Israeli Video Portrays Medic Killed in Gaza as Tool of Hamas

The tightly edited [[not doctored?!]] video shows a woman identified as the medic, Rouzan al-Najjar, throwing what appears to be a tear-gas canister. The video does not appear to have been taken the day Ms. Najjar was killed, and the canister does not appear to be aimed at anyone.

In a second scene, according to the video, Ms. Najjar tells an interviewer, “I am here on the front line and I act as a human shield”  [[no mention of deleted words!]]​.​

Since she was killed at a protest at the Gaza-Israel border fence last Friday, Ms. Najjar, who was 20, has become a powerful symbol of the conflict there. Hamas, the Islamist movement that rules Gaza, has portrayed her as a hero [[only Hamas?!]] and an innocent victim of Israeli aggression.

The video Israel released Thursday did not try to make the case that Ms. Najjar’s actions [[what actions?!]] provided a justification for her shooting. Rather the clip, published in English and Arabic, appeared to be part of the battle over her story’s narrative [now it’s her narrative versus the Israeli narrative!] and an effort to chip away at Ms. Najjar’s image of fresh-faced innocence [[oh, her “fresh-faced innocence” is just an “image”]].

Hamas officials have blamed Israel for the deaths of the protesters [[only Hamas?]], but they have sought to exploit them to advance their cause ​[[but of course Israel would never exploit Jewish deaths—6,000,000 to be exact—for its cause]​]​

Hamas officials have also released a video to portray their version [[now it’s Hamas’s version versus Israel’s version!]] of Ms. Najjar’s story. That video, released Saturday, shows Ms. Najjar and other medics walking toward the Israeli fence in white coats and with their hands raised. A Gaza health official said the video was taken shortly before Ms. Najjar was shot.

 A similar public relations battle ​[​[now her death is a p.r. battle]​] ​erupted after the death of an 8-month-old girl, Layla Ghandour, who died after having been exposed to tear gas at the Gaza protest last month. The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said she had been killed by the tear gas.

[[Finally, ​buried ​ in paragraph 20!!!]] The Israeli video released Thursday appears ​[!] ​ to be an excerpt from a longer video* produced by Al Mayadeen News, an Arabic satellite channel based in Beirut, Lebanon.

In the longer video, the comment that the military translated as “I act as a human shield” was part of a sentence in which Ms. Najjar said, “I’m acting as a human rescue shield to protect the injured inside the armistice line.”

The Mayadeen interview suggests that Ms. Najjar may have been a more complex person than either side is making her out to be [[pray tell: how does this video show she was more “complex”?!]]. While she said she saw her role as a health care worker, she also saw herself as part of the protest [[I’m shocked, shocked!  Stop the presses!  Will the Times get a Pulitzer for this scoop?!]].

“With all my strength, will and persistence, no matter what you do to me, what dangers I’m subjected to, bullets, explosives or tear gas, I will continue on my course and journey,” she said. “I will save all the injured so that they can go back and defend their land, and take back our land.”

 

​FUCK THIS NAZI RAGSHEET!​