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	Home About us News from Palestine Contact Email Subscribe Donate Campaigns Olive Harvest 2004 Freedom Summer 2004 Past Campaigns Events Photos Videos (ISM) Rachel Corrie Links Speakers Be a Delegate Press faq Actions!		March 18th, 2003 Memorial For Rachel In Rafah Dear all, Today we held a memorial ceremony for Rachel Corrie in Rafah. ISMers from Nablus and Jenin and activists from the Christian Peacemaker Team in Hebron arrived in Rafah to pay respects to our murdered friend and to support the group here. We marched in silence through the city, 15 internationals with more and more Palestinians joining in on the route. By the time when we arrived to the spot where the IOF-Bulldozer took Rachel's life we numbered about 200. We held a ceremony where laying and planting flowers on the ground next to a small memorial-monument. I planted three flowers - from ISM Jenin, ISM Sweden and the third from a close friend of Rachel. The IOF was notified in advance that we would hold this ceremony to honour our friend whom they murdered two days ago, still they couldn't respect us enough to stay away. Less than 15 minutes after we arrived they sent out an APC that drove up to us and started to cover the area with thick white smoke. We ignored them and continued our ceremony by walking out in the 3-400 meters wide desert-landscape that is the so called security-zone on the Egyptian border. The APC followed us as we walked all the way up to the barbed-wire fence and hung an ISM-banner and lay more flowers on the ground. Provoked by the present APC activists and Palestinians (who has not been able to enter this area for many years) started to confront the vehicle, putting flowers and posters of Rachel on it. The soldiers acted somewhat restrained in the beginning, one activist was even able to climb the APC and hand over a Rachel poster through the lid on top of the APC. Then after half an hour several more vehicles approached, three bulldozers and two more APCs. When we saw that one of the bulldozers, 949-623, was the very same one that killed Rachel things got very emotional, we were all outraged and many activists was crying. The soldiers now took a more aggressive approach and drove around the crowd in high speed, again putting life's of activists and Palestinians in great danger. Some activists tried to stand in front of them but had to jump out of their path not to get run over. They threw some percussion-grenades and some tear-gas (that dispersed in seconds in the dusty Rafah-wind) and activists responded by covering them in flowers and pictures of Rachel. Eventually they all left except for the first APC and we decided to end our session with a sit-in. We all sat in a minute of silence and we held some speeches before we marched together out of the no-mans land that is normally entered only by the occupation-army's killer-machines. We must never forget Rachel Corrie, the sacrifice she made, nor the other international Aid/Press workers that the Israelis have killed. We must never forget the over 2100 Palestinians that have been slaughtered by the IOF and we must never forget the over 22000 that they have injured. We must continue our work to resist the occupation in any possible way until it is no longer needed. in grief and solidarity, tobias Tobias Karlsson ISM-Coordinator Jenin area +972 (0)57-836527 +972 (0)67-437690