Rachel Corrie
Rachel Aliene Corrie (April 10, 1979 – March 16, 2003) from Olympia, Washington, was an American peace activist and diarist. She was a member of the 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. She had come to Gaza as part of her senior-year college assignment to connect her home town with Rafah in a sister cities project. While there, she had engaged with other ISM activists in efforts to prevent the Israeli army's demolition of Palestinian houses. 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. 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. 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 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 some criticism. An appeal against the August 2012 ruling was heard on May 21, 2014. On February 14, 2015, Israel's supreme court rejected the appeal.