Israeli army accused of targeting TV man killed in West Bank

A TV cameraman for the Associated Press news agency died in the West Bank yesterday after he was shot in the head by an Israeli soldier. An eyewitness accused the soldier of deliberately targeting a group of journalists, saying he carefully took aim at them and fired a single shot.

The killing came as the father of Tom Hurndall, the British human shield shot in the head by an Israeli sniper nine days ago, said he suspected his son was deliberately targeted for helping protect Palestinian civilians. The 21-year-old photography student from north London is close to death, with severe brain damage, after being critically wounded in the Palestinian refugee camp of Rafah on the Gaza Strip.

His father, Anthony Hurndall, 52, said local witnesses and human rights activists from the Independent Solidarity Movement (ISM) – the group his son was helping in Rafah – believed that Tom was singled out by an Israeli sniper.

A similar accusation was being made yesterday about the death of Nazeh Darwazeh, a Palestinian cameraman working for Associated Press Television News. Mr Darwazeh was shot as he tried to film clashes between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian youths in the narrow streets of the casbah (old city) in Nablus.

Hassan al-Titi, a Palestinian cameraman for Reuters news agency who was standing beside Mr Darwazeh when he was shot, said they were with a group of journalists and Red Crescent workers. An Israeli tank had broken down inside the casbah and Palestinian youths had gathered to throw stones and molotov cocktails at it. Suddenly, Mr Titi said, a soldier got out of an armoured car and knelt beside the tank. "We shouted at him in Hebrew that we were journalists. Nazeh shouted and then I shouted." But the soldier fired a single shot into the group of reporters.

"The soldier looked. He saw me and Nazeh," Mr Titi said. "I looked and saw that [Nazeh's] head was damaged severely. His brain was hanging out of his skull."

There were suggestions that the soldier might have been firing at stone-throwers behind the journalists, but Mr Titi stressed that all that was behind them was a wall and a doorway. The cameramen were experienced at working in Nablus, and had carefully positioned themselves so that they were not in the line of fire between the soldiers and the stone-throwers.

Mr Darwazeh was wearing a bright yellow vest clearly marked "Press". He leaves behind a wife and five children, the youngest six months old. His death, so soon after journalists were killed when a US tank deliberately fired a shell into the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad, will raise new concerns that journalists are being targeted.

Meanwhile, as his son lies in a coma, Mr Hurndall has been independently investigating his shooting by interviewing local Palestinians and ISM activists.

Tom Hurndall, who arrived in Rafah in February after spending time as a human shield in Iraq, was hit as he tried to shepherd to safety two children who were pinned down by gunfire from an Israeli tank. Like Mr Darwazeh, he was wearing a bright fluorescent vest.

Mr Hurndall admitted yesterday the outlook for Tom, who is being kept alive by a breathing machine in the intensive care unit of an Israeli hospital, was grim. Mr Hurndall insisted he was still "open minded" about the circumstances of the shooting and was anxious not to appear partisan, but stressed that he was becoming increasingly sceptical about the army's conduct and its willingness properly to investigate the shooting. On Thursday, the army suggested their sniper had fired only at a Palestinian gunman.

So far, the army general investigating the shooting has refused to meet Mr Hurndall, and failed to interview local witnesses.

The Israelis say they are now considering a fresh request to meet Mr Hurndall, but he is preparing to demand an independent investigation. "My son has been possibly fatally wounded by the Israelis," he said. "If they can show me that they fired in genuine error at what they thought was a Palestinian gunman, then I will accept it. But if we're not satisfied that we're getting open and honest answers we may call for an independent inquiry of some sort to find out the truth and hope the Israelis will cooperate with that."

Last week, a preliminary Israeli army inquiry concluded that its forces were not to blame for the death of Rachel Corrie, an American peace activist crushed to death by an army bulldozer in Rafah. It said she was obscured from the driver's view -- a claim hotly disputed by witnesses – and alleged that she and other ISM activists were guilty of "illegal, irresponsible and dangerous" behaviour.

'They had courage in the face of danger'

When he was shot in Gaza, Tom Hurndall had just returned from serving as a "human shield" in Iraq. This is extracted from an article he wrote on the experience.

I had never been a part of a group of people that I respected so much. Few, if any, conformed to their tree-hugging image and only a couple had ever before been any form of activists ... They were normal in every way, except that they had the courage to take the protest one step further and still keep it peaceful. I felt proud to be associated with them.

Their ideals and motives as well as their ages and professions differed. Some were there to "stop the war", some to "defend" hospitals and schools, some simply to stand beside the Iraqi public (including a very select few to stand beside the "regime") and some, like myself, were there to document and provide coverage.

They were the handful out of millions who had the courage to protest even when their lives and freedom were on the line, and when I return to Manchester, any suggestion of their "stupidity" would result in a probably violent rebuttal from myself. These people were heroes in my eyes, and to anyone who knew them.