The following account was written by Lora Gordon and Joe Smith, two ISM volunteers and Tom’scolleagues. Please note that there is naturally overwhelming emotion expressed both by Loraand Joe and also by Tom’s brother, Billy, who is quoted in the account below. Billy’s quote, ” he[Tom] is being treated by the same bastards that shot him ” is a reflection of understandableanger and sadness, though it does not reflect the views of the ISM. We would, however like tohighlight a concern that incomplete or less than accurate information is being given to Tom’sfriends and family about his condition.
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Tom Hurndall Update
Lora Gordon and Joe Smith
I am too strong and normal here in Be’er Sheva Soroka Medical Center, which is far away fromRafah and where visiting hours are scattered and fleeting and we only see Tom for a few minutes,only have to deal with reality for a few minutes every day. Outside of those few minutes it’shospital halls and fluorescent lights, counting the tiles laid out in floor patterns andmaking frequent trips to the cafeteria and the lawn outside, which makes the whole thing looklike a college campus. Yesterday, some college student reporters came to interview me andJoe, videotaped me writing in my journal from four angles and I don’t know how many of Joesmoking a cigarette just so, I hate journalists. I really don’t want to deal with thisvulgarity, where my friend Tom gets a bullet through the head and then lies in a coma for days,his whole
body swollen and white. It is too easy to look at pictures of him from before and fold them up intosome dark corner where people sleep for ages as they were, or keep traveling while you staywhere you are.
We have been staying in a house in Kibbutz Shuval, a little north of Be’er Sheva, with an amazingfamily who has laid out for us a room full of
mattresses and blankets and a space heater and a computer, and drives us to and from thehospital and feeds us loads of tea and hummus and cheese made fresh on the kibbutz. The kibbutzis beautiful with curved paths to get lost on and great expanses of green and flowers and themost adorable apartments that feel safe like strong arms rocking… it is reallydisorienting to commute between the hospital and here, this is my only view of Be’er Sheva everand mostly I am so used to Rafah, where beauty is harder to find and precious like rare stones. InHebron, in Jerusalem, there is beauty in the hills and the homes scattered like a monopolyboard and the sun setting, and it’s easy to let your eyes settle on the surface… the Gaza Stripresembles a wasteland to those who have never seen it before and it takes longer to find thebeauty but you find it in the core of things, some deeper reality.
We barely knew Tom. He was here a few days only, which is nothing at all when everyone isscattered doing projects in all corners of the Gaza Strip. Only now we are piecing togethersome kind of coherent impression of who he was. He spent two weeks in Iraq doing some humanshield work but mainly documentation, working closely with Michelle, who is a documentarymaker and came with him to the middle east and was working with ISM Nablus until now and isspending most nights in the hospital, sleepless. Nathan is there with him as well; he had beenworking in Jenin until he heard the news and bolted to
the hospital with Michelle. The three had wanted to work as human shields in Iraqi hospitals,but Iraqi officials wouldn’t let them in, so they went to Jordan to do some refugee work for aweek before coming to work with ISM here in Palestine. Tom has been everywhere, speaks allkinds of bits of languages… we look through pictures his brother Billy has brought of him andhis eyes shine like to burn the paper. We remember him with a half smile all the time chuckling atthe kids and taking pictures… oh god could he take pictures.
It is unspeakably wrong to see him in the hospital, his life monitor beeping while he breatheson a machine. They taped his one eye closed, as it was horribly disturbing to see it half open,glaring at nothing, no life in it whatsoever. The swelling of his face has gone down and he ismore recognizable now, but his bandages hide most of his head. I ask Michelle if there is anynotion of his presence, if she can feel any part of his spirit still with us, and she says no. Imust admit I can feel nothing, but I hold onto the false hope that comes with seeing his bodystill alive. Of course it is illusion only; the bullet was of the variety that explodes uponhitting its target, so not only did it crash through his head but it exploded inside, and he isnow missing a large bit of physical brain matter. All we can do is pray for the miracle it willtake to bring him back
The doctors have been ridiculously evasive. Even his family has had a hard time receivingupdates on his condition. A rabbi from Rabbis for Human Rights came and visited yesterday, andhe was able to corner a doctor and speak to him in Hebrew. He reported that only the very basics ofhis brain are still functioning. His reflexes work enough to allow the machines to keep hislungs and heart working, but there is no other activity besides that. I believe that this is thedefinition of brain dead. The doctor was not hopeful and neither am I. I suppose his family andfriends have to be, they have nothing else to be. Michelle and Nathan say they’ll stay as long ashe stays, and go wherever he goes, until he leaves for the place to which no one can follow him.
