Rachel Corrie

An appeal against the August 2012 ruling was heard on May 21, 2014. On February 14, 2015, the Supreme Court of Israel rejected the appeal.

Qishta, a Palestinian who worked as an interpreter, noted: "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 safety of the protestors was frequently jeopardized by these confrontations— a British participant was wounded by shrapnel while retrieving the body of a Palestinian man killed by a sniper, and an Irish ISM activist had a close encounter with an armored bulldozer.

Prime Minister of Israel Ariel Sharon promised President Bush a "thorough, credible, and transparent investigation". Later, Capt. 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 verdict of the Haifa District Court was appealed to the Supreme Court of Israel on May 21, 2014. The Supreme Court rejected the appeal and upheld the District Court's verdict regarding the circumstances of Corrie's death, which cleared the IDF from wrongdoing.

In August 2012, an Israeli court rejected their suit and upheld the results of the 2003 military investigation, ruling that the Israeli government was not responsible for Corrie's death. The ruling was met with criticism by some human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, and by activists.

Eyewitness and ISM member Tom Dale, commenting on the 2012 verdict said: "Whatever one thinks about the visibility from a D9 bulldozer, it is inconceivable that at some point the driver did not see her, given the distance from which he approached, while she stood, unmoving, in front of it. As I told the court, just before she was crushed, Rachel briefly stood on top of the rolling mound of earth which had gathered in front of the bulldozer: her head was above the level of the blade, and just a few meters from the driver."

In August 2012, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro stated that the Israeli investigation was not satisfactory, and was not as thorough, credible or transparent as it should have been. Shapiro said further that the government of the United States is unsatisfied with the IDF's closure of its official investigation into Corrie's death.

The court ruled against Corrie's family on August 28, 2012. In a 62-page verdict, Judge Oded Gershon ruled that Corrie's death was an accident for which she was responsible, and absolved the IDF of any wrongdoing. The judge ruled that the bulldozer driver and his commander had a very limited field of vision and could not possibly have seen her. According to the judge "The mission of the IDF force on the day of the incident was solely to clear the ground.... The mission did not include, in any way, the demolition of homes." The court invoked the principle of the combatant activities exception, as the IDF was attacked in the same area where Corrie was killed a few hours earlier; that Corrie could have avoided the danger and that defendants were not at fault as there was neither intent nor negligence involved in her death. The judge said that the IDF did not violate Corrie's right to life because Corrie had placed herself in a dangerous situation, that Israel's investigation was appropriate and did not contain mistakes, and also criticized the U.S. government for failing to send a diplomatic representative to observe Corrie's autopsy. Gershon said: "I rule unequivocally that the claim that the deceased was intentionally hit by the bulldozer is totally baseless. This was an extremely unfortunate accident. I reached the conclusion that there was no negligence on the part of the bulldozer driver. I reject the suit. There is no justification to demand the state pay any damages. She [Corrie] did not distance herself from the area, as any thinking person would have done. She consciously put herself in harm's way."

In April 2011, during the trial of the civil suit brought by Corrie's parents, an IDF officer testified that Corrie and other activists had spent hours trying to block the bulldozers under his command. He went on to say that it was a war zone "where Palestinian militants used abandoned homes as firing positions and exploited foreign activists for cover". He shouted over a megaphone for the activists to leave, tried to use tear gas to disperse them and moved his troops several times. "To my regret, after the eighth time, (Corrie) hid behind an earth embankment. The D9 operator didn't see her. She thought he saw her," he said.

In January 2011, Corrie's parents visited the MV Mavi Marmara in Turkey, together with the head of the IHH Bülent Yıldırım. Cindy Corrie called dead Mavi Marmara activists "martyrs" and compared them to her daughter.

In 2011, Iran named a street in Tehran after Corrie.

Singer Billy Bragg recounted Corrie's death in the song "The Lonesome Death of Rachel Corrie", composed to the tune of Bob Dylan's "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll". After being originally released as a free digital download, it was included on the album Fight Songs in 2011. Irish folk music/world music group Kíla included the instrumental "Rachel Corrie" on their 2015 album Suas Síos.

