HAIFA, ISRAEL—The Israeli army bulldozer driver who killed American protester Rachel Corrie in the Gaza Strip seven years ago testified in Israeli court Thursday that he first saw her only after she had already been fatally harmed by his vehicle.

The driver, identified in court only by his initials YF, was asked why he didn’t stop working when there were civilians near his vehicle.

“These were our instructions,” he told court. “I’m just a soldier, you carry out orders. I told the commander there were people around and the instruction was, you don’t stop working. It was not my decision, it was the officer’s.”

He said he was ordered to ‘‘keep working but in another direction where there aren’t people.”

The driver, who works in food processing and had been a reservist at the time, testified behind a partition so that observers in the court, including Rachel Corrie’s parents, Craig and Cindy, couldn’t see him.

The testimony was the highlight so far of a civil lawsuit by the family, who are seeking a symbolic $1 in damages plus trial costs and travel expenses for themselves and witnesses, which they have estimated at $100,000.

YF said he only saw Corrie after he reversed his D-9 bulldozer.

“I saw people pulling the body out from under the earth.”

YF said he was told over his headphones that he had hit somebody. He then went into reverse.

“At first I didn’t understand what was happening. There was this thought something wasn’t right,” he said.

In waging the civil suit, the Corrie family has effectively put the Israeli army on trial over her death.

Corrie, 23, wearing a fluorescent orange jacket, was among a group of non-violent volunteers from the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement that over a period of three hours on March 16, 2003 sought to block two army bulldozers from demolishing Palestinian homes near Egypt’s border with the Gaza Strip.

In death, Corrie, from Olympia, Wash., became a symbol of idealism and self sacrifice to many, and an embarrassment to Israel. Others argue that foreign activists like Corrie recklessly choose to risk their lives in a conflict zone where they could be harmed by soldiers who themselves often feel under assault.

YF told court Thursday he had a dead area of vision from the cab of 30 metres. In military police testimony in 2003 he said the dead area was three metres.

Corrie family lawyer Hussein Abu Hussein noted the contradiction in the driver’s testimony.

“The more we hear the more we have the impression someone tried to whitewash what happened,” Hussein said.

Cindy Corrie was disappointed she was denied a chance to see the driver.

“The Israeli government and the Israeli military are hiding behind the screens,’’ she said.

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“I wanted to see the whole person, not just hear his words,’’ she added. “I tried to have Rachel’s humility and compassion but it was very hard because we didn’t hear one word of remorse.”

The state’s lawyer, Irit Kalman, said the driver was behind a screen because “we want soldiers to feel free to give a real testimony. We could have asked for a closed-door trial, but we wanted them (the family) to hear everything going on in this trial,” she said.

With files from Star wire services

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