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Joshua Scheer
“They called her dangerous because she carried no weapon at all — only a medical vest, courage, and the belief that Palestinian lives mattered.”
In a world drowning in propaganda, war crimes, and the routine dehumanization of Palestinians, the story of Rozan al-Najjar cuts through the noise with devastating clarity. She wasn’t armed. She wasn’t a politician. She was a 21-year-old volunteer medic running toward gunfire to save the wounded during Gaza’s Great March of Return — and for that, she was killed by an Israeli sniper.
Ahmed Abu Artema’s powerful piece is more than a memorial. It’s an indictment of a world that watches medics, journalists, and children become targets while calling it “security.” Rozan’s haunting words — “Without weapons, we can do anything” — remain a direct challenge to systems built on violence, occupation, and fear.
Her bloodstained medic vest became evidence of a deeper truth: even compassion itself is treated as a threat under apartheid and siege.
At a time when governments spend billions fueling war while criminalizing solidarity and silencing dissent, Rozan’s story reminds us that humanity can still exist inside unimaginable brutality. That may be exactly why her memory remains so dangerous.
Read and share this extraordinary piece by Ahmed Abu Artema.
In some research about this remarkable young women Honoring Razan al‑Najjar: When Truth Itself Becomes a Battlefield
According to witness accounts and reporting from human rights and medical organizations, 21-year-old Palestinian paramedic Razan al-Najjar was killed by Israeli sniper fire on June 1, 2018, while volunteering as a medic during Gaza’s Great March of Return protests. Witnesses said Razan was wearing a clearly marked white medical vest and had her arms raised while attempting to assist wounded demonstrators when she was shot. No Israeli official has been criminally held accountable in connection with her killing.
Razan was one of three medical workers reported killed by Israeli forces while treating injured protesters during the first year of the Great March of Return. Medical Aid for Palestinians reported that between March and August 2018, more than 400 Palestinian medical personnel were injured during the demonstrations, while 61 medical vehicles and two health clinics were damaged. Human rights groups and medical organizations have repeatedly criticized the lack of accountability surrounding those incidents.
On June 1, 2018, 21‑year‑old paramedic Razan al‑Najjar walked toward Gaza’s perimeter fence wearing a white medical vest, hands raised, responding to the wounded. Moments later, she was shot in the chest by an Israeli sniper. As one article notes, she was killed “while working as a volunteer paramedic… providing care and assistance to people injured during protests” and “had her arms raised above her head when she was killed.”
Here was a young Palestinian woman risking her life to treat the wounded in the middle of what many around the world have described as a continuing genocide, and her life was taken doing exactly that. We must remember the healthcare heroes of Palestine, who deserve far more than our gratitude.
Her death was not an aberration. It was part of a pattern.
Between March and August 2018 alone, over 400 Palestinian medical workers were injured, three were killed, and 61 ambulances and two clinics were damaged by Israeli fire. No one has been held accountable.
From Mondoweiss
The Times undermine their own reporting with a misleading headline. If you actually read the article (which many obviously won’t), it’s clear that there’s no such ambiguity:“The bullet that killed her, The Times found, was fired by an Israeli sniper into a crowd that included white-coated medics in plain view. A detailed reconstruction, stitched together from hundreds of crowd-sourced videos and photographs, shows that neither the medics nor anyone around them posed any apparent threat of violence to Israeli personnel. Though Israel later admitted her killing was unintentional, the shooting appears to have been reckless at best, and possibly a war crime, for which no one has yet been punished.”
A Smear Campaign Against a Medic
The killing of a young woman in a white vest was a public‑relations disaster for Israel. The response was swift: a coordinated attempt to tarnish her image.
As The Intercept reported, the Israeli army released a “deceptively edited video” designed to portray Razan as a rioter and “no angel.” The clip spliced unrelated footage, stripped context from her interviews, and attempted to recast a medic as a militant shield.
This was not just a smear of Razan. It was an assault on the very idea of truth — a warning that even the dead are not safe from narrative warfare.
The Broader Pattern: Attacking Health Care Under Occupation
Long before Razan’s killing, Palestinian medical workers faced systematic violence and obstruction.
