Author(s): Jocelyn Hurndall

Biography/Memoir

Defy the Stars is the story of a young man who went to the Middle East as an observer and lost his life through a single selfless human act. In April 2003, 21 year old Tom Hurndall, an English photojournalism student, was shot as he carried a Palestinian child out of the range of an Israeli army sniper in the town of Rafah in the Gaza Strip. Tom was unarmed, and wearing the internationally recognised peaceworker's fluorescent orange jacket. Severely wounded he died nine months later in a London hospital. A year after his death a soldier was sentenced to eight years for Tom's manslaughter. It was an unprecedented outcome, and a case that made legal history in bringing the IDF to account for its killing of an unarmed civilian. Tom's mother tells the story of this courageous young Englishman's quest, of its tragic end and its effect on his family.