Rachel Corrie
She was killed by a Caterpillar D9R armored bulldozer operated by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) during a protest against the destruction of Palestinian homes by the IDF in the Gaza Strip. The details of the events surrounding Corrie's death are disputed; an Israeli military investigation ruled the death was an accident, while the ISM maintains that Corrie was run over deliberately.
Early life
Raised in Olympia, Washington, Rachel Corrie was the daughter of Craig Corrie, an insurance executive, and Cindy Corrie, an amateur flautist who describe their family as "average Americans - politically liberal, economically conservative, middle class". Corrie was the youngest of their three children. Since 1975, the Corries had hosted a number of international students from exchange programs, and during her sophomore year in high school, Rachel took part in an exchange herself, travelling to Russia to stay for six weeks with a family in Sakhalin.
After graduating from Capital High School, Corrie went on to attend The Evergreen State College (TESC), where she took a number of arts courses. She took one year off from her studies to serve in the Washington State Conservation Corps, paying weekly visits over three years as part of her volunteerism to patients with mental disorders in hospital diversion house. In her senior year, she proposed an independent-study program in which she would travel to Gaza, join protesters from the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) (described as a "motley collection of anti-globalization and animal-rights activists, self-described anarchists and seekers", and initiate a "sister city" project between Olympia and Rafah. Before leaving, she also organized a pen-pal programme between kids in Olympia and Rafah.
Friends described her as "attractive in a plain-spoken way, the opposite of flashy, not working to call attention to herself.
She was reserved in large crowds but intimate one-on-one. Colin Reese, Corrie's roommate, said she had wanted to become a writer and artist. Reese also said she was "not the most punctual or tidy person in the world," but that when it came to peace work, she "would work harder and longer than anybody else".
Activities in the West Bank and Gaza
After flying to Israel on January 22, 2003.
Corrie underwent a two-day training course at ISM West Bank headquarters, before heading to Rafah to participate in ISM demonstrations. During her training, Corrie studied tactics of direct action. Basic rules about avoiding harm were given, which a featured article on the Corrie incident summarized as: "Wear fluorescent jackets.
Make your presence known." On January 27, 2003, Corrie and William Hewitt (also from Olympia), traveled to the Erez checkpoint and entered the Gaza Strip.
While in Rafah, Corrie acted as a human shield in an attempt to impede house demolitions carried out by the IDF using armoured bulldozers. On Corrie's first night there, she and two other ISM members set up camp inside Block J, often the target for Israeli gunfire. Israeli troops fired bullets over their tent and at the ground a few feet away.
Deciding that their presence was provoking the Israeli soldiers, not deterring them, Corrie and her colleagues hurriedly dismantled their tent and left the area.
Qishta, a Palestinian who worked as an interpreter, noted that "Late January and February was a very crazy time. There were house demolitions taking place all over the border strip and the activists had no time to do anything else." Qishta also stated of the ISM activists, "They were not only brave; they were crazy." The confrontations were not without harm to the activists; a British participant was wounded by shrapnel.
Palestinian militants expressed concern that the "internationals" staying in tents between the Israeli watchtowers and the residential neighbourhoods would get caught in crossfire, while other residents were concerned that the young activists might be spies.
Corrie worked hard to overcome this suspicion, learning a few words of Arabic, and participating in a mock trial denouncing the "'crimes' of the Bush Administration." With time, ISM members were taken into Palestinian family homes, and provided with meals and beds. Even so, in the days before Corrie's death, a letter gained wide circulation in Rafah, casting suspicion again on the ISM members.
"Who are they? Why are they here? Who asked them to come here?" The letter caused the activists to be preoccupied and frustrated, and on the morning of Corrie's death they planned ways to counteract its effects. According to one activist, "We all had a feeling that our role was too passive.
We talked about how to engage the Israeli military."
While in Gaza, she took part in a demonstration as part of the February 15, 2003 anti-war protest against the invasion of Iraq, where she was photographed burning a paper American flag in effigy. On March 14, 2003, during an interview with the Middle East Broadcasting network two days before her death, Corrie said: "I feel like I'm witnessing the systematic destruction of a people's ability to survive ... Sometimes I sit down to dinner with people and I realize there is a massive military machine surrounding us, trying to kill the people I'm having dinner with."
Corrie's death and subsequent controversy
An armored D9R Bulldozer used by the IDF.
