Rachel Corrie ‘lives on in all of us,’ say Palestinians 20 years after IDF killed American activist

On the afternoon of March 16, Corrie received an urgent call from ISM activists telling her to rush to the home of Samir Nasrallah, a pharmacist who lived with his wife and three children near the Egyptian border in Rafah. Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops were in the process of destroying homes in the area and ISM activists feared the Nasrallah’s residence was next, as it was one of the few houses left standing in the area.

Corrie hurried to the home, clad in a fluorescent orange jacket and carrying a megaphone. As the IDF’s American-made Caterpillar D9R armored bulldozer approached Nasrallah’s home, Corrie stood in its path and was fatally injured. She was rushed to a nearby hospital, where she died.

Corrie was not the last ISM activist to be killed or seriously wounded by Israeli forces. A month after her death, 21-year-old British student Tom Hurndall was shot in the head by an IDF sniper as he attempted to rescue Palestinian children from an Israeli tank that was firing in their direction. The shooting left Hurndall in a coma; he died nine months later in a London hospital.

IDF officials denied intentionally killing Corrie, despite court testimony from army officers that Corrie and other activists were legitimate military targets who were “doomed to death” for resisting Israeli occupation forces.

An IDF investigation concluded that Corrie had not been crushed to death by the bulldozer, despite an Israeli autopsy that concluded her death was caused by “pressure on the chest with fractures of the ribs and vertebrae of the dorsal spinal column and scapulas, and tear wounds in the right lung.”

The IDF called Corrie’s death a “regrettable accident” while blaming the ISM activists for their own harm because by “placing themselves in a combat zone.”

Efforts in the United States by Corrie’s family, activist groups, and U.S. Rep. Brian Baird (D-Wash.) to achieve accountability and justice for Corrie bore no fruit.

While Corrie once wrote that she felt protected by “the difficulties the Israeli army would face if they shot an unarmed U.S. citizen,” there were no such difficulties, just as there were no repercussions after Israeli warplanes killed 34 American sailors and wounded 173 others during a 1967 attack on the USS Liberty—an attack numerous top U.S. officials believe was deliberate.

In 2012, an Israeli court ruled against Corrie’s parents, who had sued the IDF, with the judge claiming the activist’s death was the “result of an accident she brought upon herself.”

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter condemned the ruling as a confirmation of the “climate of impunity which facilitates Israeli human rights violations.”