In the world media’s tendentious coverage of the Great March of Return in Gaza, the stories that first appeared in the continuous coverage were always those versions put out by the “Palestinians,” or more exactly, by Hamas. Israeli corrections would be issued, but were not always reported, and when they were reported, became the objects of scornful and doubting delivery.
A good example of this was in early June. Reuters reported on the death of Razan al-Najar:
Najar, a 21-year-old volunteer medic, was shot as she ran toward the fortified border fence, east of the south Gaza city of Khan Younis, in a bid to reach a casualty, a witness said.
Wearing a white uniform, “she raised her hands high in a clear way, but Israeli soldiers fired and she was hit in the chest,” the witness, who requested anonymity, told Reuters.
At her house in Khan Younis, Najar’s mother collapsed in grief as she was handed her daughter’s blood-stained uniform.
A statement from Gaza’s Health Ministry mourned Najar as a “martyr”. Interviewed by Reuters interview in April, she said she would see the border protests through until their end.
“I am returning and not retreating,” Najar’s last Facebook post said. “Hit me with your bullets. I am not afraid.”
Similar stories about the noble volunteer medic, risking her life to help others, appeared everywhere, an innocent shot deliberately, for no apparent reason, by the murdering Israelis. The New York Times was particularly egregious. Its headline read: “A Woman Dedicated To Saving Lives Loses Hers in Gaza Violence.” The report continued:
She had become a fixture at the weekly protests along the fence dividing the Gaza Strip from Israel, a young woman in a white paramedic’s uniform rushing into harm’s way to help treat the wounded.
As a volunteer emergency medical worker, she said she wanted to prove that women had a role to play in the conservative Palestinian society of Gaza.
“Being a medic is not only a job for a man,” Razan al-Najjar, 20, said in an interview at a Gaza protest camp last month. “It’s for women, too.”
An hour before dusk on Friday, the 10th week of the Palestinian protest campaign, she ran forward to aid a demonstrator for the last time.
Israeli soldiers fired two or three bullets from across the fence, according to a witness, hitting Ms. Najjar in the upper body. She was pronounced dead soon after.
Once the damage had been done with this story of the selfless girl who sacrificed herself and the wicked Israelis who deliberately aimed at her as she rushed “into harm’s way to help treat the wounded,” other details, provided by the Israelis, finally came out, and suggested quite a different version of events. A video showing Razan al-Najjar describing herself as a “human shield” was unearthed. She was one of those who allowed herself to be used by Hamas as such a shield, so as to protect those behind her who were determined to reach the security fence and breach it. The Israelis, Hamas knew, would never deliberately shoot the obviously innocent. An-Najjar at least knew what she was doing and the risks she was taking; others similarly employed by Hamas as human shields — children and the mentally impaired — did not understand Hamas was using them.
Furthermore, the description of Razan Al-Najar as being strictly a medical volunteer, intent on “helping” people, was called into question by another video that showed a female paramedic, whose identify is not certain but whom the Israelis claimed may have been Al-Najjar, hurling a smoke grenade across the security fence toward Israeli forces. Even if the video turns out not to have been of Al-Najar, it offers evidence that some paramedics did not limit themselves to treating the wounded, but also engaged in attacks.
“Razan al-Najar is not the angel of mercy Hamas propaganda is making her out to be,” IDF Arabic spokesman Maj. Avichay Adraee tweeted.
The Israelis, of course, have been investigating the matter with their wonted thoroughness. They want to find out, as much as anyone, exactly the circumstances which ended in Al-Najar’s death. Was she hit by mistake as she ran forward, because she was too close to someone about to throw an explosive over the fence? The Israelis have already concluded that there was no intent to hit her; she was hit by mistake. Why do so few of the subsequent reports fail to include this admission?
The IDF, in other words, does not deny killing Razan Al-Najar. When it finds out exactly what happened, it will issue a full report to the world. It will not spare its own soldiers if any of them ignored guidelines as to when to shoot, and what to aim for. But this absurd Morality Tale in which the dead girl is depicted as an “angel of mercy” by Hamas propagandists and its willing collaborators in the Western press is not something the Israelis should be expected to endure, and the video clips they have released, the first of Razan Al-Najar describing herself as a “human shield” and, in another, a female paramedic — who may be Al-Najar — flinging a gas canister across the fence, ought at least to give the fair-minded pause.
The anti-Israel brigade did in this case as it has always done, that is, it has ignored both Israel’s claim that the killing was a mistake and its willingness to investigate itself. Instead, it has chosen to accept fully the Hamas version of events. As of now, much of the world’s media has already decided that, in releasing a video clip suggesting that Razan al-Najjar knew exactly her value to Hamas as a human shield, Israel is even more cruelly at fault, as it “attempts to smear Gaza medic.” No, Israel has only been attempting to present a fuller picture of the situation. It has owned up to shooting An-Najjar, and will issue a full report as to how such a mistake occurred.
Meanwhile, at the U.N. General Assembly, a resolution denouncing Israel for using “excessive force” in Gaza, that failed even to mention Hamas, was passed on June 14, with 120 yes votes, 8 noes, and 45 abstentions. An attempt by Ambassador Nikki Haley to add an amendment that would also condemn Hamas also was struck down, even though it had a slim majority, 62-58, and 42 abstentions. UNGA President Miroslav Lajčák of Slovakia ruled that a two-thirds majority was needed for an amendment to be added to a draft resolution.
Someone had to stand up against the mighty empire of Israel, and its brutal suppression of the innocent Arab protesters, who marched bravely, day after day, toward that oppressive fence, waving their flags and singing their songs, despite being shot at, despite being killed. And killed, too, were those fresh-faced young Arab nurses, such as Razan al-Najar, cut down as they rushed unselfishly to treat those wounded protesters. Thank goodness for the fair-minded countries at the U.N. Where would we be without them?