Father of volunteer killed by IDF forces in 2003 warns Israel that unless it recognises it’s ‘fundamentally unethical and inhuman attitudes’ towards Gaza bombardment it will lose Western support and strengthen Hamas

• Tom Hurndall was shot by an Israeli sniper while trying to help a child in Gaza 

The father of a British man who was killed by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) while helping a Palestinian child has urged the country to change its approach to Gaza and the West Bank.

Anthony Hurndall said Israel will lose support in Britain and other Western countries if it continues to have ‘fundamentally unethical and inhuman attitudes’ towards people living in the Palestinian territory.

The barrister said the shooting of his son, Tom Hurndall, was an example of how the Jewish state’s military can sometimes target the wrong people and make up evidence to justify its actions.

Tom died in January 2004 after spending nine months in a coma following the shooting in the Gaza Strip. In the aftermath the IDF made a number of false claims about him and his actions, which were later debunked.

Writing in the Times today, Mr Hurndall said he saw parallels between the falsehoods told about his son and the information given to the press by the Israeli military during its ongoing operation in Gaza.

Tom Hurndall was fatally shot by an Israeli sniper in the Gaza Strip in 2003 while he tried to help a Palestinian child

The 22-year-old had been volunteering in Gaza as part of the International Solidarity Movement

Anthony Hurndall, pictured here with his wife Jocelyn, has urged Israel 

The director of the Centre for Justice, who describes himself as a supporter of Israel despite his son’s death, wrote said he was ‘increasingly appalled by the accounts of the treatment of Palestinians, and the actions of the IDF and settlers in the West Bank and Gaza’.

‘My worry is that if Israel does not change fundamentally unethical and inhuman attitudes and policies and stop committing war crimes, it will build up even greater resistance from the Palestinian people and lose the sympathy and support of the West’, he writes.

READ MORE HERE: Hamas terrorists hand over ten more Israeli hostages and two foreign nationals to Israel as ceasefire enters final day tomorrow 

There have been waves of Pro-Palestine protests in countries across the world since the IDF started its response to the Hamas terror attacks that killed more than 1,200 civilians in southern Israel on October 7.

Palestinian health officials say since weeks of Israeli air strikes and its ground invasion of the territory have killed more than 15,000 people, mostly women and children.

In the Times, Mr Hurndall expressed his scepticism at the ‘claims the IDF are currently making to justify their bombing, missile and other attacks on civilian targets and hospitals in Gaza’.

He said the claims made mirrored those made when his 22-year-old son was fatally shot by an IDF sniper in April 2003 as he helped a Palestinian child who was caught in gunfire in Gaza.

He wrote that an investigation at the time of his son’s killing found the IDF ‘misrepresent civilians and children as militants, or as armed, and fabricate accounts of events as a pretext for their killing’. 

In the aftermath of Tom’s shooting, the Israeli military suggested the student, who had been volunteering in Gaza with the International Solidarity Movement, had been hit with a baseball bat.

However, this was discredited when bullet fragments were found in his brain by Israeli medics.

The IDF then suggested Mr Hurndall may have been carrying a weapon or was stood next to someone who was, but this too was discredited. 

An inquest in the UK later reached the conclusion that Tom had been ‘unlawfully killed’.

The man who shot him, Taysir Hayb, was later jailed for eight years for manslaughter after claiming he thought he had been following standard procedure. He was released after six-and-a-half years in custody.

Taysir Hayb, the Israeli sniper who shot Tom Hurndall, was later sentenced to eight years in prison for his manslaughter

An Israeli infantry soldier gestures on a Humvee as a convoy drives towards the Gaza Strip on Tuesday

A Palestinian woman walks among the rubble in the residential area known as Juhor ad-Dik in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday

Mr Hurndall said at the time of his son’s shooting there was a thought that ‘the IDF appeared to consider themselves immune from accountability and free to misrepresent innocent civilians as legitimate military targets and to target them, as a form of intimidation or collective punishment.’

He added that while the claims surrounding his son were debunked thanks to pressure from politicians and the press, ‘Palestinian civilians do not have the resources or support to protect themselves in this way’.

In the article he also criticised Western governments for appearing ‘overly willing to accept Israeli accounts and narratives and repeat them’, something he believes makes them ‘complicit’ in the deaths of women and children.

It comes as the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas enters its final day, with a fifth group of hostages taken by the terrorist group during the October 7 attacks returned to safety on Israeli soil.

READ MORE HERE:  Israeli family of ten-month-old hostage Kfir Bibas fear baby is being held as a ‘trophy’ as he is left off latest list of captives to be freed – after Hamas ‘traded him with other terrorists’

 Pictures show the captives being escorted by balaclava-clad Hamas terrorists inside Gaza as they prepared to hand them over to the Red Cross and Israel, with crowds gathered around filming and jeering.

Qatar confirmed tonight that 30 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, 15 of whom are women and 15 minors, were released by Israel as part of an exchange deal at the centre of the ceasefire agreement.

It comes after the tentative break in fighting earlier appeared to be hanging in the balance as Israel and Hamas traded accusations that the other side had violated the agreement for the first time since it came into force.

Israel’s Defence Forces (IDF) claimed three explosive devices were detonated near its troops at two sites in northern Gaza, with terrorists at one location then allegedly opening fire on them, which they returned gunfire.

Hamas also accused Israel of committing a ‘blatant breach of the ceasefire,’ which it said its fighters responded to, without providing details. Both sides have claimed they are committed to the ongoing ceasefire.

The already extended truce agreement is expected to come to an end tomorrow, with the final group expected to be released then before the fighting restarts.

Negotiators are desperately calling on both sides to extend the pause further, Egypt and Qatar have said, with international calls for a prolonged ceasefire mounting.

A teenage hostage clutches her dog, a Shih Tzu called Bella, as she is flanked by Hamas gunmen during her release

Hamas fighters accompany newly released hostages before handing them over to the Red Cross in Rafah

The fifth group of hostages is said to include nine women and one child

A senior diplomatic source in the Knesset told The Times of Israel of negotiations to prolong the truce: ‘If there is a concrete proposal, the cabinet will consider it, but there hasn’t been anything like that.

‘If we see it’s a serious proposal, we’ll look into it.’

But Israel says it remains committed to crushing Hamas’ military capabilities and ending its 16-year rule over Gaza.

That would likely mean expanding a ground offensive from devastated northern Gaza to the south.

About 1,200 people were killed in Israel during Hamas’s bloody invasion on October 7 that ignited the war.

More than 13,300 Palestinians have been killed since the war began, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza.

Roughly 240 hostages were captured by Hamas, with just over 160 thought to still be in captivity following a series of exchanges with Palestinian prisoners.

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