Rachel Corrie, an American Palestine-solidarity activist, was crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer twenty years ago this month. She was murdered by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) while attempting to defend a Palestinian home from demolition in Rafah, a city in the blockaded Gaza Strip. Samir Nazrallah, whose home Corrie was trying to protect, told Al-Monitor: “I was watching what was happening through a hole in the house’s wall. I remember that the driver pulled out the soil from under Rachel’s feet, which made her lose balance, and then, when she fell, he ran over her”.
Israeli accounts of the event defy credibility. An IDF major accused Corrie and her fellow activists of endangering Israeli troops through their non-violent protests. Her murderer claimed he could not see her. Corrie was standing directly in front of the bulldozer holding a megaphone and dressed in a fluorescent orange jacket.
“She was standing on top of a pile of earth … The driver cannot have failed to see her”, Richard Pursell, another eyewitness, told the Guardian. “As the blade pushed the pile, the earth rose up. Rachel slid down the pile. It looks as if her foot got caught. The driver didn’t slow down; he just ran over her. Then he reversed the bulldozer back over her again.”
Read the article by Owen Marsden-Redford in Red Flag.