News & Politics > Special Report

Death of an Activist: Rachel Corrie in Her Words

On March 16, Rachel Corrie, an American woman from Olympia, Washington, was killed when she was run over by an Israeli bulldozer. Corrie, 23, a student at Evergreen College and a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement, had been trying to stop a bulldozer from tearing down a building in the Rafah refugee camp, where the Israeli Army and Palestinian militants wage frequent gun battles.

As the American-made Caterpillar D-9 bulldozer approached a house scheduled for demolition, Corrie, who was wearing a bright orange jacket, dropped to her knees, a practice that members of the International Solidarity Movement have used repeatedly. When the bulldozer reached her without decelerating, Corrie started to get up, but was trapped beneath a pile of dirt generated by the blade and the blade itself.

According to the New York Times, "Israel almost daily has been tearing down houses of Palestinians it suspects in connection with Islamic militant groups, saying such operations deter attacks on Israel such as suicide bombings."

The Israeli military said the driver of the bulldozer had not seen Corrie, and called her death "a very regrettable accident." In a statement, the Israeli military said the soldiers in Rafah "were dealing with 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." What follows are excerpts from an e-mail from Rachel Corrie sent to her family on February 7. -BKM

I have been in Palestine for two weeks and one hour now, and I still
have very few words to describe what I see.

I am in Rafah, a city of about 140,000 people, approximately 60 percent of whom are refugees-many of whom are twice or three times refugees. Rafah existed prior to 1948, but most of the people here are themselves or are descendants of people who were relocated here from their homes in historic Palestine-now Israel. Rafah was split in half when the Sinai returned to Egypt.

Currently, the Israeli army is building a fourteen-meter-high wall between Rafah in Palestine and the border, carving a no-mans land from the houses along the border. Six hundred and two homes have been completely bulldozed according to the Rafah Popular Refugee Committee. The number of homes that have been partially destroyed is greater.

Today as I walked on top of the rubble where homes once stood, Egyptian soldiers called to me from the other side of the border, "Go! Go!" because a tank was coming. Followed by waving and "What's your name?" There is something disturbing about this friendly curiosity. It reminded me of how much, to some degree, we are all kids curious about other kids: Egyptian kids shouting at strange women wandering into the path of tanks. Palestinian kids shot from the tanks when they peek out from behind walls to see what's going on. International kids standing in front of tanks with banners.

Israeli kids in the tanks anonymously, occasionally shouting-and also occasionally waving-many forced to be here, many just aggressive, shooting into the houses as we wander away.

In addition to the constant presence of tanks along the border and in the western region between Rafah and settlements along the coast, there are more IDF [Israeli Defense Forces] towers here than I can count-along the horizon, at the end of streets. Some just army green metal. Others these strange spiral staircases draped in some kind of netting to make the activity within anonymous. Some hidden, just beneath the horizon of buildings. A new one went up the other day in the time it took us to do laundry and to cross town twice to hang banners.

Despite the fact that some of the areas nearest the border are the original Rafah with families who have lived on this land for at least a century, only the 1948 camps in the center of the city are Palestinian controlled areas under Oslo. But as far as I can tell, there are few if any places that are not within the sights of some tower or another. Certainly there is no place invulnerable to Apache helicopters or to the cameras of invisible drones we hear buzzing over the city for hours at a time.

I've been having trouble accessing news about the outside world here, but I hear an escalation of war on Iraq is inevitable. There is a great deal of concern here about the "reoccupation of Gaza." Gaza is reoccupied every day to various extents, but I think the fear is that the tanks will enter all the streets and remain here, instead of entering some of the streets and then withdrawing after some hours or days to observe and shoot from the edges of the communities. If people aren't already thinking about the consequences of this war for the people of the entire region then I hope they will start.

I also hope you'll come here. We've been wavering between five and six internationals. The neighborhoods that have asked us for some form of presence are Yibna, Tel El Sultan, Hi Salam, Brazil, Block J, Zorob, and Block O. There is also need for constant night-time presence at a well on the outskirts of Rafah since the Israeli army destroyed the two largest wells.

According to the municipal water office the wells destroyed last week provided half of Rafah's water supply. Many of the communities have requested internationals to be present at night to attempt to shield houses from further demolition. After about 10PM it is very difficult to move at night because the Israeli army treats anyone in the streets as resistance and shoots at them. So clearly we are too few.

I continue to believe that my home, Olympia, could gain a lot and offer a lot by deciding to make a commitment to Rafah in the form of a sister-community relationship. Some teachers and children's groups have expressed interest in e-mail exchanges, but this is only the tip of the iceberg of solidarity work that might be done.

Many people want their voices to be heard, and I think we need to use some of our privilege as internationals to get those voices heard directly in the US, rather than through the filter of well-meaning internationals such as myself. I am just beginning to learn, from what I expect to be a very intense tutelage, about the ability of people to organize against all odds, and to resist against all odds.

Thanks for the news I've been getting from friends in the US. I just read a report back from a friend who organized a peace group in Shelton, Washington, and was able to be part of a delegation to the large January 18th protest in Washington, DC.

People here watch the media, and they told me again today that there have been large protests in the United States and "problems for the government" in the UK. So thanks for allowing me to not feel like a complete polyanna when I tentatively tell people here that many people in the United States do not support the policies of our government, and that we are learning from global examples how to resist.