shield has died nine months after the shooting,
a statement from his campaign group said Wednesday.
Tom Hurndall died late Tuesday in the London hospital where
he had been lying clinically dead after being shot in the head
by Israeli forces on April 11 last year.
A statement on the Web site of the International Solidarity
Movement, the pro-Palestinian peace group Hurndall was working
with when he was shot, said his parents had called for a vigil
to be held central in London Wednesday to mark his death.
The Israeli army said late last year it had arrested a
soldier in connection with the shooting. He has since been
charged with grievous bodily harm for shooting Hurndall.
The activist's supporters say he was dressed in a bright
orange jacket and was helping Palestinian children cross a
street under fire in the town of Rafah near the border with
Egypt when he was shot.
The soldier initially maintained he had opened fire on a
man armed with a pistol but later "admitted to firing in
proximity to an unarmed civilian as a deterrent," the Israeli
military said.
It said the army viewed the matter with "utmost severity."
An American ISM activist, Rachel Corrie, was crushed to
death last March when she tried to stop an Israeli army
bulldozer demolishing a Palestinian house in Rafah. The army
said she was hit by a concrete slab that slid down a mound of
earth and that the bulldozer driver never saw her.
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