In 2010, Corrie's parents, represented by Attorney Hussein Abu Hussein, filed a lawsuit against the Israel Defense Forces and the Israeli Defense Ministry in the Haifa District Court, seeking US$324,000 in compensation. The case began in Haifa on March 10, 2010. Judge Oded Gershon presided over the case. On October 21, 2010, the bulldozer driver who had run over Corrie testified for four hours, and was cross-examined by the Corries' attorney. At the request of state prosecutors, who argued that his life could be imperiled if he was publicly identified, the driver was hidden behind a screen and visible to only the judge and attorneys. A request by the Corrie family that they also be allowed to see the driver was turned down by the judge. The driver was identified only by his initials, "YB", and a gag order was imposed on identifying details, although it was disclosed in court that he was a 38-year old Russian immigrant who had arrived in Israel at age 23, and was working for a food processing company at the time. The driver denied having seen her before hitting her. In addition, four experts, including an expert on the behalf of the Corrie family testified during the trial, and concluded that the bulldozer driver could not see Corrie. Four ISM witnesses testified during the case. However, the Palestinian physician from Gaza who had examined Corrie's wounds on the scene was unable to testify after Israel refused him an entry visa and rejected an application for him to testify by video link.

On March 30, 2010, an 1800-tonne vessel was bought at auction in Dundalk, Ireland, for €70,000 by the Free Gaza Movement. It was outfitted for use in a voyage to Gaza, named in honour of Rachel Corrie and launched May 12, 2010. It sailed to join a flotilla intended to break the blockade of the Gaza Strip. The flotilla was intercepted; however, the MV Rachel Corrie had not reached the other ships and continued towards Gaza by itself. Israeli navy officers addressed the ship as "Linda"—the vessel's name before it was renamed for Rachel Corrie. The ship was intercepted by the Israeli navy on Saturday, June 5, 2010, 23 miles off the coast, and diverted to the port of Ashdod. There the cargo was to be inspected and sent over land to Gaza.

In 2009, a documentary film titled Rachel is produced by Morocco born, French-Israeli director Simone Bitton detailing the death of Rachel Corrie from "an Israeli point of view". Its first North American public screening was at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival.

Rachel Corrie sent a series of emails to her mother while she was in Gaza, four of which were later published by The Guardian. In January 2008, Norton published a book titled Let Me Stand Alone by Corrie, which included the e-mails along with some of her other writings. Yale Professor David Bromwich said that Corrie left "letters of great interest". The play My Name is Rachel Corrie and the cantata The Skies are Weeping were based on Corrie's letters.

Corrie's parents have visited the region several times since their daughter's death and have twice visited Gaza. Following their daughter's death, they visited Gaza and Israel, seeing the place where she died, and meeting ISM members and Palestinians whom 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. On March 28, 2008, they addressed a demonstration in Ramallah at which Craig Corrie said: "This village has become a symbol of nonviolent resistance. I call for solidarity with the people of Palestine in resisting the conditions imposed by the Israeli occupation to prevent the establishment of their state."

In 2008, Corrie's parents commemorated the fifth anniversary of her death at an event held in the West Bank town of Nablus. About 150 Palestinians and foreigners joined them to dedicate a memorial to Corrie on one of the city's streets.

The Corrie family appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. In September 2007 the Ninth Circuit affirmed the dismissal on the political question grounds and thus did not rule on the merits of the suit. The Court found that as the bulldozers were paid for by the U.S. Government as part of its aid to Israel, 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 and that this was a matter not entrusted to the Judicial Branch.

In later IDF operations, the house was damaged (a hole was knocked in a wall) and was later destroyed. By that time, the Nasrallah family had moved into a different house. It was reported in 2006 that the house that Corrie was trying to protect was rebuilt with funds raised by The Rebuilding Alliance.

In 2006, Haaretz political columnist Bradley Burston said that Corrie's death was accidental but that "incidental killing is no less tragic than intentional killing"; Burston criticized both the pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli sides for their excessive rhetoric:

In early 2005, My Name is Rachel Corrie, a play composed from Corrie's journals and emails from Gaza and compiled by actor Alan Rickman and journalist Katharine Viner, in a production directed by Rickman, was presented in London and later revived in October 2005. The play was to be transferred to the New York Theatre Workshop, but when it was postponed indefinitely, the British producers denounced the decision as censorship and withdrew the show. It finally opened Off-Broadway on October 15, 2006, for an initial run of 48 performances. In the same year, My Name is Rachel Corrie was shown at the Pleasance theatre as part of the Edinburgh (Fringe) Festival. The play has also been published as a paperback, and performed in ten countries, including Israel.

