A key witness testifying in the suit charging Israel with bulldozing to death activist Rachel Corrie in 2003 said in court Sunday it was an accident and that the young woman was either very ideological or simply “stupid.”
Retired Colonel Pinchas Zuaretz, who was a brigade commander in Gaza, told the judge in Haifa that the IDF operated correctly. "She was killed in an accident caused by her own negligence," he said. "Anyone who runs toward the fire either has very deep ideology or is stupid."
Corrie was a member of the anti-Israel International Solidarity Movement and was killed during a demonstration against the demolition of a building used by terrorists to shoot at soldiers. A pro-Hamas flotilla boat was named after her.
Her family and ISM activists sued, based on the claim that the IDF deliberately killed her. Subsequent footage released by the IDF showed that Corrie was in a trench, out of the line of vision of the driver of the bulldozer. Zuaretz added that a pile of rubble hid her from view and that she actually was killed not by the bulldozer but by a concrete pillar that was struck by the machine and which fell on her.
ISM witnesses have said that the driver saw her but continued moving towards her.
Corrie’s parents, Craig and Cindy, are suing out of principle, demanding one dollar plus court costs. They said they did not accept the military investigation that ruled that their daughter’s death was accidental.
Cindy Corrie said that the trial has brought out inconsistencies in the IDF investigation, adding that "the two people inside the bulldozer disagree about where her body was placed after the incident happened.”
The hearings on the case have concluded with Zuaretz’s testimony, but a verdict is not expected until next April.
