Rachel Corrie, American activist (b. 1979)
Rachel Aliene Corrie (April 10, 1979 – March 16, 2003) was an American activist and diarist. A member of the pro-Palestinian group International Solidarity Movement (ISM), she was crushed to death by an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) armored bulldozer in a southern Gaza Strip combat zone during the height of the second Palestinian intifada under contested circumstances.She had gone to Gaza as part of her college senior-year independent-study proposal to connect her home town and Rafah as sister cities. While there, she had joined other ISM activists in efforts to prevent the Israeli army's demolition of Palestinian houses. According to the Israeli authorities the demolitions were carried out to eliminate weapons-smuggling tunnels. According to human rights groups the demolitions were used as collective punishment.The exact nature of her death and the culpability of the bulldozer operator are disputed, with fellow ISM protestors saying that the Israeli soldier operating the bulldozer deliberately ran over Corrie, and Israeli eyewitnesses saying that it was an accident since the bulldozer operator could not see her. The Israeli army conducted an investigation, which concluded that the death was an accident, and that the driver of the bulldozer could not see Corrie due to limited visibility from his cab. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch as well as B'Tselem and Yesh Din criticized the military investigation.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. An Israeli court rejected their suit in August 2012 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 human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, and by activists. An appeal against this ruling was heard on May 21, 2014. On February 14, 2015, the Supreme Court of Israel rejected the appeal.