There was no full inquiry—not 21 years ago when it happened nor at any time since.

Almost 10 years after her murder, Dan Shapiro, the then-US ambassador to Israel noted Israel had failed to carry out a “thorough, credible and transparent investigation”. 

No one was charged, including the bulldozer driver. A witness said the bulldozer dragged Rachel Corrie more than four metres under the rig to her death– as it moved forward at walking speed.

No answers were demanded of the military driver, the IDF for whom he worked, or the Israeli government.  But many questions were put.

Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old American college student, was killed by an armoured US-built Caterpillar bulldozer in Rafah, Gaza. She was standing in front of a home where she and other peace activists, plus a local Palestinian pharmacist and his family were living.  She was wearing a fluorescent orange safety jacket and holding a megaphone – she yelled out to stop the bulldozer.  

Suddenly the Israeli bulldozer driver ploughed her under.  

Instant death. 

This is what happened to Rachel Corrie, a young person who had gone to Rafah in Gaza to protect Palestinians from Israeli attacks. The date was 16 March, 2003. 

Two days before her murder, in an interview with a journalist, Corrie said, “The Israeli military bulldozed the two largest water wells, destroying over half of Rafah’s water supply. Every few days, if not every day, houses are demolished here.” 

No justice for the Corrie family because their daughter’s death “took place in a war zone”

In Ottawa at an Independent Jewish Voices conference about a decade ago, I met Rachel Corrie’s parents – who were invited guests. Cindy and Craig Corrie are kind, gentle people.  They are full of forgiveness (something I can’t understand).  They set up the nonprofit Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice. Cindy is the foundation’s president; Craig, the treasurer. They’ve also gone on many interfaith peace missions to Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank. Most Palestinians recognise the name Rachel Corrie– and know the sacrifice she made.  Though the Corries went through the Israeli court system – right to the top – to get some justice, in the end Israel claimed their daughter’s death “took place in a war zone” [haven’t we heard that line before? They used it to justify Israel’s assassination of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh]– so there was nothing to be done. 

A month after Rachel Corrie was killed, the IDF shot British peace activist and photographer, Tom Hurndall-– through his head.  He was in a coma for nearly a year before he died.  A month after Tom was shot, James Miller, a British cameraman, was shot dead in the same Gaza Strip refugee camp, by a soldier from the same Israeli Defence Force battalion.

Fast Forward 21 Years

Today we are hearing that Israel is on the verge of a full military assault on Rafah – the place years ago Rachel Corrie worked as an activist in the International Solidarity Movement.  

Today, Palestinians are starving. Israel continues to block humanitarian aid, and uses starvation as a weapon of war.  Is there anything more crazy than the US (and Jordan continuing to drop food from the skies—huge bundles of food crashing to earth or  on top of Gazans?  Food drops have killed at least five people.  As one Gaza woman said to a journalist today, “I curse the countries that make us chase our food like dogs.” 

Food dropped from the sky: “it’s torturous more than it’s aid”

A Palestinian-Canadian man who lives in Gaza, appeared on X (Twitter) to give a rundown of what he got in a food package he managed to buy in northern Gaza. The food was packaged in plastic wrap and was marked the Department of Defence, USA. You can watch him opening it here and spreading the packets on the table in front of him. It contained food for one day, for one adult:

Crackers	US claims the total food value of meal is 1250 kcal.
Applesauce in a flat pack	13% protein, 36% fat
Gum
One energy bar
French Vanilla instant coffee powder
Cashews, one pkg
Peanut butter in a flat pack

He smiled when he said after fasting all day because it is Ramadan, this food simply didn’t cut his hunger. He gave it a 1 out of 10.

The US doesn’t have the guts to demand that Israel open the roads into Gaza to allow 500 trucks a day of food, water, and medicine

More than a thousand have been injured and hundreds killed when Israeli troops deliberately fired into crowds of Palestinians who were desperately queuing for a meagre one or two kilos of flour from aid trucks in central Gaza. What’s really crazy is the US pledge to take 60 days to build a pier from somewhere on Gaza’s coast into the Mediterranean to facilitate bringing humanitarian aid.  Joe Biden and the US doesn’t have the guts to demand that Israel open the roads into Gaza and allow the more than 500 trucks a day to enter Gaza with food, water, supplies and medicine – as they did prior to 7 Oct.  There is not one bit of resolve by Biden and his gang to force Israel to open the roads.  Instead the US is going to spend millions to build a pier to nowhere.  

The US has placed ongoing sanctions on more than 38 countries since 2021 —and most on the list have dozens of targeted sanctions within the country.  But against Israel, there is not one.  I notice there are pitifully weak sanctions against Jewish settlers on the West Bank who threaten violence against civilians, destroy their property, or are leaders of right-wing Jewish gangs that terrorize Palestinians.   But there are no sanctions against Israel, whose military has killed more than 30,000 civilians and seriously injured 70,000 in Gaza, plus more than 400 Palestinians (about a fifth are children) on the West Bank . 

To read more about Rachel Corrie, see Tom Dale’s new article in Jacobin about his friend and comrade, “Rachel Corrie Gave Her Life for Palestine”.

Democracy Now had an in-depth interview with Cindy and Craig Corrie and Tom Dale last week.  Here it is. 

Photo at the top: Rachel Corrie stands in front of an IDF bulldozer in Rafah, Gaza, on the day she was killed, 16 March, 2003. (Courtesy of ISM Palestine)