- The BBC has released a remarkable film about the killing
of three international peace activists by the Israeli army in the occupied
Gaza Strip. Documentary evidence provided in the film strongly suggests
that the American Rachel Corrie - and two British activists - were murdered.
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- Last spring, within a period of seven weeks, one British
and one American peace activist were killed by the Israeli army in Rafah,
a Palestinian town at the southern end of the occupied Gaza Strip. A second
Briton was shot in the head leaving him brain-dead. In two of the cases
the Israeli army is being blamed for murder; the third is considered 'attempted
murder.'
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- An Israeli military bulldozer crushed the 23-year-old
American peace activist Rachel Corrie, who was the first to die on March
16, as she tried to prevent it from demolishing a Palestinian doctor's
home.
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- British photographer Tom Hurndall, 22, was left brain
dead after being shot in the head by an Israeli soldier on April 11. British
cameraman James Miller, 34, was shot by an Israeli sniper as he left a
house with two other journalists on May 2.
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- A recently released 50-minute hard-hitting program produced
by the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) investigated the three killings
and provides crucial video evidence. "That's murder," an Israeli
soldier said after viewing footage from the film, "When Killing is
Easy."
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- "When Killing is Easy" was shown 4 times to
a worldwide audience on the commercial BBC World television network on
November 22 and 23. Some cable television viewers in the United States
would have been able to view the program.
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- The three international observers died, or nearly died,
at the hands of the Israeli military between the middle of March and the
first week of May. Hurndall was shot in the head as he took a Palestinian
toddler, who had frozen under Israeli fire, into his arms. Today, Hurndall
is brain-dead and is kept alive on life-support equipment.
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- Tom's father, Anthony, is a lawyer in the City of London.
After six weeks of investigation, Hurndall has come to the conclusion that
the shooting of his son by Israeli forces is 'a case of attempted murder.
If Tom dies, and that is a likelihood, then it will be murder,' he said.
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- Jocelyn Hurndall wrote to The Guardian after an Israeli
government check for about $12,000, sent to the Hurndall family to pay
for 'a fraction of the expenses incurred,' bounced. When the check finally
arrived after five months of negotiations with the Hurndall family, the
Israeli government check was not 'honored' by the Bank of Israel, Hurndall
wrote. 'Insufficient funds' was the reason given.
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- According to evidence provided in Sweeney-s film, the
IDF report on the shooting of Hurndall is completely wrong about where
he was, what he was wearing, and what he was doing when an Israeli soldier
shot him in the head.
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- "It is a mind-numbing task to understand the morality
and to use the logic of the Israeli government," Hurndall wrote. "What
hope do Palestinians have when such profound disregard and disrespect is
shown to humanity, collectively and individually?"
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- SILENCED WITNESSES
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- The BBC film was produced by John Sweeney, whose article
on the killings, 'Silenced Witnesses,' was published in The Independent
(UK) on Oct. 30.
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- "Making our film, When Killing is Easy, has been
the most harrowing ordeal of my professional life," Sweeney wrote.
"But it is vital that it is evidential - and that is really tough
when the Israeli government and the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) have refused
to speak to us."
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- Rachel Corrie, the first of the three to die, was using
her body to defend the home of Dr. Samir Nasser Allah from an American-made
bulldozer used by the Israeli army to demolish the homes of Palestinians.
Corrie was a member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). ISM
members stand between the Israeli bulldozers and the homes that the IDF
wants to flatten.
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- Israeli bulldozers have razed thousands of Palestinian
homes in the occupied Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The bulldozers are
primarily made by the Illinois-based Caterpillar company.
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- Tom Dale, an ISM eyewitness, had a clear view of the
incident: "He [the driver] knew absolutely she was there. The bulldozer
waited for a few seconds over her body and it then reversed, leaving its
scoop down so that if she had been under the bulldozer, it would have crushed
her a second time. Only later when it was much more clear of her body did
it raise its scoop."
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- "MY BACK IS BROKEN"
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- "My back is broken," Rachel told Alice Coy,
a fellow ISM activist who was with her.
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- An Israeli pathologist, Dr. Yehudah Hiss, noted that
Rachel appeared to have been run over by the bulldozer, Sweeney wrote.
Hiss found the cause of death to be 'pressure to the chest.' Her shoulder
blades had been crushed; her spine was broken in five places and six ribs
broken. Her face was apparently slashed by the bulldozer blade.
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- The IDF produced a report that says, "Corrie was
not run over by an engineering vehicle." It added, "for good
measure" Sweeney says, that Corrie was "hidden from view of the
vehicle's operator."
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- The footage seen in the BBC film proves these statements
to be false. The family of Rachel Corrie believes the IDF report to "be
a blatant fabrication," Sweeney wrote.
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- The British cameraman James Miller was shot dead by an
Israeli sniper as he left a house in Rafah with two other journalists on
the night of May 2. An Associated Press TV News (APTN) cameraman filmed
the entire scene.
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- One of the three journalists held a white flag; Miller
was shining a light on the flag and a third journalist held up her British
passport. There was no shooting and the area was quiet as the audio track
of the film clearly proves.
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- The three had walked about 60 feet toward an Israeli
armed personnel carrier to request safe passage to leave the area when
the first shot was fired. ?We are British journalists, Saira Shah cried
out into the darkness.
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- "Then comes the second shot, which killed James,"
Sweeney wrote. ?He was shot in the front of his neck. The bullet was Israeli
issue, fired, according to a forensic expert, from less than 200 meters
[600 feet] away."
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- The IDF maintains that Miller was shot during crossfire,
although no shooting is heard on the APTN tape apart from the two shots
fired from the Israeli military vehicle.
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- When the APTN tape was shown to an Israeli soldier, who
is shown in the film, he said the television team did not look like Islamic
terrorists and concluded: "That's murder."
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