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IDF registers another head kill ...

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout' started by No Worries, Apr 12, 2003.

  1. No Worries

    No Worries Contributing Member

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    http://apnews1.iwon.com/article/20030411/D7QBL2NG0.html
    Activist Shot in Gaza Declared Brain Dead

    Apr 11, 7:35 PM (ET)

    By IBRAHIM BARZAK

    GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) - A 21-year-old British peace activist was critically wounded Friday as he tried to get two children out of the line of fire in the Gaza Strip, witnesses said.

    Thomas Hurndall suffered a head injury and was declared brain dead after arriving at Rafah Hospital, said Dr. Ali Musa.

    Witnesses said Israeli troops firing from a tank struck Hurndall as he other activists in a pro-Palestinian group approached an army position on the edge of a Gaza refugee camp.

    The Israeli army had no comment about Friday's shooting but said it would investigate.

    Hurndall of Manchester, England, was the second activist wounded in a week. A third member of the group, the International Solidarity Movement, was killed a month ago while trying to stop an Israeli army bulldozer.

    Palestinians have long complained that Israeli troops are using excessive force against civilians, and the mounting casualties among foreigners were expected to draw renewed attention to Israeli army practices in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

    Israel has said Palestinian gunmen often use civilians as shields and thus endanger them.

    Friday's incident began when about a dozen members of the peace movement, including foreigners and Palestinians, walked toward Israeli tanks on the outskirts of the Rafah refugee camp, near the border with Egypt, said Khalil Hamra, a photographer on assignment for The Associated Press.

    The activists wanted to set up a protest tent on the road in an attempt to block incursions into the camp, said Hamra and Khalil Abdullah, a Palestinian who works with the group but who is not a member.

    Along the way, the protesters were joined by several children, the witnesses said. When the group was about 200 yards away from three tanks, soldiers opened fire from a tank-mounted machine gun, the witnesses said.

    Hurndall and another foreign activist tried to get two children out of the line of fire, Hamra and Abdullah said. "Thomas (Hurndall) grabbed one of their hands and as soon as he did that a tank fired at him, hitting him in the head," Hamra said.

    The photographer said the children were not throwing rocks at the troops and that he saw nothing that would have provoked the troops.

    Rafah has been a flashpoint of clashes between Israeli troops and Palestinians.

    A few blocks from where Friday's shooting occurred, American activist Rachel Corrie, 23, was killed March 16 while trying to stop an Israeli army bulldozer.

    Witnesses said the bulldozer ran her over and then backed up. The army said the driver did not see her and that her death was an accident. Corrie, a student in Olympia, Wash., was the first member of the group to be killed in 30 months of fighting between Israelis and Palestinians.

    Last week, Bryan Avery, 24, from Albuquerque, N.M., was shot in the face while walking with a fellow activist in the West Bank town of Jenin. Witnesses said he was wounded by army fire. The army said it was firing at gunmen in the area and was not aware it hit Avery.

    Also Friday, the army said it had eased checkpoint restrictions in the West Bank town of Jericho after local police turned in a stock of weapons that included explosives and an anti-tank rocket.

    Palestinian Cabinet member Saeb Erekat disputed the claim, saying he hadn't heard of a weapons handover and that checkpoint restrictions has been relaxed for months.

    In other developments:

    _Israeli human rights activists vowed to fight a military decision to banish to the Gaza Strip a Palestinian man who has been in jail for eight months, accused of crimes for which he was never charged or tried.

    Dalia Kerstein, head of the Jerusalem-based Center for the Rights of the Individual, said Saadi, from the West Bank town of Jenin, had been imprisoned without trial since last June.

    - An army publication said the Israeli military is building a mock-up of a security fence between the West Bank and Israel. Work on the 180-mile fence itself began a year ago, but only a few miles have been completed.

    The weekly "Bamahane" said the mock-up, at a base in central Israel, is a replica of the security fence, which is designed to keep Palestinian attackers out of Israel. It said the mock-up will cost $150,000 and be used for training army units that will patrol the fence.
     