On March 16, 2003, an IDF operation in the land between the Rafah refugee camp and the border with Egypt was engaged in clearance and demolition, which the IDF says is necessary to destroy guerilla hideouts and tunnel used for smuggling weapons. Corrie was part of a group of seven ISM activists (three British and four Americans) attempting to disrupt the actions of Israeli bulldozers.
Corrie, who had positioned herself in the path of a bulldozer, was fatally injured. In June 2003, a military investigation by the Israel Defense Forces Judge Advocate’s Office concluded that her death was accidental.
“The driver at no point saw or heard Corrie,” an army source told the Jerusalem Post. “She was standing behind debris which obstructed the view of the driver and the driver had a very limited field of vision due to the protective cage he was working in.”
Smith recounted afterward, "We were horribly surprised.
Accounts vary as to whether she died at the scene, in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, or at the hospital.
The events surrounding Corrie's death are disputed. ISM eyewitnesses assert that the Israeli soldier driving the bulldozer deliberately ran Corrie over twice while she was acting as a human shield to prevent the demolition of the home of local pharmacist Samir Nasrallah. The ISM said she was interposed between the bulldozer and a wall near Nasrallah's home, in which ISM activists had several times spent the night. The Israeli Government and the IDF denied that version of events and described Corrie's death as an accident.
The official Israeli response stated that Corrie was killed by debris pushed over by the bulldozer, that the driver did not see her, and that the bulldozer was clearing brush and not engaged in a demolition when Corrie blocked its path. Other reports say the Israeli government charged that the house being demolished contained a tunnel used for smuggling weapons from Egypt.
The major points of dispute are whether the bulldozer driver saw Corrie, and whether her injuries were caused by being crushed under the blade or by the mound of debris the bulldozer was pushing.
to look directly at the driver who kept on advancing."
The IDF produced a video about Corrie's death that includes footage taken from inside the cockpit of a D9. It makes a "credible case," Joshua Hammer wrote of this video in Mother Jones, that "the operators, peering out through narrow, double-glazed, bulletproof windows, their view obscured behind pistons and the giant scooper, might not have seen Corrie kneeling in front of them."
ISM and other eyewitness accounts
Corrie immediately after being injured
Joe Carr, an American ISM activist who used the assumed name of Joseph Smith during his time in Gaza, gave the following account in an affidavit recorded and published by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR):
Still wearing her fluorescent jacket, she knelt down at least 15 meters in front of the bulldozer, and began waving her arms and shouting, just as activists had successfully done dozens of times that day...
When it got so close that it was moving the earth beneath her, she climbed onto the pile of rubble being pushed by the bulldozer... Her head and upper torso were above the bulldozer’s blade, and the bulldozer driver and co-operator could clearly see her.
Despite this, the driver continued forward, which caused her to fall back, out of view of the diver. He continued forward, and she tried to scoot back, but was quickly pulled underneath the bulldozer. We ran towards him, and waved our arms and shouted; one activist with the megaphone.
But the bulldozer driver continued forward, until Rachel was all the way underneath the central section of the bulldozer.
Joe Smith, as recorded by the Israel Resource Review: "Rachel had two options. When the bulldozer started to dig in the dirt pile, the pile started to move, and she could have rolled sideways quickly or fallen backwards to avoid being hit.
But Rachel leaned forward to climb to the top of the dirt pile. The bulldozer's digging drew her downward, and its driver could not see her anymore.
So without lifting the scoop, he turned backward and she was already underneath the blade." According to the Seattle Times, "Smith, who witnessed Sunday's incident, said it began when Corrie sat down in front of the bulldozer. She tried to climb on top of the earth, to avoid being overwhelmed.
She climbed to the point where her shoulders were above the top lip of the blade. Then it seemed like she got her foot caught under the blade.
She was helpless, pushed prostrate, and looked absolutely panicked, with her arms out, and the earth was piling itself over her. The bulldozer continued so that the place where she fell down was directly beneath the cockpit...
The whole took place in about six or seven seconds.
An individual giving the name Richard who stated that he witnessed Rachel's death, as recorded by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz:
There's no way he didn't see her, since she was practically looking into the cabin. The bulldozer kept moving, and she slipped and fell off the plow.
She reached the top and at this point she must have been clearly visible to the driver, especially as she was still wearing the high visibility jacket. She turned and faced in my direction and began to come back down the pile.
