Razan al-Najjar

Razan al-Najjar was born in 1996 in Khuza’a, east of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, the eldest of six children. Unable to afford medical school, she trained as a paramedic at Nasser Hospital and volunteered with the Palestinian Medical Relief Society. When the Great March of Return protests began along Gaza’s perimeter fence in March 2018, she was among the first women to volunteer as a field medic, working long shifts treating tear-gas inhalation and gunshot wounds.

On 1 June 2018, while approaching the fence with other medics — wearing a white medical vest and, according to witnesses, with her hands raised — she was shot in the chest by an Israeli sniper and died shortly after. She was twenty-one. A New York Times visual investigation later concluded the shooting was reckless at best and possibly a war crime; no one has been held accountable. She is remembered in Gaza as the “angel of mercy.”

Selected contributions

• Volunteer paramedic with the Palestinian Medical Relief Society
• Frontline medic during the Great March of Return (2018)

Sources

• Killing of Razan al-Najjar underlines need for accountability — Medical Aid for Palestinians
• Remembering Razan al-Najjar — American Friends Service Committee
• Al-Haq on the killing of Razan al-Najjar