- Early this week four Israeli jeeps, 16 tanks and two
bulldozers invaded the highly populated area in the Al-Salam neighborhood
in the city of Rafah, along the Egyptian border of the Gaza Strip, an area
constantly under continuous firing.
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- They headed straight towards Dr. Samir Nasrallah's home,
the very house Rachel Corrie died in front of a year ago while trying to
prevent its destruction. Corrie was the 23-year-old American peace activist
from Olympia, USA, killed by an Israeli army bulldozer which ran over her
while nonviolently trying to prevent the demolition of yet another Palestinian
house in the city of Rafah. Corrie and other pro-Palestinian activists
based in Rafah had frequently spent the night in Nasrallah's house, acting
as human shields against the Israeli tanks and bulldozers clearing a security
zone around the border.
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- For a while Nasrallah's abode had stood alone in a sea
of sand and debris. Almost every other structure in the area has been knocked
down in recent months.
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- Dr. Nasrallah, a Palestinian pharmacist, lived in the
house with his wife and children. " When I returned to the site of
my house I was in shock: they not only demolished the house, but all the
rubble and dust were totally removed and gone.". In this operation
also some trees were uprooted and the surrounding landscape was totally
razed.
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- Locals are convinced that this targeted demolition took
place as one more attempt to erase the memory of crucial events that took
place in the area and to cover the crime of the assassination of Rachel
Corrie, since the place used to attract many journalists and members of
various solidarity groups and activists, who would visit the place and
gather with the family.
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- http://www.palestinemonitor.org/updates/erase_memory_rachel_corrie.htm
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