Jacob Dallal, a spokesman for the Israeli army, called Corrie's death a "regrettable accident" and said that she and the other ISM activists were "a group of protesters who were acting very irresponsibly, putting everyone in danger — the Palestinians, themselves and our forces — by intentionally placing themselves in a combat zone."
The bulldozer driver, a Russian immigrant to Israel with long experience as a bulldozer driver, stated of the difficulties of operating an armored bulldozer and of the incident, "You can't hear, you can't see well. Maybe she was hiding in there."
An autopsy was conducted on March 24 at the Israel's National Center of Forensic Medicine in Tel Aviv, the results of which were not released publicly, but which were supposedly obtained by Human Rights Watch with a translation supplied by the U.S.
Professor Yehuda Hiss, who performed the autopsy, concluded that, "her death was caused by pressure on the chest (mechanical asphyxiation) with fractures of the ribs and vertebrae of the dorsal spinal column and scapulas, and tear wounds in the right lung with hemorrhaging of the pleural cavities."
According to a correspondent for Gannett News Service, the IDF document, "The Death of Rachel Corrie" made no mention of the pathologist's conclusion, though, according to Corrie's parents, the entire document has not been released.
The Jerusalem Post, quoting an Israeli military spokesman, reported on June 26, 2003 that Corrie had not been run over and that the driver had not seen her:
"The driver at no point saw or heard Corrie. She was standing behind debris which obstructed the view of the driver and the driver had a very limited field of vision due to the protective cage he was working in.
"The driver and his commanders were interrogated extensively over a long period of time with the use of polygraph tests and video evidence.
They had no knowledge that she was standing in the path of the tractor. It was a tragic accident that never should have happened.
"The International Solidarity Movement, to which Corrie belonged, was directly responsible for illegal behavior and conduct in the area of Corrie's death and their actions directly led to this tragedy."
The Israeli army's report, which was seen by the The Guardian, said that the army was searching for explosives in the border zone when Corrie was "struck as she stood behind a mound of earth that was created by an engineering vehicle operating in the area and she was hidden from the view of the vehicle's operator who continued with his work.
The finding of the operational investigations shows that Rachel Corrie was not run over by an engineering vehicle but rather was struck by a hard object, most probably a slab of concrete which was moved or slid down while the mound of earth which she was standing behind was moved," (The Guardian, April 14, 2003).
In later IDF operations, the house was damaged (a hole was knocked in a wall) and was later destroyed. It was reported in 2006 that the house that Corrie believed she was protecting was rebuilt with funds raised by The Rebuilding Alliance.
A spokesman for the IDF told the Guardian that, while it did not accept responsibility for Corrie's death, it intended to change its operational procedures to avoid similar incidents in the future.
Observers will be deployed and CCTV cameras will be installed on the bulldozers to compensate for blind spots, which may have contributed to Corrie's death.
The IDF gave copies of the report, entitled "The Death of Rachel Corrie," to members of the U.S. Congress in April 2003, and Corrie's family released the document to the media in June 2003, according to the Gannett News Service. However, in March 2004, the family maintained that the entire report had not been released, and that only they and two American staffers at the U.S.
The family say they were allowed to look at the report in the Israeli consulate in San Francisco. The ISM rejected the Israeli report stating it contradicted their members' eyewitness reports, and that the investigation had been far from credible and transparent.
Reaction
A Palestinian memorial
Vigil in Olympia, WA
My Name Is Rachel Corrie at Playhouse Theatre, London, 2006.
Corrie's death sparked controversy and led to international media coverage, in part because she was an American, and in part because of the highly politicized nature of the conflict itself.
Amnesty International USA called for an independent inquiry, with Christine Bustany, their advocacy director for the Middle East, saying that "U.S.-made bulldozers have been 'weaponized' and their transfer to Israel must be suspended." U.S. The House of Representatives took no action on the resolution. The Corrie family joined Representative Baird in calling for a U.S.
Among them were the investigators' lack of preparation; the "hostile," "inappropriate," "mostly accusatory" questions they asked witnesses; omitting to get witnesses to draw maps or identify locations on a map of how it occurred; and their disinterest in reconciling soldiers' testimonies with those of other eyewitnesses. The report was not limited in scope to Rachel Corrie's death; it described a number of similar instances in which one-line summary findings were reported to the media after closed investigations in which neither non-military witnesses nor victims or their families were involved.
