The Haifa District Court announced on Sunday that it will give a verdict in
August in a civil suit filed by the family of Rachel Corrie, the American pro-
Palestinian activist struck and killed by a bulldozer in Gaza.
Corrie,
23, from Olympia, Washington, died in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on
March 16, 2003, when a bulldozer struck her during a protest by pro-Palestinian
group the International Solidarity Movement.
Corrie’s family filed the
civil suit against the Defense Ministry in the district court five years ago.
They claim that the IDF either deliberately killed Corrie or is at least guilty
of gross negligence.
The state maintains that it bears no responsibility
for Corrie’s death and that she should not have been in a war zone. IDF
officials also say that the bulldozer operator who struck Corrie did not see
her.
Judge Oded Gershon will read the verdict in the Haifa District Court
at 9 a.m. on August 28.
The court was expected to give its verdict last
month, but that was postponed as a result of delays in filing closing
arguments.
Senior IDF officials including Col. Pinhas Zuaretz, the
former commander of the Gaza Division’s Southern Brigade, have testified in the
trial.
Immediately after the trial ended in July, Corrie’s family alleged
that important evidence, including several surveillance tapes from the time
Corrie died, were withheld as part of a coverup over the circumstances of her
death.
Among the evidence the family claims has been withheld from the
civil suit are surveillance tapes that show color footage of events before and
after Corrie’s death.
The color footage was used in a Channel 2
documentary, but the IDF has denied that the color footage exists, the family
claims.
IDF officials did submit as evidence a black and white
surveillance video with footage from immediately before and after Corrie’s
death.
The family also claims there are discrepancies between a
photograph of the bulldozer that they say killed Corrie taken by International
Solidarity Movement activists, and a bulldozer shown on footage presented by the
IDF.
They also allege that a surveillance camera in the area where Corrie
was killed was turned to face away from the scene five minutes before she
died.
The Defense Ministry has dismissed as baseless the Corrie family’s
claims, saying that the state has transferred all evidence to the plaintiffs and
no additional evidence exists.