The Israeli military have yet to come up with a decent story. Most articles I read say, ” IDFrefuses to comment. ” Some imply that he may have been armed, and there are rumors that theymeant to assassinate our Palestinian coordinator, as though a Palestinian involved innon-violent civil disobedience is a more legitimate target. A Jerusalem Post article quotedsome IDF commander who said Tom was a member of some made-up Egyptian terrorist group that usesinternationals as fighters, and that he was attacking the soldiers when they shot him inself-defense. I suppose this ” armed militia ” finds it intelligent to dress fighters inhigh-visibility fluorescent gear. Indeed, the weapon Tom had was much more dangerous to theIDF than a gun – a camera.
One doctor is trying to cast doubt on whether it was really a bullet that so severely injuredhim. One doctor came out positively that it was, but was quickly pulled into a private room withtwo other doctors, and came out saying that it’s possible the wound was inflicted by a harshblow to the head, like that of a baseball bat. That the doctors would lie so shamelessly andblatantly shouldn’t be surprising; as Billy puts it, ” He’s being treated by the same bastardsthat shot him ” .
Outside the respiratory ward currently keeping Tom alive, we hang out mostly withPalestinians. Israeli Palestinians mainly, but there is also a lovely fellow named Sahd,who’s actually from Gaza City. His brother was shot in the shoulder, chest and side over a monthago, and is now in a similar condition as Tom, deteriorating as time goes by. It took tons ofnegotiating to allow him and his brother to be at this Israeli hospital, and costs thePalestinian Authority 3500 NIS (about $700) a day to keep him there. Sahd is forbidden to leavethe ward of the hospital where his brother is staying; an armed guard reprimands him if heshould venture beyond that space. He’s been there for 44 days, and lives in what is officiallythe smoking room, a partially enclosed public corner of the hall. Friends he has made in thehospital – mostly Israeli Palestinians, but also a few Israeli Jews – bring him food and othernecessities. He is truly a Palestinian, and has treated us with the hospitality of a Gazan. Helets us sit and sleep on his mattresses, makes us tea and coffee, and always tries to share hislimited food supply. The room
is a microcosm of Gaza: hard, small, cramped, enclosed and chocked of its resources. We jokethat the situation is all too representative: in the middle of this beautiful, westernhospital constructed to care for Israelis, the Palestinian is given a tiny little box with noresources and placed under strict control.
Tom’s mother and father went to visit the Gaza Strip yesterday. They drove down to Rafah, armedwith a convoy of bulletproof jeeps and armed guards from the PA and the British embassy and wereback by evening. His parents look tired mostly but not distraught, all of us do our owncompartmentalizing. They went to the place where it happened, they saw the stream of his bloodtracing the street and the bullet holes in the door of the next building. As for his brother,Billy, he is withdrawn and angry at the world and has it in for journalists and Israeli soldierswho pass by. His face is a mirror of Tom’s face, but he wears his hair long, in a ponytail, andhides in the shadow of his cap. Before this, he was working in carpentry to save up some money togo traveling, like his brother.
Anyhow, I feel really disconnected all the time, not only now, and I wonder how much of it has todo with living in Rafah. Everyday there is tragedy and you come frighteningly close to deathand if you want to be productive you have to dissociate, to swallow your grief in teaspoonfulsand not watch Al Jazeera too closely. And now Tom is wavering on the line between life and deathand it all kind of accumulates, his hospital bed underlines the experience of his many weeks inPalestine, affirms the question in all of our heads… this can’t be happening? Thishappened. It was. This happens. It is.
Today we are staying here on the kibbutz almost all day after sitting straight throughmidnight yesterday in the hospital corridors. It is our last day, we will say goodbye to Tom andthen leave tomorrow morning for Jerusalem for Pesach (Passover). Do you ever understand themeaning? Once we were slaves, now we are free? What does it mean for someone who has never wantedfor choices or freedom, but a glimpse into some foreign meaning in history of my own roots… Idon’t know, maybe it’s something you understand better as you age and acquire the scars of pastpains.”Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.”
- Edna St. Vincent Millay
” It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Eachtime a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out againstinjustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a milliondifferent centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. ” Robert F. Kennedy