Yasser Arafat offered his condolences and gave the blessings of the Palestinian people to Corrie. Arafat promised to name a street in Gaza after Corrie; this however was not done.
There were reports that because she was an American, her death attracted the kind of attention that the deaths of Palestinians fail to garner.
The Observer wrote that: "On the night of Corrie's death, nine Palestinians were killed in the Gaza Strip, among them a four-year-old girl and a man aged 90. Her death will bring more attention than the other 2,000 martyrs."
The University of Maryland, College Park's campus newspaper The Diamondback published a cartoon defining "stupidity" as "sitting in front of a bulldozer to protect a gang of terrorists." After the group Palestine Media Watch published the email addresses and phone number of Diamondback editors, urging readers to contact the newspaper to secure an apology, thousands of e-mails and hundreds of phone calls were received by the paper in protest.
Describing the cartoon as "indecent and anti-American," over 60 student protesters staged a sit-in at the newspaper's offices (with 10 staying overnight), demanding that the paper apologize and "publish an article honoring Corrie's life". The newspaper refused to apologize, citing the First Amendment. Noted editor in chief Jay Parsons, "The decision was about freedom of speech, and that made the decision easy."
Corrie's photograph has been carried during protests against Israel's actions in Gaza and the West Bank.
On July 15, 2003, the Chicago Tribune reported that "to the people of Rafah, Rachel Corrie will always remain a very special martyr, their American martyr."
Artistic tributes
In 2004, Alaska composer Philip Munger composed a cantata about Corrie, called "The Skies are Weeping," the fifth movement of which, taking the perspective of a bulldozer driver, was entitled "I Had No Mercy". The work was scheduled for performance at the University of Alaska Anchorage, where Munger, who says he is "sympathetic to the Palestinians", teaches.
It was performed as part of the 2007 Melbourne season of the Short and Sweet short play competition. Sydney composer Lawrence Williams mixed a recorded version of Ellis' play for the play's Sydney Short and Sweet production in early 2008.
One of the voice-actors in Sydney was the radical playwright Van Badham.
Activities of Corrie's parents
Since their daughter's death, Corrie's parents, Cindy and Craig, have spent time trying to "promote peace and raise awareness about the plight of Palestinians," and continue what they believe to be her work. The Corries have worked to set up foundations, launch projects in memory of their daughter, and advance investigation into the incident, approaching the US Congress and the courts.
Corries' parents have several times visited the region since their daughter's death, and have twice visited Gaza. Following their daughter's death, they visited Gaza and Israel, seeing the place where Rachel died, and meeting ISM members and Palestinians who she had known.. They also visited Ramallah in the West Bank, where Arafat met them and presented them with a plaque in memory of their daughter. The Nasrallahs, the Palestinian family whose home Rachel believed she was preventing from destruction, joined the Corries on a cross-country tour in the United States in June 2005. The 22-city, 7 state tour made stops in Iowa and Oakland among other locations.
Lawsuits
Corrie's family and several Palestinians filed a lawsuit against Caterpillar Inc.
The judge found, alternatively, that the plaintiffs' claims failed on the merits.
The ruling was appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The Court found that as the bulldozers were paid for by the U.S.
Government as part of its aid to Israel, that the Judicial Branch could not rule on the merits of the case without ruling on whether or not the government's financing of such bulldozers was appropriate, a matter it felt was not entrusted to the Judicial Branch.
Claims were previously filed against the Israel Defense Forces and the Israeli Defense Ministry.
Possible kidnapping attempt
During a visit in January 2006, two Palestinians, one armed, entered the home of Samir Nasrallah, the Palestinian pharmacist whose former home Rachel Corrie had been trying to protect when she was killed. Corrie's parents were staying overnight there, and it was reported that the gunmen had tried to kidnap them, but had abandoned their plans when told who his guests were. According to Nasrallah, the gunmen were seeking Americans as bargaining chips to secure the release of Alaa al-Hams, a Palestinian militia leader arrested by Palestine intelligence on suspicion of ordering the abduction of British human-rights activist Kate Burton and her parents.
The ISM issued a statement asserting that the actual targets whose home the gunmen came to were three Americans staying nearby, and that the Corries helped talk the men out of their plan.