Informant38

The Israeli air force launched a missile yesterday afternoon into a residential neighborhood in the north of Gaza City, killing five Palestinians. Two of those killed were the targets of the attack, and were suspected by Israel of firing Qassam rockets at Israeli towns. Three bystanders, all of them minors, were also killed in the attack: brothers Ra'id (age 8) and Mahmoud (age 15) Al-Batash; and Ahmad a-Sweisi (age 14). Nine other bystanders were wounded, one of them critically.

B'Tselem 07.Mar.06
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...the soldier asked me where our weapons were, and why we drove the car up to the gate and then drove away. I told him that we did that because the gate was closed and that we decided to park the car next to our friends' house. Before I finished what I wanted to say, he punched me three times in the face and asked, "Where are the weapons? Where are the weapons?" He kicked me in my right leg, and hit me in the stomach with the butt of his rifle. I screamed.
The soldier told me to pick a rock up from the ground. I picked up a small stone. He told me to pick up a big rock. I picked up a big rock, about the size of a fist. The soldier told me to hit him with it. I didn't do what he said. I didn't know what to do. If I weren't in such pain from the beating, I would have laughed. The soldier told me to put the stone in my mouth. I refused.

B'Tselem Feb.06
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MEMORANDUM
March 8, 2005

To:
Members of Congress, State Department Officials
From:
The Family of Rachel Corrie
Subject:
Department of State's 2004 Human Rights Report Listing for Rachel Corrie

On February 28, 2005, the Department of State submitted to Congress its 2004 Human Rights Report entitled "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices."
The report included reference to the killing of our family member, Rachel Corrie. Members of Congress, as well as our family, indicated in testimony and in written statements to the Department that concerns existed regarding the Department's reference to Rachel in the 2003 Human Rights Report.
Therefore, we find it disturbing that the 2004 Human Rights Report continues to publicly perpetuate inaccuracies regarding Rachel's killing and the Department's own statements regarding the credibility of the Israeli investigation into the incident.
We respectfully request that the following concerns be addressed with the Department of State and members of Congress, that the report's inaccuracies be changed, and that the Department as well as all Government officials work to ensure accurate reporting of the killing in all official correspondence, reports, and documentation.

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Rachel Corrie died defending the home of a Palestinian family who she knew well - Palestinian pharmacist, Khaled, Nasrallah, his wife and children. There was no tunnel in the Nasrallah home, and the Israeli army never asserted that there was a tunnel in the Nasrallah home. Nonetheless, the Nasrallah home, like thousands of others, was eventually demolished by the Israeli army. The international organizations Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International (LINK, LINK), and the respected Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem ( http://www.btselem.org/English/Razing/) have all documented that homes in Rafah were bulldozed as part of an Israeli government policy of systematically demolishing entire Palestinian neighborhoods, irregardless of any relationship to arms smuggling, in clear violation of international law.

ISM/ScoopNZ 09.Mar.06
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We have our holocaust deniers too; among them those who would deny what was done to Rachel Corrie out of their mistaken belief that allegiance to Judaism means that the State of Israel can do no wrong and that any and every blemish on its history must be whitewashed. Among the stakes in the current controversy: the possibility of making memory what the Holocaust has taught us it must be - an act of mourning in which facing the truth is the agent of genuine change. That possibility too must be banished from our stages. And apparently from our movie houses as in the current campaign against the Palestinian film Paradise Now, a film fraught with doubt and anguish that in no way condones terrorism.

Walter A. Davis/Counterpunch 06.Mar.06
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Rachel Corrie's parents scorned
at Frontpagemag by Steven Plaut 10.Jan.06
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Rachel Corrie scorned
at lgf in 2004
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links, bibliography, references at wikipedia
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