US peace activist shot in Jenin

An American peace activist who was allegedly shot in the face by Israeli troops while acting as a "human shield" in the West Bank town of Jenin was seriously ill today in an Israeli hospital, a member of the International Solidarity Movement said.

Brian Avery, 24, from Albuquerque, New Mexico, a member of the Palestinian-backed International Solidarity Movement, was shot in the face Saturday by forces in an armored personnel carrier. said Star Hawk, a fellow activist.

The army said there was a gun battle going on in the area and it was not certain that Avery was shot by Israeli soldiers.

"Apparently he's going to live, but his face has been shattered, his bones are broken, his tongue was split in two and he's in very serious condition," Hawk told Israel Radio in an interview.

Tobias Karlsson, a fellow activist from Sweden, said he and Avery heard shots fired and came out of an apartment building in Jenin to investigate as an armored personnel carrier rounded a corner.

They stood in the street with their hands up wearing vests clearly identifying them as foreign activists when the armored personnel carrier fired on them, Karlsson said. Avery was shot, he said.

After being treated in a Jenin hospital, Avery was transferred by helicopter to an Israeli hospital in the northern coastal city of Haifa, Hawk said.

The US State Department said it was looking into the report.

"The US Embassy in Tel Aviv and our Jerusalem consulate are now following up to find out what happened as well as confirm the identity and determine the welfare of the individual," State Department spokesman Lou Fintor said in a statement in Washington.

Another American member of the group was killed on March 16 while trying to stop an Israeli military bulldozer in the Gaza Strip from demolishing a Palestinian home. She fell in front of the machine, which ran over her and then backed up, witnesses said.

Israeli officials say the bulldozer incident that killed 23-year-old Rachel Corrie, a student at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, was an accident and that the driver didn't see her because of the limited visibility in the armored vehicle.

The driver of the bulldozer — a reservist — is back on the job, the army said Saturday.