Donald Macintyre, The Independent

The final moments of Rachel Corrie, the American peace activist crushed to death beneath a pile of earth and rubble in the path of an advancing Israeli army bulldozer, were described to an Israeli court by an eyewitness yesterday.

The parents of the 23-year-old, who was killed by the bulldozer in March 2003, were present to hear the harrowing account on the first day of hearings in a civil lawsuit they have brought against the state of Israel. The country has never acknowledged culpability over Ms Corrie’s death.

Richard Purssell, a British activist with the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement (ISM), said he watched in horror as Ms Corrie was dragged four metres by the bulldozer moving forward at a “fast walking pace”.

He told how her fluorescent orange jacket became invisible beneath a pile of earth churned up by the blade of the 56-tonne D9 Caterpillar machine. Mr Purssell explained that he and two other ISM volunteers had been summoned from the Rafah neighbourhood of Tel Sultan earlier in the day to help five activists prevent bulldozers from carrying out what they feared would be the demolition of Palestinian homes. The five, including Ms Corrie, were in the suburb of Hai Salaam, close to the border with Egypt.

Rory McCarthy, The Guardian

Richard Purssell describes ’shocking event’ in Haifa court on first day of civil suit brought by Corrie family against Israel

A British witness told a court today about how he had watched an Israeli military bulldozer run over and kill the American activist Rachel Corrie while she was trying to stop Palestinians’ homes being demolished in Gaza.

Richard Purssell, who was also a volunteer activist in Rafah at the time, seven years ago, described the “shocking and dramatic event” in an Israeli court in Haifa on the first day of a civil suit brought by Corrie’s family against the Israeli state.

Twenty-three-year-old Corrie, from Olympia, Washington, in the US, went to Gaza for peace activism reasons at a time when there was intense conflict between the Israeli military and the Palestinians.

The Corrie family lawyer, Hussein Abu Hussein, said he would argue that her death was due either to gross negligence by the Israeli military or that it was intended. If the Israeli state were found responsible, the family would press for damages.

Purssell, a Briton, now working as a landscape gardener, said he volunteered with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) to witness events in the occupied Palestinian territories for himself. In Rafah he had been hoping to prevent the Israeli military from demolishing Palestinian homes. The organisation was strictly non violent, he said. “Our role was to support Palestinian non-violent resistance.”