Rachel Corrie was an associate of the pro-Palestinian group called the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). She was killed by an armored bulldozer of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in a combat zone in Rafah, in the southern area of the Gaza Strip, under disputed circumstances during the peak of the second Palestinian intifada.

She’d come to Gaza within her senior-year school homework and Rafah in a sister cities endeavor to join her home town. In accordance with the Israeli authorities the demolitions were performed to remove weapons smuggling tunnels.

Less than two months after her entrance, during an Israeli military operation, Corrie was killed on March 16, 2003 after a three- eight ISM activists and two bulldozers running.

The culpability of the bulldozer operator and the precise nature of her departure are contested, with fellow protestors of ISM, saying that Corrie was run over by the Israeli soldier operating the bulldozer intentionally, and she could not be seen by Israeli eyewitnesses saying that it was an injury since the bulldozer operator.

The Israeli military conducted an investigation, which concluded the driver of the bulldozer cannot see Corrie due to limited visibility from his cab, and the death was a collision. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International along with Yesh Din and also B’Tselem criticized the military investigation.

In 2005 a civil lawsuit filed . Israel charged with not running a credible and complete investigation and with responsibility for her departure, claiming the soldiers had acted with reckless disregard or that she’d either been deliberately killed. They sued in damages for a representational one US dollar.

In August 2012, an Israeli court upheld the results of the 2003 military investigation and rejected their suit, ruling the Israeli government had not been responsible for the death of Corrie. The opinion was met with criticism by some organizations of human rights including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, and by activists.

The security of the protestors was often endangered by these confrontations— shrapnel wounded a British participant while recovering a Palestinian man’s body killed by a sniper, and ISM activist that was Irish had a close encounter using an armored bulldozer.