In a breaking development, an Israeli court has granted the State’s request to move the testimony of former Brigade Commander Pinhas (Pinky) Zuaretz to next week, Wednesday, April 27, nearly one month prior to his originally scheduled appearance. A 5-page affidavit for the witness was only issued by the State on Sunday. Attorney Hussein Abu Hussein who represents the Corrie family initially opposed the State request and filed motion for reconsideration citing due process violations.
Colonel Zuaretz was the commanding officer of the Gaza Division’s Southern Brigade in 2003, when American peace activist Rachel Corrie was killed. Troops under Zuaretz command were responsible for the military’s actions resulting in Rachel’s killing in Rafah, Gaza that day. Zuaretz is the highest ranking officer called as a government witness in the civil trial, and possibly, the highest ranking Israeli military officer ever to face cross examination in a civil suit regarding the actions of the Israeli military against civilians in Gaza during the second intifada. His testimony is expected to shed light on the Israeli military’s failures as an occupying power to protect civilian life and property in the region.
WHO:
Oral testimony and cross examination of former Israeli Military Southern Brigade Commander, Colonel Pinhas (Pinky) Zuaretz, by plaintiffs’ attorney Hussein abu Hussein.
WHAT:
Corrie vs. State of Israel, Ministry of Defense; a civil case charging the Israeli military with the responsibility of killing Rachel Corrie in violation of Israeli and international law.
WHEN:
Wednesday, April 27, 2011, 12:00 (noon) – 16:00
WHERE:
Courtroom of Judge Oded Gershon, 6th floor, Haifa District Court, 12 Palyam St., Haifa, Israel.
The commander of the unit that killed Rachel is scheduled to testify. Known to the court as S.R., he oversaw the bulldozer work from an armored personnel carrier at the scene. While numerous military witnesses in the case have been permitted to testify behind a screen to protect their identity – a highly unusual security measure – S.R. is expected to do so in the open because his identity is already known to the public.
The civil trial began over a year ago in March 2010 with testimony from four of Rachel’s colleagues from the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), who witnessed her killing. In a second phase that began on September 5, the government presented nine witnesses who included the lead military police investigator in the case and the driver and commander of the bulldozer that struck and killed Rachel.
Trial Judge Oded Gershon granted the government’s motion to shield the identities of several witnesses, allowing them to testify behind a screen. The Corrie family argued that the highly unusual protective measures infringe upon their right to an open, fair and transparent trial, but their appeal to the Israeli Supreme Court has been denied.
“As we now witness young people in the Middle East protesting non-violently and struggling for their freedoms and human rights, this trial seems ever more relevant,” said Rachel’s mother, Cindy Corrie. “While our family continues to seek accountability from the Israeli Government for their response to Rachel’s nonviolent action, we insist that all governments and militaries respect the right of people to peaceably assemble and protest, that they respond nonviolently to such protests, and that they be accountable for their actions.”
The lawsuit charges that Rachel’s killing was intentional or, alternately, that the Israeli government was negligent for allowing Israeli soldiers and military commanders to act recklessly using an armored military bulldozer without due regard for the presence of unarmed, nonviolent civilians in Rafah. It also alleges that the Israeli military failed to take appropriate and necessary measures to protect Rachel’s life, in violation of obligations under Israeli and international law.
The government of Israel argues that Rachel’s killing took place in the course of armed conflict in a closed military zone and should be considered an “Act of War,” and “Act of State,” absolving the government and military of any responsibility.
On November 4, the final court date before a lengthy recess, the commander of the bulldozer that struck Rachel testified about the location of her body immediately following the incident. His version dramatically contradicted earlier testimony from the bulldozer driver, who sat next to him in the cab. The commander, who is charged with being a second set of eyes and directs the movement of the bulldozer, testified that Rachel’s body was beyond a large mound of earth. The D-9R driver testified that Rachel’s body was between the bulldozer and the mound of earth (corroborating testimony of Rachel’s ISM colleagues and, also, photographic evidence). When presented with the discrepancies between their statements, both soldiers stuck to their version of events. “He’s saying what he saw. I’m saying what I saw,” the bulldozer commander said.
