Miller was filming demolition of Palestinian houses by Israeli troops

GAZA CITY, May 3 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Israeli occupation forces gunned down late Friday, may 2, a freelance British television journalist while filming demolition of Palestinian houses in the southern town of Rafah in the Gaza Strip.

James Miller, who was working for the American HBO network, was hit in the back of the neck, said Ali Moussa, director of a hospital in Rafah, near the Israeli-Egyptian border.

"We got close to the area and filmed, but we couldn't leave because an (Israeli) tank was around 100 meters from where we stood," the Israeli Haaretz newspaper quoted as saying Abdel-Rahman Abdullah, a freelance Palestinian journalist who saw the incident.

"We were very visible to the troops, with a white flag and 'TV' markings on our vests, but still the troops opened fire, hitting James Miller," he said.

The Israeli troops, however, claimed they came under fire and were forced to answer back.

But Abdullah asserted that there were no exchanges of fire on Friday night.

"We even called out to the Israeli troops in their armored vehicles and could hear them talking inside, before they started shooting," he said.

Eyewitnesses said the journalist was filming a documentary on the Israeli army's house demolitions in Rafah when the Israeli tank opened fire, according to The New York Times.

The Israeli soldiers heard cries for help in English and saw people holding a flag and the journalist lying on the ground, they added.

A man who said he also was a British journalist and identified himself only as Dan, said that the victim and two colleagues were simultaneously filming and waving a white flag as they walked toward the Israeli tank when it opened fire, said the American daily said.

Two other foreigners and one Palestinian cameraman were killed by Israeli occupation troops over the past three months.

A Palestinian cameraman was killed by Israeli gunfire on April 19, as he was filming clashes in the central Casbah district of this northern West Bank city.

On April 11, Thomas Hurndall, a 21-year-old British activist, was pronounced clinically dead after being hit in the head and critically wounded by Israeli sniper fire in Rafah refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip.

On March 17, an Israeli army bulldozer crushed to death a U.S. peace activist trying to prevent house demolitions in the Gaza Strip.

Peace activist Rachel Corrie, 23, died when a military bulldozer ran over her in the town of Rafah. 

Peace Activists Out

"If we are not welcome, it is first and foremost because we are witnesses of the atrocities carried out by the Israeli army," Wallace said

In another development, the Israeli authorities are considering expulsion of foreign peace activists acting as human shields for Palestinian civilians in the occupied territories, Haaretz reported, citing a new plan drafted by the Israeli defense ministry.

Top Israeli brass and foreign ministry officials met this week to discuss the means of expelling the activists, the daily said.

An Israeli foreign ministry spokesman confirmed that meetings had been held but said no decision had yet been reached.

"We discussed the issue of these so-called pacifists, who are in closed military zones where they are not allowed and are putting their own lives at risk," the spokesman told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

In the first sign of the new crackdown, a member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) was detained by Israeli troops in the southern Gaza refugee camp Rafah on Thursday, May 1.

Israeli military sources claimed the woman activist was sleeping in a house suspected of concealing one of the tunnels used by "militants" to smuggle arms and her case was being handled by the Foreign Ministry.

Israel accuses peace activists of being "provocateurs" and "riot inciters" with the goal of "blackening Israel's image."

Israeli officials from defense and foreign ministries held another meeting on the subject last week and decided to instruct border control officials at Ben-Gurion airport and the land crossings with Egypt and Jordan to bar foreign activists from entering the country.

Haaretz also said the fact that the "bomber" who carried out the "suicide attack" in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, April 30, was British had given the Israeli authorities another pretext to tighten controls at the airport and deny entry to some travelers.

Most of the activists, who come from Europe, Canada and the United States, are members of the ISM.

"If we are not welcome, it is first and foremost because we are witnesses of the atrocities carried out by the Israeli army," ISM spokesman Tom Wallace averred Friday.

The ISM has around 50 foreign activists in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, he said, adding they were already rejected at the airport if identified as peace activists.