New York, Sunday, March 16, 2003 Israeli
Bulldozer Kills U.S. Woman, 23 By IBRAHIM BARZAK Associated Press
Writer GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) --
An American woman in Gaza
to protest Israeli operations was killed
Sunday when she was run over by an Israeli
bulldozer, witnesses and hospital
officials said. Eric
Mueller comments: Palestinians and Iraqis are
killed on a daily basis, many in
ways at least as gruesome as the
way this young American woman
perished. Nevertheless,
her death demonstrates with
poignance the fact that Arabs are
not the only victims of Zionist
crimes. Arabist Eric Mueller is
this website's expert on Middle
Eastern affairs. | Rachel Corrie, 23, a college
student from Olympia, Wash., had been
trying to stop the bulldozer from tearing
down a building in the Rafah refugee camp,
witnesses said. She was taken to Najar
hospital in Rafah, where she died, said
Dr. Ali Moussa, a hospital
administrator.Greg Schnabel, 28, of Chicago,
said the protesters were in the house of
Dr. Samir Masri. 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. "Rachel was alone in front of the house
as we were trying to get them to stop,"
Schnabel said. "She waved for the
bulldozer to stop and waved. She fell down
and the bulldozer kept going. We yelled,
'Stop, stop,' and the bulldozer didn't
stop at all. It had completely run over
her and then it reversed and ran back over
her." Witnesses said Corrie was wearing a
brightly colored jacket when the bulldozer
hit her. She had been a student at The
Evergreen State College in Olympia and
would have graduated this year, Schnabel
said. (more at bottom) The Israeli military and the U.S. State
Department had no immediate comment. Groups of international protesters have
gathered in several locations in the West
Bank and Gaza during two years of
Palestinian violence, setting themselves
up as "human shields" to try to stop
Israeli operations. Corrie was the first member of the
groups, called "International Solidarity
Movement" and backed by Palestinian
groups, to be killed in the conflict.
Several activists have been arrested in
clashes with Israeli forces, and some have
been deported by Israeli authorities. Schnabel said there were eight
protesters at the site in Rafah, four from
the United States and four from Great
Britain. "We stay with families whose
house is to be demolished," he told the
Associated Press by telephone after the
incident. Mansour
Abed Allah, 29, a Palestinian human
rights worker in Rafah, witnessed the
incident. He said the killing should be a
message to President Bush, who is
"providing Israel with tanks and
bulldozers, and now they killed one of his
own people." Israel sends tanks and bulldozers into
the area almost every day, destroying
buildings near the Gaza-Egypt border. The
Israelis say Palestinian gunmen use the
buildings as cover, and arms-smuggling
tunnels dug under the border terminate in
the buildings. According to interim peace accords,
Israel controls the border area, where
there are clashes almost daily between
Palestinian gunmen and Israeli
soldiers. -
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