Rouzan Ashraf Abdul Qadir al-Najjar[a] (Arabic: روزان أشراف عبد القادر النجار Rouzān 'Ashrāf 'Abd al-Qādir an-Najjār; 13 September 1997 – 1 June 2018)[1] was a Palestinian paramedic who was killed by the Israeli military while volunteering as a medic during the 2018 Gaza border protests.

[4][5] According to witness testimony, al-Najjar was shot after she and other medics, walking with their hands up and wearing white vests, approached the border fence in order to treat a wounded protester.

[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] 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.

[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.

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.

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] 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.

[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.

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.

[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.

[21] Further footage showing an unidentified nurse, her face cannot be seen, was presented as evidence al-Najjar threw a tear-gas canister or smoking grenade,[22] at a distance of some 100 metres from the border was also released by the Israeli army.

[5] The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights remarked that the sharing of the fraudulent, Israeli-edited version of the video provoked widespread hate speech and dehumanizing rhetoric to be directed on social media against Palestinian demonstrators in general and Al-Najjar in particular.

An investigation conducted by B'Tselem proves 20-year-old a-Najar was fatally shot by a member of the security forces who was aiming directly at her as she was standing about 25 meters away from the fence, despite the fact that she posed no danger to him or anyone else and was wearing a medical uniform.

[24]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".

[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.

[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.

"[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.