“I find it beyond incompetence that the Military Advocate General closed this case with no further investigation,” said Craig Corrie, Rachel’s father, after the last session in November. “Did the investigators even try to reconcile conflicting testimony between their own soldiers? Stunning contradictions and revelations support the U.S. Government view and ours that there was no credible investigation in this case.”
The proceedings have been attended by representatives of the US Embassy and numerous local and international human rights organizations.
Trial hearings are currently scheduled for April 3 and 6 between the hours of 9:00-16:00 before Judge Oded Gershon at the Haifa, District Court, 12 Palyam St., Haifa, Israel. One or more additional trial sessions are anticipated.
When I come back from Palestine, I probably will have nightmares and constantly feel guilty for not being here, but I can channel that into more work. Coming here is one of the better things I’ve ever done.
As one of the biggest Iranian student movements has requested the naming of a street in Tehran after the American activist, one of the major Iranian papers published an 8 page special report about Rachel Corrie in its latest issue.
This report is entitled “The Nightmares of Bulldozers” from the part of Rachel’s letter on the 27th of February 2003 that has been published on the cover.
The next two pages are about introducing the activist movement through ISM (International Solidarity Movement). In this section Hamed Nematollahi, the editor of the weekly’s international section and this special report, emphasized that although the title of “activist” is heard in the news, there is little information about their exact function.
To clarify this he made an interview with Neta Golan, the Israeli co-founder of ISM, who answered questions about activism, the role and function of international and Israeli activists, their relation with media, Rachel Corrie and the judicial case, and their future projects.
“The Israeli judicial system is complex and bureaucratic but the family have been clear in saying that they are not only pursuing justice for Rachel but for all Palestinians who have been killed and injured by Israeli military forces who operate with impunity– they want to hold Israel accountable for its actions,” said Golan on the ongoing trial.
In a separate article, ISM is presented further.
The next two pages have a photostory of what happened to Rachel on the 16th of March 2003 and a brief biography of her with the title of “Born in USA, murdered for Palestine”.
The 7 year of judicial process and the lawsuit filed against Caterpillar is another subject discussed in this report.
A one page article is dedicated to introduce the Rachel Corrie Foundation and its projects and peace activities.
The last page with the title of “My Name Is Rachel Corrie,” from the name of the book and play, covers the different artistic tributes to her.
The 23-year-old American activist, Rachel Corrie, tried on March 16, 2003, in a district in the city of Rafah, to prevent the Israeli troops that wanted to flatten Palestinian houses, but the driver of the bulldozer crushed Rachel and killed her.
This was the second special report by Hamed Nematollahi about Palestine; the first was published on January 2010 on the occasion of the anniversary of the 22 days Gaza war.
Rachel’s family — her father, Craig, her mother, Cindy, and her sister, Sarah — has mostly been at the Haifa District Court, away from their Olympia, Wash., home, while fighting a civil case claiming the intentional and unlawful killing of their daughter.
HAIFA, Israel — Seven years after an American student, Rachel Corrie, was killed in Gaza by an Israeli military bulldozer she tried to block, becoming a global symbol of the Palestinian struggle, her parents and her older sister sit in an Israeli court in this northern city with two hopes: to confront the men who ran over her and to prove that the army investigation into her death was flawed.
On both counts, it has been a frustrating effort. To guard their identities, the bulldozer operators are called only by their initials and testify behind a screen, disembodied voices claiming vague memories. The Corrie lawyer presses them with props: “Mr. A,” he said to a commander this past Thursday, arranging a plastic toy bulldozer, an orange lump of putty and a Raggedy Ann doll, “Where was she when you saw her?”
Mr. A’s answer differed markedly from that of Mr. Y, the driver of the bulldozer who testified two weeks earlier, although both denied seeing her before she was crushed under their vehicle. The army said Ms. Corrie’s death was an accident. The Corries believe the drivers either saw Rachel or were so careless toward the protesters as to be criminally negligent.
On the blond wooden benches of the Haifa District Court, the Corries take notes, volunteer translators whispering in their ears. They have mostly been here, away from their Olympia, Wash., home, since their civil case claiming the intentional and unlawful killing of their daughter began in March and there is no end in sight, with sessions already planned for January. They are exhausted but unbent.
“If I killed someone, I would remember that day for the rest of my life,” Cindy Corrie, Ms. Corrie’s mother, said during a break, eyes tearing, voice shaking. “This is not just about Rachel, but something bigger. What happens to the humanity of soldiers?”
