The Haifa District Court rejected on Tuesday accusations that Israel was at fault over the death of American activist Rachel Corrie, who was crushed by an army bulldozer during a 2003 pro-Palestinian demonstration in Gaza. In the verdict, Judge Oded Gershon invoked the principle of “the combatant activities exception,” noting that Israeli occupation forces had been attacked in the same area Corrie was killed just hours earlier. Corrie, 23, from Olympia, Washington, died in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on March 16, 2003, when an IDF bulldozer struck her during a protest by the International Solidarity Movement. Four eyewitnesses from the International Solidarity Movement testified that Rachel was visible to soldiers in the bulldozer as it approached.

Corrie’s family filed the lawsuit in the northern Israeli city of Haifa in 2005, accusing Israel of intentionally and unlawfully killing their daughter and failing to conduct a full and credible investigation.

 Rachel Corrie’s parents (Photo: Al Ittihad)

In a lengthy ruling read out to the court, the judge said the state was not responsible for any “damages caused” as they had occurred during what he termed war-time actions. He called Corrie’s death a “regrettable accident”. “I reject the suit,” the judge said. “There is no justification to demand the state pay any damages.”

Corrie’s death made her a symbol of the Palestinian struggle, and while her family battled through the courts to establish who was responsible for her killing, her story was dramatized on stage in a dozen countries and told in the book “Let Me Stand Alone.” “I am hurt,” Corrie’s mother, Cindy, told reporters after the verdict was read. Attorney Hussein Abu Hussein, who represents the Corries, said that the family believes the verdict contradicts international law. “The court has given a stamp of approval to harm innocent lives,” he said.

Israel‘s far-right Yisrael Beitenu party, a member of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition, heralded the verdict, calling it “vindication after vilification”.