Kim Bullimore
On June 28, the Israeli courts found former soldier Wahid Taysir al Heib guilty of the manslaughter of International Solidarity Movement (ISM) activist, Tom Hurdnall.
Hurdnall, a 22-year-old British student, was shot in the head by al Heib in April 2003, while helping Palestinian children in Rafah refugee camp. Hurdnall died in January 2004, after spending nine months in a coma.
Al Heib, a member of the Bedioun Reconnaisance Unit of the Israeli military, was also found guilty of obstructing justice and giving false testimony.
Despite giving "confused and even pathetic" accounts to the court, al-Heib also confessed to deliberately aiming at Hurdnall. According to Ha'aretz, "Al-Heib admitted to aiming 10 centimetres to the left of Hurdnall's head to frighten him, but had inadvertently shot the activist".
Both Hurdnall's family and the ISM welcomed the guilty verdict. The ISM in a media statement noted that the verdict, however, "failed to question the policy and decision makers responsible for Tom's murder and the murder of thousands of other innocent people".
The statement went on to say: "Tom would want us to remember him. But we also know he'd want us to remember that thousands of innocent Palestinians have died under similar circumstances. These people's deaths have not been investigated, and have often been lied about, claiming the victims to be combatants or explained away with empty phrases like 'caught in the crossfire' or 'tragic accident'".
A Human Rights Watch report, "Promoting Impunity", released the week before the verdict found that between September 2000, and November 2004 more than 1600 Palestinian civilians not involved in hostilities, including at least 500 children, were killed by Israeli forces, and thousands more seriously injured. Only 5% of those incidents were ever investigated.
According to HRW's Middle East director, Sarah Leah Whitson, the Israeli government's "failure to investigate the deaths of innocent civilians has created an atmosphere that encourages soldiers to think they can literally get away with murder".
The HRW report noted that the deaths of Westerners were investigated more frequently than the deaths of Palestinians. This was because the Israeli military and government "are highly sensitive to the media impact of such killings" and "because the victims' families have greater access to financial, media, and technical resources". However, even in investigations into the deaths of "prominent foreign victims", there were significant "delays and equivocation" by the military and a "lack of transparency" in the investigations.
From Green Left Weekly, July 6, 2005.
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