Akiva Eldar, Ha’aretz

This is Sarah Corrie Simpson’s first visit to Israel. Her younger sister, Rachel Corrie, was killed by an Israel Defense Forces bulldozer in Gaza in 2003, at the age of 23. Now, the family is suing the state in the Haifa District Court.

“I’m glad the day is finally here, that the eyewitnesses are having a chance to talk in a court of law,” she said in an interview with Haaretz yesterday. “It’s been seven long years.”

The witnesses, who include Rachel’s colleagues in the left-wing International Solidarity Movement, say Rachel climbed atop a mount of dirt to be sure the driver could see her, Simpson said. When he nevertheless kept coming at her, she tried to flee, but tripped and fell. “The bulldozer driver kept driving with the blade down, pushing the dirt over Rachel, and stopped when her body was under the cab.”

“My father served in the military in Vietnam and was responsible for bulldozer operations,” Simpson added. “He said there is no way that what happened to Rachel would have happened on his watch.”

She rejects the IDF’s claim that the area was an active combat zone. The witnesses claim no shots were being fired, she said, so the army could have stopped the operation and removed the demonstrators. But in any case, she added, international law requires soldiers to try to protect civilians even in a war zone.

Akiva Eldar, Ha’aretz

Vice President Joe Biden / Courtesy The White House

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, who arrived in Israel yesterday, didn’t look for camels among the cars on the road from Ben-Gurion International Airport to Jerusalem. In a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing held two years ago for the United States Ambassador to Israel, James Cunningham, Biden heard that the Israelis even know how to ride bulldozers.

Then a senator from Delaware, who chaired the committee, Biden asked for a detailed report on the affair of American peace activist Rachel Corrie, who was run over and killed by the treads of an Israeli bulldozer.

If Biden schedules a meeting with Corrie’s parents here, the Israeli Information and Diaspora Ministry will have to work overtime. The parents, who arrived in advance of the scheduled deliberations on their suit against the state of Israel, will tell him that his hosts are continuing to deny any responsibility for their daughter’s death.

Rachel was a 23-year-old student run over by a 64-ton bulldozer in March, 2003, when she and others from the International Solidarity Movement tried to use their bodies to stop the demolition of a house in Rafah.

At the Senate hearing, Cunningham spoke about the Israel authorities’ refusal to open a thorough investigation into the affair and not rest content with an internal report.

Akiva Eldar, Haaretz

February 23, 2010

Under pressure from the United States, Israel is to grant visas to four activists from the International Solidarity Movement so they can testify in suit brought against the government by the family of Rachel Corrie, an activist killed by an IDF bulldozer in the Gaza Strip in March 2003.

Corrie, a U.S. citizen, was 24 when she was struck and killed by a bulldozer as she and others tried to stop Israel razing homes in Rafah by using their bodies as human shields.

The Interior Ministry informed the family’s attorney, Hussein Abu Hussein, that the British and American witnesses, including a peace activist expelled from Israel in the past, would be allowed entry into to testify in the civil suit agisnt the Defense Ministry.

The case is due to open the Haifa District Court in two weeks.

However, the Defense Ministry blocked the family’s request to allow Dr. Ahmed Abu Nakira from the Al-Najar Hospital in Rafah, who treated Corrie’s injuries and later confirmed her death, to enter Israel.

A request by Abu Hussein to question the physician via video conference was also rejected because “it is difficult to identify the witness and present him with documents”.

Ahead of the court deliberations the Corrie family contacted Assistant U.S. Secretary of State for Human Rights Michael Posner, who visited Israel several weeks ago in connection with the Goldstone Report on Operation Cast Lead.

Akiva Eldar, Haaretz

The Obama administration is pressuring the Israeli authorities to allow four activists of the International Solidarity Movement from the U.S. and Britain to enter the country so they can testify in the civil suit brought against the Defense Ministry by the family of Rachel Corrie, an activist killed by an IDF bulldozer in the Gaza Strip in March 2003.

Corrie, a U.S. citizen, was 24 when she was struck and killed by the bulldozer as she and others tried to stop the razing of homes in Rafah by using their bodies as human shields.

The Interior Ministry informed the family’s attorney, Hussein Abu Hussein, that the witnesses, including a peace activist expelled from Israel in the past, would be allowed entry into the country so they can testify during deliberations scheduled at the Haifa District Court in two weeks. However, the Defense Ministry rejected he family’s request to allow Dr. Ahmed Abu Nakira from the Al-Najar Hospital in Rafah, and who treated Corrie’s injuries and later confirmed her death, to enter Israel.

A request by Abu Hussein to question the physician via video conference was also rejected because “it is difficult to identify the witness and present him with documents.”

Ahead of the court deliberations the Corrie family contacted Assistant U.S. Secretary of State for Human Rights Michael Posner, who visited Israel several weeks ago in connection with the Goldstone Report on Operation Cast Lead.