The Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH) strongly condemns Israel’s killing of US peace activist Rachel Corrie in the southern part of the Gaza Strip on Sunday.

Rachel Corrie, a 23-year old US citizen from Olympia, Washington, was attempting to prevent an Israeli army bulldozer from demolishing a Palestinian home in Al-Salam neighbourhood in the southern Gaza Strip. Eyewitnesses said that the Israeli army bulldozer ran over Rachel Corrie and covered her with sand, thereby crushing her chest and skull.

Like many foreign peace activist in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip who have exhibited an unwavering commitment to uphold the rights of the Palestinian people over the past two years, Rachel had placed her own life in danger in a most powerful expression of solidarity with the Palestinian people and protest against Israel’s illegal occupation and human rights violations.

Israel’s demolition of Palestinian homes in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip continues to be one of the harshest Israeli occupation policies against the Palestinian people, and a grave human rights violation. Since June 1967, Israel has demolished more than 6000 Palestinian homes in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and more than 2,500 in occupied east Jerusalem. It is estimated that, since the first Intifada of 1987, Israel has made more than 16,000 Palestinians completely homeless.

It is for such reasons that people like Rachel feel compelled to risk their lives in order to provide protection to the Palestinians.

The Israeli government must be held accountable for its killing of Rachel Corrie, and for the killing of all innocent civilians, Palestinians and non-Palestinians. The Israeli military institution must not be allowed to behave as an entity above the law, and must be held responsible for its illegal actions in the Palestinian territories.

MIFTAH urges the international community to clearly condemn Israel’s killing of innocent lives, and calls upon the representatives of the international community in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories to take immediate action in collectively voicing their protest against Israel’s brutal military measures in the Palestinian territories.

On 3/16/2003 an American woman in Gaza protesting the occupation was murdered after being run over by an Israeli bulldozer. Witnesses said Rachel Corey, from the state of Washington, was trying to stop a bulldozer from tearing down a building in Rafah, Palestine. A witness,Greg Schnabel, 28, from Chicago, said: "[Rachel Corey] 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."

CFL calls on all peace groups in the United States and around the world to contact congress and tell them that they must condemn this action and call for an investigation of Israeli policies in the occupied territories.

Date sent: Mon, 17 Mar 2003
From: ISM Rafah ismrafah@yahoo.co.uk
Subject: Statement from Rachel Corrie's parents

March 16, 2003

We are now in a period of grieving and still finding out the details behind the death of Rachel in the Gaza Strip.

We have raised all our children to appreciate the beauty of the global community and family and are proud that Rachel was able to live her convictions. Rachel was filled with love and a sense of duty to her fellow man, wherever they lived. And, she gave her life trying to protect those that are unable to protect themselves.

Rachel wrote to us from the Gaza Strip and we would like to release to the media her experience in her own words at this time.

Thank you.
Craig and Cindy Corrie,
parents of Rachel Corrie

Excerpts from an e-mail from Rachel on February 7, 2003.

I have been in Palestine for two weeks and one hour now, and I still have very few words to describe what I see. It is most difficult for me to think about what's going on here when I sit down to write back to the United States--something about the virtual portal into luxury. I don't know if many of the children here have ever existed without tank-shell holes in their walls and the towers of an occupying army surveying them constantly from the near horizons. I think, although I'm not entirely sure, that even the smallest of these children understand that life is not like this everywhere. An eight-year-old was shot and killed by an Israeli tank two days before I got here, and many of the children murmur his name to me, “Ali”--or point at the posters of him on the walls. The children also love to get me to practice my limited Arabic by asking me "Kaif Sharon?" "Kaif Bush?" and they laugh when I say "Bush Majnoon" "Sharon Majnoon" back in my limited Arabic. (How is Sharon? How is Bush? Bush is crazy. Sharon is crazy.) Of course this isn't quite what I believe, and some of the adults who have the English correct me: Bush mish Majnoon... Bush is a businessman. Today I tried to learn to say "Bush is a tool", but I don't think it translated quite right. But anyway, there are eight-year-olds here much more aware of the workings of the global power structure than I was just a few years ago--at least regarding Israel.