  2. treeman

    treeman Member

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    One thing I find curious: if the guy was hit in the head by a tank-mounted MG round, then why does he still have a head? It had to have been either a 12.7mm round or a 7.62mm round, because all tank-mounted MGs worldwide are of this calibre. If it was a 12.7mm round (a .50 cal) , then there would be nothing left but a stump on his shoulders. A 7.62mm round would merely have put a 4" hole through his head... Curious.

    At any rate, chalk this up to another case of "Wrong place, wrong time, wrong cause". The moral of the story is the same as in the other cases: walk into a war zone, and don't be surprised if you don't walk out again.

    BTW, No Worries - eagerly awaiting more information on the Tuwaitha site...
     
  3. Oski2005

    Oski2005 Contributing Member

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    If this story is true, I wouldn't say wrong cause. There's nothing wrong with trying to save children.
     
  4. treeman

    treeman Member

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    Of course there's nothing wrong with trying to save children. But if by doing so you are duped into sparing terrorist organizations from unwanted attention, then... Well, I'm sure their motives are good - that I do not doubt - but I have a feeling that they're just being used as propaganda tools and human shields by their Palestinian cohorts.

    You must admit that this is wonderful propaganda for the Palestinians. What a coincidence.
     
  5. Timing

    Timing Member

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    Oh my goodness. The IDF, sitting in a tank, blows away another peace activist and here you are talking about propaganda? The IDF is a band of murderous thugs engaging civilians with tanks, bulldozing peace activists, and shooting at children. I'm actually not really surprised you would defend that.
     
  6. treeman

    treeman Member

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    As my comments on the calibre of the rounds indicate, I am not convinced that it was a round from the tank that hit the man (you don't survive a shot to thew head from a 12.7mm or 7.62mm MG round), but I will reserve judgment on that until more info is available. All we have right now is two Palestinian witnesses, and they are by no means an impartial source... I also would not put it past the Palestinians to use a sniper attack to simulate such an incident, but again, I will reserve judgment - that's just speculation.

    Are you denying that the Palestinians welcome these people as propaganda tools? What else are they there for? Oh, that's right - human shields.

    BTW, it does not surprise me that you believe the IDF to be a ruthless bunch of thugs who slaughter civilians wholesale with tanks and bulldozers. After all, if you support the side that actually *does* purposefully target civilians for wholesale slaughter - the Palestinians - then you must surely equate their enemies with them morally in order to appease your own conscience...

    And hey, there are Americans in the IDF. So they must be a bunch of ruthless thugs, right?

    What can one expect from someone who thinks it's "all about oil"?
     
  7. Timing

    Timing Member

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    Nice Pavlovian response there. I'm disgusted with the IDF murdering civilians and children so obviously I must support terrorists who do the same thing. Yes, there are a bunch of blood thirsty Jewish Americans just like blood thirsty Israelis who join the IDF for the opportunity to slaughter Palestinians. Now you're getting the picture.

    What can one expect from someone who bets on civilian deaths as a barometer of war being just? One blood thirsty American defending the blood thirsty IDF? I guess it's now appropriate for right wing war mongers to "misquote" people from their imginations in order to support their doomed revisionist history arguments.
     
  8. No Worries

    No Worries Contributing Member

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    This is actually part of the problem. The newsworthness of stories like this rarely last more than a single day. The IDF almost always says that they will investigate. The results of these investigations do not make the news (if they are publicly released).

    BTW, I agree with your suspicions wrt the damage versus the guns most likely used.

    What I also find suspicious is the amount of head wounds that the IDF gets credited for.
     
  9. Heretic

    Heretic Member

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    It's not the palestinians firing. They're not good enough with firearms to be making consistent headshots on moving targets.

    The 7.62 mm machine gun is the one that is supposed to be used against people. Technically it's a violation of the Geneva Conventions to use a higher caliber weapon against anything but equipment. Plus the heavier weapons have a slower rate of fire that makes it more difficult to spray a small moving target like a person.

    It may not have been a straight on headshot. It could have been an off angle shot that shattered bone and the kinetic shock turned his brain to jelly without pulverizing his head.
     

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