In 2005, Corrie's parents filed a civil lawsuit against the state of Israel. The lawsuit charged Israel with not conducting a full and credible investigation into the case and with responsibility for her death, contending that she had either been intentionally killed or that the soldiers had acted with reckless neglect. They sued for a symbolic one US dollar in damages.

In 2005, Human Rights Watch published a report raising questions about the impartiality and professionalism of the IDF investigation. Some of the problems that the report mentioned were the investigators' lack of preparation, the "hostile," "inappropriate," and "mostly accusatory" questions they asked witnesses, the failure to ask witnesses to draw maps or to identify locations of events on maps, and their lack of interest in reconciling soldiers' testimonies with those of other eyewitnesses.

The Nasrallahs, whose home Rachel Corrie allegedly believed she was preventing from destruction, toured with the Corries across the United States in June 2005. The aim of the trip was, with the cooperation of the Rebuilding Alliance, to raise funds to rebuild the Nasrallah home and other homes destroyed in Rafah.

Corrie's family and several Palestinians filed a federal lawsuit against Caterpillar Inc. in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington alleging liability for Corrie's death. The suit alleged Caterpillar supplied the bulldozers to the Israelis despite having notice they would be used to further "a policy plaintiffs contend violates international law". The case was dismissed by a Federal judge in November 2005 for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, citing, among other things, the political question doctrine. The judge found, alternatively, that the plaintiffs' claims failed on the merits.

Former UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian Territories Richard Falk said of the verdict that it was "a sad outcome, above all for the Corrie family that had initiated the case back in 2005, but also for the rule of law and the hope that an Israeli court would place limits on the violence of the state, particularly in relation to innocents and unarmed civilians in an occupied territory". Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter of the Carter Center said that the "court's decision confirms a climate of impunity, which facilitates Israeli human rights violations against Palestinian civilians in the Occupied Territory".

In 2004, Alaska composer Philip Munger wrote a cantata about Corrie called The Skies are Weeping, which was scheduled to premiere on April 27 at the University of Alaska Anchorage, where Munger teaches. After objections to the upcoming performance were received, including from members of the Jewish community, a forum was held co-chaired by Munger and a local rabbi who claimed the work "romanticized terrorism". After the forum "disintegrate[d]", Munger announced, "I cannot subject 16 students ... to any possibility of physical harm or to the type of character assassination some of us are already undergoing. Performance of The Skies are Weeping at this time and place is withdrawn for the safety of the student performers." Munger later related that he had received threatening e-mails whose content he considered was "[just] short of what you'd take to the troopers", and that some of his students had received similar communications. The cantata was eventually performed at the Hackney Empire theatre in London, premiering on November 1, 2005.

In 2005, the BBC produced a 60 minute documentary titled When Killing is Easy aka Shooting the Messenger, Why are foreigners suddenly under fire in Israel?, described as "a meticulous examination of" the shooting to death of James Miller, who was shot while filming in an Israeli war zone in May 2003; the shooting of British photography student Thomas Hurndall in April 2003, and the death of Rachel Corrie in March 2003. The documentary claims that the attacks were not "random acts of violence", but rather "represent a culture of killing with impunity which is sanctioned by the higher echelons of the Israeli army."

In 2005 Yahya Barakat, who lectures on TV production, cinematography, and filmmaking at al-Quds University, filmed a documentary in Arabic with English subtitles, named Rachel Corrie – An American Conscience.

Less than two months after her arrival, on March 16, 2003, Corrie was killed during an Israeli military operation after a three-hour confrontation between Israeli soldiers operating two bulldozers and eight ISM activists.

According to a January 2003 article by Gordon Murray, a fellow ISM activist, in the last month of her life Corrie "spent a lot of time at the Canada Well helping protect Rafah municipal workers" who were trying to repair damage to the well done by Israeli bulldozers. Canada Well was built in 1999 with CIDA funding. It, along with El Iskan Well, had supplied more than 50% of Rafah's water before the damage. The city had been under "strict rationing (only a few hours of running water on alternate days)" since. Murray writes that ISM activists were maintaining a presence there since "Israeli snipers and tanks routinely shot at civilian workers trying to repair the wells." In one of her reports, Corrie wrote that despite her group's having received permission from the Israeli District Command Office and the fact that they were carrying "banners and megaphones the activists and workers were fired upon several times over a period of about one hour. One of the bullets came within two metres of three internationals and a municipal water worker close enough to spray bits of debris in their faces as it landed at their feet."

