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Activists commemorating Rachel Corrie's death attacked in West Bank

posted on: Mar 16, 2015

Two Palestinians were arrested by Israeli troops on Sunday during clashes at an event in a West Bank village to mark the 12th anniversary of the death of US activist Rachel Corrie.

One of those arrested had lost consciousness during an olive tree-planting protest on Sunday in Qariyut, near Nablus.

The activity marked 12 years since the death of Rachel Corrie, a US citizen activist who was crushed to death by an Israeli military bulldozer on 16 March 2003 in Rafah, Gaza Strip, as she tried to block the demolition of a Palestinian home.

The activists chose the village of Qariyut to plant olive trees to support their protest against the blocking of the main road connecting the village to Road 60, which leads to two main cities in the West Bank, Nablus and Ramallah.

The participants planted about 40 olive trees in the threatened lands of Qariyut, which is surrounded by many Israeli settlements and outposts.

Photographs of Corrie were hung on the newly planted trees, alongside pictures of other international activists killed or injured while involved in solidarity action in Palestine. These included Vittorio Arrigoni, an Italian activist who was kidnapped and killed in the Gaza Strip in April 2011; British activist Thomas Hurndall, shot and killed by an Israeli sniper in January 2004; and Tristan Anderson, a US citizen who was critically injured in March 2009 after being shot in the head with a high-velocity tear gas grenade by Israeli Border Police following a protest against the separation wall in the West Bank village of Ni’ilin.

Source: www.middleeasteye.net