PEACE campaigner Alice Coy was trapped - moments from death - in the path of the Israeli army bulldozer which then crushed and killed fellow activist Rachel Corrie.

Alice's leg was trapped in the debris as she tried to flee the bulldozer. But, with just moments to spare, she pulled herself free.

However, her 23-year-old American friend Rachel was not so lucky. Alice watched as she was scooped up by the bulldozer, dumped on the ground then run over twice.

After raising the alarm by phone, Alice held Rachel in her arms and comforted her as she died in the wreckage.

In an emotional phone conversation with her mother Glynis, Alice, a former pupil of the Malvern Girls College, told how close she had been to death.

"Alice had used her mobile phone to call the emergency services," said Mrs Coy, from Worcester Road, Malvern.

"She then went back to Rachel and held her head until the ambulance arrived."

"She has some first aid training and she could tell that Rachel was brain dead, because her eyes were black."

Twenty-seven-year-old Alice is one of several Westerners trying to stop the Israeli army destroying Palestinian homes on the Gaza strip.

Alice, a computer programmer, travelled to Palestine at the beginning of the year after joining the International Solidarity Movement before Christmas.

It was her first taste of volunteer work with organisation.

She had told her mother on many occasions that it was something that she desperately wanted to do.

Mrs Coy described her daughter as someone who could not stand to see injustice.

Although she was concerned about her daughter's safety, she was, nonetheless, very proud of her.

"It takes a huge amount of courage and I admire anyone who has the strength of their convictions stand for what they believe in," said Mrs Coy.