While in Gaza, Corrie took part in a demonstration as part of the February 15, 2003 anti-war protest against the invasion of Iraq. She was photographed burning a makeshift U.S. flag. Robert Spencer criticized Corrie for having burned the flag in front of children, writing that she was "fostering ... hatred" of the United States.

On March 16, 2003, the IDF was engaged in an operation involving the demolition of Palestinian houses in Rafah. Corrie was part of a group of three British and four American ISM activists attempting to disrupt the IDF operation. Corrie placed herself in the path of a Caterpillar D9R armored bulldozer in the area and was run over by the bulldozer and fatally injured. After she was injured she was taken by a Red Crescent ambulance to the Palestinian Najar hospital, arriving at the emergency room at 5:05 pm, still alive but near death. At 5:20 pm she was declared dead.

On March 18, 2003, two days after Corrie's death, Joe (Smith) Carr was interviewed by British Channel 4 and The Observer reporter Sandra Jordan for a documentary, The Killing Zone, which aired in June 2003. He stated, "It was either a really gross mistake or a really brutal murder."

On June 26, 2003, The Jerusalem Post quoted an Israeli military spokesman as saying that Corrie had not been run over and that the operator had not seen her:

The IDF gave copies of the report, titled "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. In March 2004 the family said that the entire report had not been released, and that only they and two American staffers at the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv had been allowed to view it. The family said they were allowed to look at the report in the Consulate General of Israel to the Pacific Northwest in San Francisco. The ISM rejected the Israeli report, stating that it contradicted their members' eyewitness reports and that the investigation had not been credible and transparent.

In March 2003, U.S. Representative Brian Baird introduced a resolution in the U.S. Congress calling on the U.S. government to "undertake a full, fair, and expeditious investigation" into Corrie's death. The House of Representatives took no action on the resolution. The Corrie family joined Representative Baird in calling for a U.S. investigation.

On March 21, 2003, the U.S. Green Party called for an investigation of the "murder of American Peace Activist Rachel Corrie by Israeli Forces".

In 2003, Pittsburgh singer Mike Stout wrote and composed a song about Rachel Corrie, which was included with other anti-war songs in his album "War and Resistance".

Also in 2003, David Rovics wrote the song The Death of Rachel Corrie, included in the album "return".

In 2003, British Channel 4 and The Observer reporter Sandra Jordan and producer Rodrigo Vasquez made a documentary that was aired June 2003 on Channel 4 titled The Killing Zone, about ongoing violence in the Gaza Strip. Jordan said: "There has been a lot of interest in Britain and around the world about what happened to Rachel, I find it highly disappointing that no serious American investigative journalist has taken Rachel's story seriously or questioned or challenged the Israeli Army version of events."

ISM activist Richard Purssell testified, "[t]hey began demolishing one house. We gathered around and called out to them and went into the house, so they backed out. During the entire time they knew who we were and what we were doing, because they didn't shoot at us. We stood in their way and shouted. There were about eight of us in an area about 70 square meters. Suddenly, we saw they turned to a house they had started to demolish before, and I saw Rachel standing in the way of the front bulldozer." Human-rights activists and Palestinians say that the demolitions had also been accompanied by gunfire from Israeli snipers. The director of Rafah's hospital, Dr. Ali Moussa said that 240 Palestinians, including 78 children, had been killed since the Al-Aqsa Intifada began in 2001, "Every night there is shooting at houses in which children are sleeping, without any attacks from Palestinians." The United Nations said that 582 Rafah homes were demolished and 721 damaged, with 5,305 people made homeless.

An infantry major later testified that the activists were endangering troops and had ignored numerous warnings to leave the area. Between September 2000 and the date of Corrie's death Israeli forces in the area had been subjected to 1,400 attacks involving gunfire, 150 involving explosive devices, 200 involving anti-tank rockets, and 6,000 involving hand grenades or mortar fire.

Rachel Aliene Corrie (April 10, 1979 – March 16, 2003) was an American activist and diarist. She was a member of a pro-Palestinian group called the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). She was killed by an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) armored bulldozer in a combat zone in Rafah, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, under contested circumstances during the height of the second Palestinian intifada.

Corrie was born on April 10, 1979, and raised in Olympia, Washington, United States. She was the youngest of three children of Craig Corrie, an insurance executive, and Cindy Corrie. Cindy describes their family as "average Americans—politically liberal, economically conservative, middle class".