This is indeed about something bigger but just what has been debated since the instant of Ms. Corrie’s death. Books, plays, videos and even an aid ship to Gaza have been dedicated to her memory and spirit, her focus on human rights and the plight of the Palestinians. A student at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Ms. Corrie, then 23, joined the International Solidarity Movement, a pro-Palestinian activist group, in January 2003 and moved to Gaza to help prevent house demolitions in the southern border town of Rafah.
It was the height of the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising, against Israel, which at the time occupied Gaza. The Israelis say the houses in question were the source of sniper fire and arms-smuggling tunnels. Ms. Corrie, by contrast, wrote e-mails home saying that the families she met were gentle people whose houses had been shot at and whose children were harassed for no reason.
“The count of homes destroyed in Rafah since the beginning of this intifada is up around 600, by and large people with no connection to the resistance but who happen to live along the border,” she wrote in one e-mail on Feb. 27, 2003. “I think it is maybe official now that Rafah is the poorest place in the world.”
Rafah was never the poorest place in the world, but Ms. Corrie was writing as an incensed activist, not an economist. For many Israelis, however, the glorification of Ms. Corrie and her activism has amounted to an effort to portray Israel and its army as exceptionally brutal, part of a campaign to delegitimize the state and its security challenges.
The day that Ms. Corrie was killed, her fellow activists sent two photographs of her to news agencies that were then transmitted around the world. The first one showed her standing in an orange jacket with a bullhorn addressing an approaching bulldozer, and the second showed her crumpled on the ground, near death. The clear implication was that the two pictures were sequential, whereas the first was shot hours earlier with a different bulldozer.
The Israeli Army investigation found that the drivers of the bulldozer that killed her did not see Ms. Corrie because she was standing near a high mound of dirt as it approached. The drivers, it said, had limited lines of sight inside their heavily armored vehicle, and that by placing themselves in the bulldozer’s path as human shields, the eight activists bore primary responsibility.
But the Corries believe that the army carried out a lackluster investigation filled with internal contradictions and with insufficient care to what orders soldiers received when faced with civilians in their paths. That view, it turns out, was not only that of a grieving family. It won support from the United States government.
Lawrence B. Wilkerson, who was chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, wrote to the Corries in his official capacity in June 2004. He referred to their query whether the American government viewed the military’s final report “to have reflected an investigation that was ‘thorough, credible and transparent.’ I can answer your question without equivocation. No, we do not consider it so.”
Mr. Wilkerson recommended that the Corries pursue the matter in an Israeli court. An observer from the American Embassy in Tel Aviv has attended every session of the case.
Sarah Corrie Simpson, Ms. Corrie’s older sister, who is here with her mother and father, Craig, has taken a leading role in bringing attention to the case. Asked what she thought of how her sister was viewed, she said her family did not consider itself anti-Israel and was not responsible for the way in which Ms. Corrie’s name had been used by groups and causes.
To the contrary, she said, the family was using Israel’s court system to get its army to stand up to the standards it professes, a vote of confidence in the society.
“I don’t see this as about Israel’s legitimacy,” she said in an interview. “My family is not anti-Israel. What Rachel saw when she went to Gaza was extremely troubling and because of what happened to her we are now connected to the Palestinian issue. But Israeli peace activists shared her concern and are helping us with our case. From our family’s perspective, this is about human rights for all people and holding governments accountable.”
Cindy Corrie added, “An Israeli colonel said at this trial that there are no civilians in a war zone. But there are. If that hadn’t been the army’s attitude, maybe my daughter would still be with us.”
Caterpillar, the company which supplies the IDF with bulldozers, has announced that it is delaying the supply of D9 bulldozers during the time that the trial of Rachel Corrie proceeds, Channel 2 reported on Monday.
The company does not usually manufacture a military version of the D9 but it has many features that make desirable for military applications and the IDF has used them extensively for operations.
Rachel Corrie was a US activist who was killed in Gaza seven years ago by a bulldozer driver who struck and killed her. Her family charged that the IDF and its officers had acted recklessly, using an armored Caterpillar D9R bulldozer without regard to the presence in the area of unarmed and nonviolent civilians.