One account describes how, during the 2002 Ramallah curfew, an ambulance was surrounded at gunpoint by Israeli soldiers — a routine occurrence at the time. Another recounts hospitals invaded, clinics destroyed, and patients denied care.
In Gaza today, doctors often see 40–100 patients a day, while over 40% of essential medicines are out of stock due to the blockade. Mobile clinics in the West Bank are routinely prevented from reaching isolated communities.
These are not isolated incidents. They are the infrastructure of a system that treats Palestinian health care as expendable — and sometimes as a target.
Why Razan’s Story Still Matters
Razan al‑Najjar became a symbol not because she sought it, but because her killing revealed the brutal asymmetry of power in Gaza. As one analysis put it, the protests she served were met with “Israeli bullets and Palestinian bodies,” not clashes.
Her death forces uncomfortable questions:
- Why are medics shot while tending the wounded?
- Why are smear campaigns deployed against the dead?
- Why is there no accountability — not for Razan, not for the hundreds injured, not for the clinics destroyed?
The answer lies in the structure of occupation itself. As one article bluntly states: “It’s the occupation, stupid.”
A Call to Honor the Health Workers of Palestine
Razan al‑Najjar’s legacy is not only her death. It is the courage she embodied: a young woman running toward danger to save others, in a place where even medics are targets.
As one article urges, “We must all remember the health care heroes of Palestine… They deserve protection, accountability, and access to needed resources.”
Honoring Razan means demanding accountability. Honoring Razan means defending truth against distortion. Honoring Razan means refusing to let propaganda bury the reality of occupation.
Her story is a reminder: When power tries to rewrite the truth, telling it becomes an act of resistance.
Video released by Gaza’s Health Ministry, reportedly showing Razan al-Najjar and other medics moments before Israeli forces opened fire, appeared to show them moving forward with their hands raised as they tried to reach the wounded.
As outrage over Razan al-Najjar’s killing spread internationally, Israeli officials reportedly first claimed she had been accidentally shot by a soldier aiming at someone else. But critics and human rights observers say that explanation was quickly followed by what appeared to be a coordinated effort to discredit her publicly, with Israeli military social media accounts circulating claims suggesting the young medic had been involved in rioting or used to shield militants during the protests — accusations supporters and rights advocates strongly rejected.
One post shared widely after her death described Razan as an “angel of mercy” killed while trying to save lives at the Gaza border protests, a reflection of how many Palestinians and supporters around the world
Razan Alnajjar “ Rest In Peace ?? angel of mercy ? killed by Zionists Israeli snipers at #Gaza borders today. #????_?????? pic.twitter.com/G3BGASyR1R
— Yousef?? (@JoeGaza93) June 1, 2018
In the end, we return to Razan’s own words. The killing of the young medic — who had spoken powerfully in interviews with international media about her mission to save lives in Gaza — sparked global outrage and intensified criticism of Israel’s actions during the Great March of Return protests.
Razan al‑Najjar’s life and death expose something the world is still struggling to confront: in Palestine, even the act of saving a life is treated as a crime. A young woman in a white medic’s vest, running toward the wounded with her hands raised, was met with a sniper’s bullet — and then a smear campaign designed to kill her a second time in the public imagination. That sequence alone tells us everything about the power imbalance, the impunity, and the machinery of dehumanization that defines life under occupation.
But Razan’s story endures precisely because it refuses to be buried. It forces us to look directly at the violence inflicted on Palestinian health workers, the systematic targeting of those who heal, and the global silence that allows it to continue. It reminds us that truth itself becomes a battlefield when states attempt to rewrite reality and erase the humanity of the people they oppress.
To honor Razan is not simply to mourn her. It is to insist on accountability where none has been allowed. It is to defend the right of medics, journalists, and civilians to exist without being shot, smeared, or silenced. And it is to recognize that her courage — the belief that “without weapons, we can do anything” — remains a radical act of resistance in a world that punishes compassion.
Razan al‑Najjar should have lived. Her patients should have lived. The medics who followed her should not have to choose between saving lives and losing their own. Remembering her is not an act of sentiment; it is a demand for justice, for truth, and for a future in which Palestinian life is no longer treated as expendable.
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