- GAZA CITY (AFP) - A US peace
activist was crushed to death by an Israeli army bulldozer in southern
Gaza on Sunday as she and other activists tried to prevent the destruction
of Palestinian homes, Palestinian officials and a US witness said.
-
- Rachel Corrie, 23, of Washington DC, died when a military
bulldozer ran over her in the town of Rafah, said Rafah hospital's chief
doctor Ali Mussa and another US activist who witnessed the incident.
-
- "She was sitting in the path of the bulldozer. The
bulldozer saw her and ran over her. She ended up completely underneath
it," fellow activist Joseph Smith told AFP.
-
- "He absolutely knew she was there," added Smith,
a 20-year-old student from Missouri.
-
- The peace activists from the International Solidarity
Movement were blocking the paths of two bulldozers and an Israeli tank
tearing down Palestinian buildings in Rafah, which sits on the Gaza Strip's
Israeli-controlled border with Egypt.
-
- Smith said the group had been active for around an hour,
standing on condemned structures and putting themselves in the paths of
the bulldozers, one of which had already pushed an activist against a line
of barbed wire.
-
- The army had no immediate comment on Corrie's death.
-
- Mussa said she had died of injuries to her head and legs.
-
- Palestinian officials said the Israeli bulldozers had
destroyed two houses before the young woman's death.
-
- Israel forces make frequent incursions from their border
positions into Rafah, a sprawling autonomous town with a large refugee
population. Dozens of Palestinians and several Israeli soldiers have been
killed in the sector.
-
- Tanks and bulldozers are sent to destroy houses used
by militants to fire on Israeli positions and that are also used as a cover
for smugglers moving weapons through tunnels under the Egyptian border,
the army says.
|
