Appalled by the action, about 50 South Sound residents showed up to hear speeches delivered by activists on the planks of Percival Landing, including remarks from Craig and Cindy Corrie.

Their daughter, Rachel, was killed by an armored Israeli bulldozer while she protested the similar destruction of Rafah homes March 16.

Cindy Corrie decried what she called human-rights violations by Israeli military personnel "which are coming at a shocking rate in the Gaza Strip."

"I think we have to empower people" to help stop the Israeli actions, said Craig Corrie, who at one point held the end of a long banner that declared: "1,500 people left homeless" and "Our tax $ at work."

Israelis have a "profound" right to security in the face of suicide bombings, which he called immoral and self-defeating, Corrie said. But Palestinians have an equal need for security against Israeli military action against homes, he said.

"We were struck again and again how much hatred U.S. policy has created," Cindy Corrie said.

About 1,240 Palestinians were left homeless by the incursion, officials with the United Nations said Monday. Two of the dead were children killed during fighting between Israeli Defense Forces and armed Palestinians, according to news reports.

Activists said they know their actions won't halt the Israeli advance, which the Israeli government said was necessary to root out tunnels purportedly used to transport weapons from Egypt along the border with the Gaza Strip.

"I'm hoping to not sit by doing nothing while people are dying and hundreds and hundreds of homes are being demolished," said Emma Pearlman, a student at The Evergreen State College who spent two months recently in Israel, including time in Rafah, greater Israel and the West Bank.

Pearlman and other rally organizers, including Tom Wright, said they want to create a sister- city relationship between residents of Olympia and Rafah, a project Rachel Corrie had initiated.

They also handed out names and telephone numbers of members of Congress whom residents could call to encourage to put pressure on Israel to stop its incursions into Arab-held areas.

"We hope it will wake people up, and they'll do research and start informing themselves on the issues," Pearlman said.

As the group stood along the waterfront, a car whizzed by and a passenger shouted out, "What is wrong with you people?"

One of Pearlman's associates yelled back: "Talk to us and find out!"

Craig Corrie, who got help from U.S. Rep. Brian Baird, D-Vancouver, in an ultimately unsuccessful bid to win an independent investigation of his daughter's death, said Baird and his congressional staff have been supportive and earnest in their efforts.

"I feel we owe them a lot," Corrie said. "They can only do what they can do."

But Corrie said the armored bulldozer that killed his daughter was a gift of the U.S. government to Israel.

Corrie questioned Israeli claims that tunnels are being used to smuggle weapons in from Egypt. He said the tunnels weren't in evidence during his tour of Rafah, including places that U.S. Embassy representatives told him they'd been barred from visiting.

While in the Gaza Strip, Corrie said he heard nightly gunfire from the Israeli military and once, when he stepped out of a Palestinian home to inspect a deep trench dug by Israelis searching for tunnels, he heard warning shots fired in his general direction.

A person could gauge his safety in the Rafah area, in part, by whether homes in the vicinity had bullet holes in their walls, Corrie said.

Back in Olympia, Corrie heard the sound of gunfire again while talking by telephone Tuesday morning to a Palestinian friend in Rafah. The conversation left Corrie feeling more powerless, but his friend felt a lift just knowing that people in the United States were watching and paying attention, Corrie said.

Brad Shannon, political editor for The Olympian, can be reached at 360-753-1688 or beshanno@olympia.gannett.com.