Killing of Rouzan al-Najjar

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.[10]

Her formal training after volunteering was as a paramedic in Khan Younis at Nasser Hospital 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.[12] Even before her death, she had become something of an icon within the Gaza Strip, with local media published many images of her online, including photos of her bandaging the head of a youth who had been wounded.[10]

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.[5]

She was 21 years old at the time of her death. Najjar was a fixture at the Khan Younis camp and spoke about her role at the fence in an interview, relishing in the idea that a woman could brave the dangers.[11] "In our society women are often judged," she said. "But society has to accept us. If they don't want to accept us by choice, they will be forced to accept us because we have more strength than any man. The strength that I showed the first day of the protests, I dare you to find it in anyone else."[11]

Bethlehem wall graffiti; Razan with flower

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.[14]

Medical personnel fine-tuned strategies to avoid being mistaken by snipers for protestors, wearing white jackets with reflective, high-visibility stripes, moving in teams in the direction of casualties, and holding their hands above their heads as they negotiate a pathway past burning tires and plumes of smoke. When in the vicinity of the border, and within speaking range of the Israeli troops, they shout in unison: "Don't shoot. There are wounded." The usual Israeli response was to scream at them to go back.[10]

Al-Najjar was a first responder at the "Great March of Return" that resulted in the 2018 Gaza border protests. On 1 June, the third Friday of Ramadan, 3,000 protestors demonstrated near the fence[14] and 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.[14] Shortly afterwards, a Boston-born American woman serving in the IDF was falsely accused on social media of being the sniper in question.[17] 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."[9]

Al-Najjar's death came before she and her fiancé Izzat Shatat were to announce their engagement at the end of Ramadan.[3]

Thousands of Gazans attended her funeral along with hundreds of medical personnel, with her body being wrapped in a Palestinian flag. Her father carried her blood-stained medical jacket, while other mourners demanded revenge.[18][11][19]

On 2 June 2018, a group of agencies at United Nations in New York City issued a press release expressing their anguish over her death, calling al-Najjar "a clearly identified medical staffer," and stating that the killing of the nurse was "particularly reprehensible".[25][11] The UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process singled her case out for attention, tweeting "Medical workers are #NotATarget!".[26]

On 1 June, a UN Security Council resolution proposed condemning the state of Israel for use of "excessive, disproportionate and indiscriminate force" against Palestinian protesters at the border fence. The resolution was vetoed by the United States.[11][27]

Israeli military spokespersons responded, but provided no official report on the shooting; they did say that the facts would be investigated.[28][29] Israel had repeatedly warned that they may kill anyone approaching the fence.[11] The Gazans were calling this a peaceful protest while the Israelis referred to the protests as riots. The protests began 30 March 2018.[30]

On 29 October it was reported that the IDF's military advocate had rejected the findings of the preliminary probe earlier that year that found that she was not shot intentionally. Instead, a criminal investigation into the matter would be opened.[31]

On 30 December 2018, the New York Times together with Forensic Architecture[32] 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. Times reporters collected more than 1,001 pictures of the site on 1 June and crowdsourced 30 cellphone videos to map the movements of the medics at the time of the incident.[33] They also consulted with witnesses, medical officials and Israeli government spokesmen to assess if the shooting was a war crime.[34]

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]

Malachy Browne of the Times wrote, "Though Israel claims Rouzan's killing was unintentional, our investigation shows that her shooting appears to have been reckless at best, and possibly a war crime, for which no one has yet been punished."[33]

Ryan Goodman, a New York University professor and expert on the laws of war, told the Times, "The laws of war would not want any military personnel to deliberately fire in the direction of the medics," Mr. Goodman said. "I'm not saying it's close to the line. I'm saying it crosses the line." According to the Times, Israel considers unarmed members of Hamas fair game, "an interpretation of international law that is not universally accepted."[34]

Ira Stoll wrote that the paper engaged in the "same old Israel bashing" and complained that the paper had not devoted the same depth of coverage that they gave to the killing of al-Najjar to an Israeli-American who was killed in the Israeli settlement of Efrat in the West Bank. Seth Mandel, executive editor of the Washington Examiner, wrote that the paper downplayed violence by Palestinians, which he called "sickening". In contrast, Israeli columnist Oded Shalom admired the New York Times investigation, contrasting the ability of foreign journalists to access the Gaza Strip to perform investigations as opposed to the Israeli media, who are barred from entering Gaza by the Israeli military, relying on announcements from the IDF spokesman instead.[35]

In November on Interstate 93 near Boston, Massachusetts, the Palestine Advocacy Project sponsored a billboard to commemorate al-Najjar. The billboard had the text "Honoring the First Responders of Gaza. Saving Lives. Rescuing Hope" and featured a photograph of al-Najjar. Billboard owner Logan Communications took it down over complaints of terrorism and anti-semitism.[36][37]

• Mohammed Sobhi al-Judeili
• 2018–19 Gaza border protests
• United Nations General Assembly resolution ES-10/L.23