An accidental death?
The Jerusalem Post, reporting today on a Haifa court's verdict supporting the Israeli government's position on the 2003 death of U.S. activist Rachel Corrie:
A Haifa District Court invoked the "combatant activities" exception, and said on Tuesday that the US activist who was killed in disputed circumstances involving an IDF bulldozer on March 16, 2003, while protesting an IDF home demolition in Rafah, could have avoided the dangerous situation. The court nonetheless called her death a "regrettable accident."
In the verdict, Judge Oded Gershon invoked the principle of the combatant activities exception, noting that IDF forces had been attacked in the same area Corrie was killed just hours earlier. The combatant activities exception essentially says that a country's armed forces cannot be held liable for civil damages for physical or economic harm to civilians in an area defined as a war zone. . . . The court held that the driver had not and could not have seen Corrie because the bulldozer has an obstructed view.
