After Gaza death, activists resolute
Nicole Gaouette,The Christian Science Monitor, March 18, 2003

American Rachel Corrie was killed Sunday in Gaza when an Israeli army bulldozer ran over her.

JERUSALEM: The death of peace activist Rachel Corrie has done little to still violence in the Gaza Strip. An Israeli army raid into a Gaza shantytown early Monday left seven Palestinians dead, including the Islamic Jihad militant the troops were pursuing and a four-year-old girl.

Coming on the heels of Ms. Corrie's death Sunday, the battle and army seizure of land in the northern Gaza Strip underscores the question many activists had been asking themselves in the hours after the young American was killed: What next?

The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) works in small teams with each member assigned a specific task. One person always photographs an event, and the pictures of Rachel's encounter with the bulldozer show a slim, tall young woman holding a megaphone as she stands in front of the massive machine. She is wearing a neon-orange vest with Day-Glo striping and is clearly visible.

Witnesses say Corrie was standing in front of a house set for demolition and shouting as the bulldozer approached her.

"Rachel was alone in front of the house as we were trying to get them to stop," Greg Schnabel, a fellow protester from Chicago, told the Associated Press.

"She waved for the bulldozer to stop. 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."

Mr. Delano took part in a few ISM "actions" with Corrie in Rafah and says he felt threatened by army bulldozers.

"The situation was always fluid, and the army doesn't live by regular rules," he says of his experiences. "The bulldozer [driver's] tactic is just to keep coming and hope that people get out of the way. One situation I was in was very dangerous - the bulldozer just kept coming, and it was three or four feet away and there was a wall behind us. I was completely shocked that the driver would act the way he did. It was insane." [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 10:00 pm