Israel Shows No Mercy, Even for the Dead
March 19, 2003
By PMC

Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) hurled stun grenades and tear gas canisters at a group of Palestinian and international pacifists holding a memorial service for Rachel Corrie, a US peace activist killed by an Israeli army bulldozer in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah on Sunday.

Several Israeli armored personnel carriers advanced in an attempt to disperse the group gathered to lay flowers at the spot where Corrie was crushed to death by a several-ton US-made bulldozer in one of Gaza’s most poverty-stricken refugee camps.

The 23-year-old from Olympia, Washington, who was to graduate later this year, was killed “deliberately”, witnesses say, as she was trying to stop a bulldozer from demolishing a Palestinians’ house.

She was part of a grass roots group known as the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), which try to prevent Israeli occupation troops from demolishing Palestinians’ houses and to help Palestinians harvest their olive crops under threat from armed Israeli settlers.

Joseph Smith, a 20-year-old student from Missouri, said about 100 people, including 30 ISM activists, had gathered to lay carnations, plant a tree and erect a small memorial when several armored personnel carrier and a bulldozer moved toward them.

“They started firing teargas and blowing smoke, then they fired sound grenades. After a while it got hectic so we sat down. Then the tank came over and shot in the air,” he told The Guardian.

“It scared a lot of Palestinians, especially the shooting made a lot of them run and the teargas freaked people out. But most of us stayed.”

Smith had previously refuted Israeli claims that the bulldozer’s driver did not see Corrie, who was wearing a florescent jacket at the time.

The activist, like several others who were with Corrie and witnessed her brutal death, said her slaying was “deliberate”.

“She was sitting in the path of the bulldozer. The bulldozer saw her and ran over her. She ended up completely underneath it,” Smith told AFP.

“He absolutely knew she was there,” he added.

Another colleague of Rachel’s confirmed what all ISM activists who also witnessed the scene: that she was murdered deliberately.

“She was standing in front of Dr. Samir Nasrallah’s house to protect it. The bulldozer was some 30 meters away from her. She was wearing a fluorescent orange jacket and was plainly visible,” said Greg Schnabel. “The bulldozer approached but she stood her ground. Then it pushed up a pile of dirt beneath her feet. She struggled to stay on top of the mound.

“At that point she was raised up to a level where she was probably looking the bulldozer driver in the eye,” Schnabel said, ruling out any possibility the bulldozer driver could have failed to see the young woman.

“Then she stepped back, the bulldozer continued and sand started covering her legs and was gradually buried up to her waist. We were shouting to the soldiers as she tried to pull herself out but she got sucked under the blade.

“The blade went over her body and the bulldozer stopped when she was completely underneath. Finally it withdrew, but without lifting the blade, dragging it over her once more,” said Schnabel, a 28-year-old American.

At the memorial service meanwhile, tensions rose further when a convoy of vehicles, including the bulldozer that killed Corrie, passed the area.

“I don’t think it was deliberate but it was pretty insensitive,” said Smith.

Ten people, including two Western activists, were treated at Rafah hospital for teargas inhalation, medics said.

Washington had condemned Corrie’s “tragic” death and demanded an immediate, full Israeli probe into her slaying.