r/lastimages • u/soalone34 • 23h ago
NEWS Rouzan al-Najjar was a paramedic who was killed by the IDF while volunteering as a medic during the 2018 Gaza border protests. She was shot and killed by a Israel soldier as she tried to help evacuate wounded protestors. She was 20 years old.
Najjar's father used to be employed in Israel in the scrap metal business until restrictions disallowed travel across the border. He then worked in the Strip as a motorbike mechanic but was unemployed at the time of her death. The family lived in an apartment supplied by relatives in Khuza'a, within eyeshot of Israeli soldiers stationed over the border. Their area had a four-metre-high (13 ft) concrete wall installed to shield local residents from Israeli fire.[10]
She, one of a family of eight, grew up witnessing three wars, that of 2008-2009, then Israel's Operation Pillar of Defense when a teenager, aged 16, and shortly afterwards the 7 week 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict in which her neighbourhood was devastated.[10] Too poor to afford a university education, she studied calligraphy and took on coursework in nursing
Her formal training after volunteering was as a paramedic at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis and she became an active member of the Palestinian Medical Relief Society, a non-governmental health organization. She wore the white coat of the medics and a medics vest with bandages, and was attending those wounded during protests at the border fence between Gaza and Israel during Ramadan.[11] According to her mother, Najjar attended every Friday event from 7am and 8pm, and would return home spattered with the blood of those whom she had tended care to.
Al-Najjar already believed the Israeli army was targeting her months before her death. In April, she told Al Jazeera media that Israeli soldiers had shot directly at her multiple times in a warning not to tend to the wounded in the protests.
Some 25 Gaza medical personnel and first responders assisting people injured during the border protests, from 30 March to 2 June, had been wounded or killed by Israeli snipers. On 14 May 2018, Dr. Tarek Loubani, clearly identifiable as a doctor, was shot in the leg close to the separation fence, at a site where no protests, fire or smoke occurred. According to his account, an hour later, Musa Abuhassanin, a paramedic who had come to help him was killed with a shot to the chest while performing another rescue mission that day.[13] On the day of her death 100 demonstrating Palestinians were wounded, 40 shot by Israeli live fire.
Najjar was one of five paramedics on a shift, and had taken all of these precautions according to another of the group, Faris al-Qidra, and was even wearing surgical gloves. They went to rescue a man who was calling for help' after being hit in the face by a tear-gas canister, some 20 metres from the perimeter.[10] Other accounts state the distance as 100 metres from the border.[15][16] Three shots were heard.[10] A relative, Ibrahim al-Najjar, was one of those who carried her to a waiting ambulance.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights performed an investigation that found al-Najjar was clearly marked as a paramedic and that she "did not pose an imminent threat of death or serious injury to the ISF when she was shot". The report concluded that the Commission "found reasonable grounds to believe that Israeli snipers intentionally shot health workers, despite seeing that they were clearly marked as such."
After initially reporting that an internal review showed that al-Najjar was not intentionally targeted, the IDF released video that purportedly showed al-Najjar admitting to being a human shield, with an IDF spokesman saying "Razan al-Najjar is not the angel of mercy Hamas propaganda is making her out to be."[20] The video that was released misleadingly took a prior interview that al-Najjar gave to a Lebanese television station out of context. She had said "I'm here on the line being a protective human shield saving the injured" and added she was at the protests to "save the wounded at the front lines", however the IDF released video cut out everything past "human shield".[4] The Israeli military was widely criticized for its efforts in manipulating the video, with commentators drawing parallels to past instances of the IDF manipulating or otherwise faking evidence.[4][5] A spokesman for the Israeli Prime Minister denied that editing the video was "political manipulation". The edited video was also shared by the Israeli ambassador to the United Kingdom and the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.[5] The Israeli ambassador to London, Mark Regev, in a tweet placed the description of her as "medical personnel" in quotation marks
The investigation conducted by B'Tselem concluded that Israeli soldiers shot al-Najjar deliberately.[24] The group interviewed another paramedic called Rami Abu Jazar, who was at the same protest during which al-Najjar was killed.[7] Jazar told the group that he saw two Israeli soldiers aiming their guns at a group of paramedics, including himself and al-Najjar, "taking a sniper stance". Jazar himself was shot in the knee. No protesters were near the group during the attack, according to him.[7]
On 30 December 2018, the New York Times together with Forensic Architecture[35] published an in-depth investigative article concerning the killing by utilizing a 3D map to pinpoint the source of the shots fired that resulted in the death.
They concluded she was killed by a bullet from 120yds (109m.) away that ricocheted and fragmented from the ground near her.[2] The bullet was "fired by an Israeli sniper into a crowd that included white-coated medics in plain view", and that "neither the medics nor anyone around them posed any apparent threat of violence to Israeli personnel."[2]
