April 2, 2002, Australian Kate Edwards was shot and wounded in Beit Jala near Jerusalem having been made to stand where Palestinians were firing on the Jewish neighborhood of Gilo.
Also in April, 2002, Irish Caomhe Butterly served as a human shield in Yasir Arafat’s compound in Ramallah, and on November 22 she inserted herself as a human shield again and was wounded during an IDF operation in Jenin. (Butterly was later an organizer and spokesperson aboard the 2010 Gaza flotilla).
On April 13, 2003, Thomas Hurndall was shot and killed when he challenged an Israeli tank force in Gaza.
On April 24, 2010, Bianca Zammit, a Maltese national, joined Palestinians who charged the security fence between Gaza and Israel and was shot through the thigh by a sniper.
On May 31, 2010, Emily Henochowicz, an American Jew, lost her eye after she was hit by a tear gas grenade that ricocheted off a highway divider during a violent demonstration near Qalandia in Judea and Samaria.
There’s appears to be no doubt that the ISM has been methodical about throwing its members into the line of fire.
How much preparation did those hapless martyrs receive?
Well, Kate Edwards actually told a reporter: “I never thought for a moment that they would fire live ammunition at us.”
While Rachel Corrie wrote to her mother about the possibility of an American activist’s death as a propaganda tool:
“You just can’t imagine it unless you see it, and even then you are always well aware that your experience is not at all the reality: what with the difficulties the Israeli Army would face if they shot an unarmed U.S. citizen.”
That’s how much.
