Rachel Corrie was killed on March 16, 2003 in Rafah, Gaza while she was trying to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian house. She was a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement, a group of international and Palestinian activists that uses nonviolent and direct-action methods to challenge Israeli occupation. Rachel Corrie was from Olympia , Washington , where she had been involved in numerous progressive movements, including the environmental and labor movements, before coming to the Occupied Territories early in 2003.

Her parents, Cindy and Craig Corrie, met friends of their daughter's in Gaza and also visited the place at which she was killed. On their first night in Gaza , they were briefly threatened by an armored personal carrier and a bulldozer near the site of Rachel's death. They witnessed the ongoing violence of the occupation when they returned to a house at which they had eaten lunch the day before to find that a wall of their hosts' home, as well as their garden, had been destroyed by Israeli forces. Speaking at a press conference in Jerusalem on September 29, they expressed their happiness in learning that "in her adopted city of Rafah , as in her home town of Olympia , Rachel was always expected just around the corner, with her bright smile, her friendly concern, and usually a small band of children."

On the closures and land confiscations in the West Bank, Cindy and Craig Corrie commented, "we witnessed the strategy of separation taking physical form in the web of fences, walls, identification cards, and checkpoints that separate not only Palestinians from Israelis, but Palestinians from Palestinians, farmers from their fields, children from their classrooms, workers from their jobs, the sick from their healthcare, the elderly from the grandchildren, municipalities from their water supplies, and ultimately, a people from their land."

Before her death, their daughter also wrote powerfully about the occupation and Palestinians' ability to cope with it in her emails. After about a month in the Occupied Territories, she wrote to her mother, " When that explosive detonated yesterday, it broke all the windows in the family's house. I was in the process of being served tea and playing with the two small babies. I'm having a hard time right now. Just feel sick to my stomach a lot from being doted on all the time, very sweetly, by people who are facing doom. I know that from the United States , it all sounds like hyperbole. Honestly, a lot of the time the sheer kindness of the people here, coupled with the overwhelming evidence of the willful destruction of their lives, makes it seem unreal to me. I really can't believe that something like this can happen in the world without a bigger outcry about it."

Rachel's parents also spoke about the official Israeli and American reaction to daughter's killing. The Corries read the Israeli military report about the incident, which exonerated all Israelis involved, but they were not allowed to receive a copy of it. They found the report one-sided and riddled with inconsistencies. For example, they said, the report claimed that the bulldozer operator who ran her over did not see her, but in another passage it claimed that Rachel's autopsy concluded that she had died from tripping on debris - an implausible assertion given her many broken bones. Craig Corrie also drew on his own experience in the Vietnam War to point out that the bulldozer operator and the commander were responsible for seeing what they were doing, whether or not they actually did see Rachel.

They also expressed their frustration that the United States government had not made a strong public statement against Rachel's killing, noting that such official protest might have prevented the shootings of two other ISM activists, Brian Avery and Thomas Hurndall. American Brian Avery, 24, was shot in the face on April 5, 2003 in Jenin, and is enduring a long process of recovery. Thomas Hurndall, 21, was shot in the head by Israeli troops on April 11, 2003 in Gaza , and has been declared brain dead.

Further broadening the question of responsibility for their daughter's death, Cindy Corrie commented that "there's ownership for all of us. My tax dollars went to pay for the bulldozer that ran over my daughter, and before that happened I was not protesting. So we all have some role in what goes on here and we all have to acknowledge that. But after that acknowledgement, then we have to find forgiveness in some fashion, and forgiveness doesn't mean that it's all right, it's just a way of bringing healing.  "Finally, they called attention to the fact that most people killed because of the Israeli occupation do not receive the kind of attention that their daughter has. They expressed hope that a full investigation into Israeli actions in this incident will help to "enforce standards of humanity" upon the Israeli government.

http://www.amin.org/eng/uncat/2003/sept/sept30.html