Nevertheless, I think about the fact that no amount of reading, attendance at conferences, documentary viewing and word of mouth could have prepared me for the reality of the situation here. You just can't imagine it unless you see it, and even then you are always well aware that your experience is not at all the reality: what with the difficulties the Israeli Army would face if they shot an unarmed US citizen, and with the fact that I have money to buy water when the army destroys wells, and, of course, the fact that I have the option of leaving. Nobody in my family has been shot, driving in their car, by a rocket launcher from a tower at the end of a major street in my hometown. I have a home. I am allowed to go see the ocean. Ostensibly it is still quite difficult for me to be held for months or years on end without a trial (this because I am a white US citizen, as opposed to so many others). When I leave for school or work I can be relatively certain that there will not be a heavily armed soldier waiting half way between Mud Bay and downtown Olympia at a checkpoint—a soldier with the power to decide whether I can go about my business, and whether I can get home again when I'm done. So, if I feel outrage at arriving and entering briefly and incompletely into the world in which these children exist, I wonder conversely about how it would be for them to arrive in my world.

They know that children in the United States don't usually have their parents shot and they know they sometimes get to see the ocean. But once you have seen the ocean and lived in a silent place, where water is taken for granted and not stolen in the night by bulldozers, and once you have spent an evening when you haven’t wondered if the walls of your home might suddenly fall inward waking you from your sleep, and once you’ve met people who have never lost anyone-- once you have experienced the reality of a world that isn't surrounded by murderous towers, tanks, armed "settlements" and now a giant metal wall, I wonder if you can forgive the world for all the years of your childhood spent existing--just existing--in resistance to the constant stranglehold of the world’s fourth largest military--backed by the world’s only superpower--in it’s attempt to erase you from your home. That is something I wonder about these children. I wonder what would happen if they really knew.

As an afterthought to all this rambling, I am in Rafah, a city of about 140,000 people, approximately 60 percent of whom are refugees--many of whom are twice or three times refugees. Rafah existed prior to 1948, but most of the people here are themselves or are descendants of people who were relocated here from their homes in historic Palestine--now Israel. Rafah was split in half when the Sinai returned to Egypt. Currently, the Israeli army is building a fourteen-meter-high wall between Rafah in Palestine and the border, carving a no-mans land from the houses along the border. Six hundred and two homes have been completely bulldozed according to the Rafah Popular Refugee Committee. The number of homes that have been partially destroyed is greater.

Today as I walked on top of the rubble where homes once stood, Egyptian soldiers called to me from the other side of the border, "Go! Go!" because a tank was coming. Followed by waving and "what's your name?". There is something disturbing about this friendly curiosity. It reminded me of how much, to some degree, we are all kids curious about other kids: Egyptian kids shouting at strange women wandering into the path of tanks. Palestinian kids shot from the tanks when they peak out from behind walls to see what's going on. International kids standing in front of tanks with banners. Israeli kids in the tanks anonymously, occasionally shouting-- and also occasionally waving-- many forced to be here, many just aggressive, shooting into the houses as we wander away.

In addition to the constant presence of tanks along the border and in the western region between Rafah and settlements along the coast, there are more IDF towers here than I can count--along the horizon,at the end of streets. Some just army green metal. Others these strange spiral staircases draped in some kind of netting to make the activity within anonymous. Some hidden,just beneath the horizon of buildings. A new one went up the other day in the time it took us to do laundry and to cross town twice to hang banners. Despite the fact that some of the areas nearest the border are the original Rafah with families who have lived on this land for at least a century, only the 1948 camps in the center of the city are Palestinian controlled areas under Oslo. But as far as I can tell, there are few if any places that are not within the sights of some tower or another. Certainly there is no place invulnerable to apache helicopters or to the cameras of invisible drones we hear buzzing over the city for hours at a time.

I've been having trouble accessing news about the outside world here, but I hear an escalation of war on Iraq is inevitable. There is a great deal of concern here about the "reoccupation of Gaza." Gaza is reoccupied every day to various extents, but I think the fear is that the tanks will enter all the streets and remain here, instead of entering some of the streets and then withdrawing after some hours or days to observe and shoot from the edges of the communities. If people aren't already thinking about the consequences of this war for the people of the entire region then I hope they will start.

I also hope you'll come here. We've been wavering between five and six internationals. The neighborhoods that have asked us for some form of presence are Yibna, Tel El Sultan, Hi Salam, Brazil, Block J, Zorob, and Block O. There is also need for constant night-time presence at a well on the outskirts of Rafah since the Israeli army destroyed the two largest wells. According to the municipal water office the wells destroyed last week provided half of Rafah’s water supply. Many of the communities have requested internationals to be present at night to attempt to shield houses from further demolition. After about ten p.m. it is very difficult to move at night because the Israeli army treats anyone in the streets as resistance and shoots at them. So clearly we are too few.

