An Israel Defense Forces (IDF) bulldozer crushed her when she was kneeling in front of a Palestinian's home, while acting as a human shield in an attempt to prevent IDF forces from demolishing the home.
The IDF stated that the death was due to the restricted angle of view of the IDF Caterpillar D9 bulldozer driver, while International Solidarity Movement (ISM) eyewitnesses said "there was nothing to obscure the driver's view.”
Rachel, a student at Evergreen College in Olympia, Washington, had gone to Gaza as a member of the ISM in the Occupied Territories, to try to stem the destruction of Palestinian society. Through her death, Rachel has become a worldwide symbol of the Palestinian struggle.
Rachel is but one of many people killed by the Israeli military in the occupied territories. Many of the victims are Palestinian children. The US government, its allied regimes, and US-controlled transnational financial organizations are destroying the lives of millions of people in the world — in Iraq, in the Palestinian occupied territories, in Afghanistan, in Latin America, Africa, and elsewhere.
If the Americans, through either their inexcusable ignorance or their lack of concern, allow it to go on without opposing it as forcefully as they can then they will viewed by the world with the contempt and hatred, now focused on the US and Israeli governments, but which will in time naturally include them as well.
In an interview with Press TV, Craig and Cindy Corrie, Rachel's parents, said they were taking up their daughter's cause and working toward the liberation of not only the Palestinians but all oppressed people around the world.
Currently, the Corries are pursuing a trial in an Israeli court to bring the perpetrators of their daughter's death to justice. The Corries discussed the role of the US government in the trial and investigation into Rachel's death. They also discussed the seeming lack of communication between the US government and its Israeli ally into the particulars of their daughter's death.
Cindy Corrie said she was disturbed by the difficulty in obtaining information about her daughter's death yet the seeming ease in communication when it comes to the US funding Israel. Though most people know Rachel for the way she died, the Corries remember the life she lived and changes she wanted to see in the world around.