A British activist who had been in a coma since being shot by Israeli troops while acting as a so-called human shield has died nine months after the shooting, his family said on Wednesday.
Tom Hurndall, 22, died late on Tuesday in the London hospital where he had been lying clinically dead after being shot in the head by Israeli forces on April 11 last year.
"Tom died last night just before 8 pm," his mother, Jocelyn Hurndall, said in a statement.
Hurndall's sister, Sophie, said Tom had contracted pneumonia in the past few days. She said his death was a relief for the family, who had seen him lying in a coma for nine months.
"It is definitely a sense of relief," she told BBC radio. "But obviously there is great sadness, because it's a time when we have to finally accept that we're not going to have Tom back."
A statement on the Web site of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), the pro-Palestinian peace group Hurndall was working with when he was shot, said his parents had called a vigil in central London on Wednesday to mark his death.
The Israeli army arrested a soldier late last year for the shooting and charged him on Monday with grievous bodily harm in the case.
Israeli sources said that with Hurndall's death the charges against the soldier were likely to be upgraded to manslaughter.
The activist's supporters say he was wearing a bright orange jacket and helping Palestinian children cross a street under fire in the Gaza Strip town of Rafah when he was shot.
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