I continue to believe that my home, Olympia, could gain a lot and offer a lot by deciding to make a commitment to Rafah in the form of a sister- community relationship. Some teachers and children's groups have expressed interest in e-mail exchanges, but this is only the tip of the iceberg of solidarity work that might be done. Many people want their voices to be heard, and I think we need to use some of our privilege as internationals to get those voices heard directly in the US, rather than through the filter of well-meaning internationals such as myself. I am just beginning to learn, from what I expect to be a very intense tutelage, about the ability of people to organize against all odds, and to resist against all odds.

Rachel Corrie

Celebration Festive excitement made it to the tiny West Bank village of Jifna when Santa Claus - and a traveling Christmas puppet show - visited the local Catholic school. The BBC News website joined the community as it celebrated what some say is the best Christmas since 2000, when the Palestinian uprising, or intifada, began.

Restrictions Jifna is a village of about 1,200 people. With Palestinian Christians making up an estimated three quarters of its population, it is one of the few places in the overwhelmingly Muslim West Bank to have a Christian majority. Although Jifna has never experienced the level of violence seen in other parts of the West Bank, its residents suffer from travel restrictions and economic hardship. They live near the city of Ramallah, which has seen some heavy fighting.

Excitement The Christmas performance began with blaring dance music and disco lights. Imad Atallah (right) from the Operation Palestinian Children and Youth (OPCY) team says that, despite long days travelling around the West Bank, he never gets jaded because of the excitement that greets them. "Each time is like the first," he says.

Festive spirit "During the intifada, there was no Christmas," says youth worker Khader Anton Abu Khalil (left). "Christmas to the children is gifts, outings, Santa and getting chocolate and money, but people were unemployed and everything was closed. "Now, if you look at the faces, they're all laughing. They feel it is Christmas."

Learning traditions The mischievous puppet boy Marwan (right) is one of the team's favorite characters. He is convinced Christmas is a celebration of Santa Claus' birthday, but learns about Jesus' birth from Santa when he finds him to sing Happy Birthday. The aim is to educate Palestinian Christian children about their religious tradition. In this area it becomes a cultural label from birth.

Clowning about Although the Christmas program is for Palestinian Christians, much of the team's work is among Muslims. Many West Bank Palestinians say Christians and Muslims live "like brothers". However, team leader Diana Saman says she has visited villages where children have never met Christians. "The fact that they see us... that breaks a lot of barriers," she says.

New experience The children were soon dancing along to the team's songs. Ms Saman says some younger West Bank children are initially scared by the puppets because there is so little children's entertainment available. In one place, when they tried to do actions to music the children "just froze". "They had never had anything like this before," she says.

Nativity joy No child's Christmas is complete without a nativity and there was great enthusiasm among the girls when brightly colored angel wings were provided. Mary, clad in a Muslim-style headscarf, did a sterling job with a cardboard box for a manger. This is despite the plastic baby Jesus' head being barely attached to his body.

Confrontations Politics is never far away here. These boys' first reaction to the camera was to pose with their Palestinian scarves. Youth worker Mr. Abu Khalil says that although the worst days of the intifada are behind them, there are still confrontations between Israeli soldiers and stone-throwing youths, often close to the school playground. "The younger children get terrified," he says.

Aggression "Of course the intifada has affected the children's behavior," says Mr. Abu Khalil. "The most common game is 'soldiers and Arabs' where they hold sticks as guns and throw stones. "Even small kids, when they see a jeep coming, hold stones to protect themselves. "The children are aggressive with each other. Most of this generation is aggressive."

Mother's hope Jifna mother Mary Salameh says that although things are better, Israeli travel restrictions mean there are still few places she can take her children aged 10, 12 and 15. "We hope to see Bethlehem," she says. "I've never been able to take them there." This is despite Jesus' birthplace being physically only about 90 minutes drive away.

Gifts for Christmas Finally, amid much good-natured commotion, Santa Claus appeared. He distributed packs containing practical items such as towels and toothbrushes, together with sweets and a video CD of Christmas cartoons. One boy brandished a sponge, giggling, as he walked away with friends into the early evening darkness.

Word and pictures by the BBC's Heather Sharp.