At about 12:30 p.m., and again at 1:00 p.m., roughly 20 people fell down on the sidewalk as the names of Gazan civilians who were killed within the last month were read. Each person had the name of a Gazan victim on his or her arm, and the word "Gaza" on the other arm.

Black-clad, masked mourners hovered over them, while other protesters distributed flyers. The action was outside of a Caterpillar office on K Street near 15th, NW. Caterpillar is a construction company, which provides Israel with specially designed military bulldozers that are used to destroy Palestinians homes and to uproot their olive trees. Palestinian civilians and an American, Rachel Corrie, have been killed by Israeli forces operating the bulldozers.

Here is more information from the event's announcement:

On March 16, 2003, the Israeli army killed U.S. peace activist Rachel Corrie with a Caterpillar D-9 bulldozer in a refugee camp in Rafah, in the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip. Rachel was killed while she non-violently tried to prevent the demolition by Israel of a Palestinian family's home. Three days later, on March 19, 2003, the United States launched what former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan deemed an "illegal" war on Iraq . Rachel Corrie's all too brief life was dedicated to promoting justice, the dignity of all human beings, and a world free of want and war.

Caterpillar supports Israel's war crimes against the Palestinian people and has been the subject of a US-based boycott and divestment campaign for its support of such immoral practices. (See www.endtheoc cupation. org/article. php?list= type&type=158 for more on the boycott.)

Our solidarity with Palestinians is especially important now as the U.S. is funding Israel's latest indiscriminate and incessant attacks on Gaza. Israel's most recent offensive into Gaza killed over 120 Palestinians, half of whom were civilians and most of those were children.