Protests resume after Palestinian paramedic’s Gaza funeral

Around 1000 of the Palestinians, including hundreds of medical workers in white uniforms, took part in the funeral procession of the Saturday of the all colleague who was shot dead by Israeli troops on the earlier day alongside the Israel-Gaza border.

a 21-year-old volunteer paramedic, Razan Najjar, was shot as she tried to help abandon wounded near Israel’s perimeter fence with Gaza. She was the second woman alongside the more than 115 Palestinians who have been killed by Israeli army fire because the Gaza border protests started in the late March.

UN officials condemned and criticized the killing of Najjar, saying that witness reports show that she wore clothing that clearly identified her as a health worker.

“The killing of a clearly identified medical staffer by security forces during a demonstration is particularly reprehensible,” said by Jamie McGoldrick, the local UN humanitarian coordinator.

Post the funeral of Najjar done, dozens of mourners headed to the fence and begin throwing stones at the Israeli soldiers on from the other side.

The Health Ministry of the Palestinian said five protesters were wounded by Israeli fire.

Later on Saturday, in a development that threatened to collapse an informal cease-fire, the Israeli military said two projectiles were fired from Gaza.

1 was intercepted by the Iron Dome defense system and the other landed inside Gaza. Earlier this week, Gaza militants fired a large barrage at Israel, which responded with heavy strikes on Gaza installations.

Early Sunday, the Israeli military said fighter jets attacked three Hamas military compounds in response to the rocket fire. It said it struck a total of 10 targets, that is consists of the weapons manufacturing and storage sites. Militants responded by firing another bullet that was intercepted, the army told.

In the meantime, in the West Bank, the Israeli military said its troops shot dead a Palestinian who tried to ram a tractor with some of its forces.

The military considers this as an initial investigation and disclosed that the 35-year-old Palestinian from a village near Hebron tried to run over an officer with a Bobcat tractor reportedly.

The assailant then turned around and tried to attack near Israeli civilians, the military told.

It declared that the soldier opened fire, killing the assailant. No Israeli troops were harmed yet.

From the time when 2015, Palestinians have killed over 50 Israelis, two visiting Americans and a British tourist in stabbings, shootings, and car-ramming attacks.

Around, 260 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in that time. Israel says most of the attackers were in the forces. in recent months, due to The attacks have petered off, because the Palestinian focus has shifted toward mass protests at the Gaza border.

The Palestinians protested, on Friday, for the 10th week in a row. The military said some hurled grenades and pipe bombs at troops behind the border fence. Some 40 Palestinians were wounded and Najjar was one person who has been killed.

The Khan Younis hospital said Najjar had a gunshot wound in her chest.

The military said its troops operated “in accordance with standard operating procedures” which is the investigating matter of the incident.

Throughout the weeks-long campaign, Israel insists that, its troops have fired only at instigators and that Hamas has been cynically using the demonstrations which are only for to cover the carryout attacks.

But military officials have acknowledged shooting some people by mistake because of the overcrowded and the smoky conditions of the protests.

On Saturday, the military told that it thwarted a Palestinian attempt to damage the security fence nearby Gaza and a collection of militants briefly entered and come in Israel before fleeing back into Gaza when Israeli troops opened fire.

Palestinians and human rights groups have accused Israeli forces of using excessive force, and of killing unarmed Palestinians who were not the threat both in the West Bank and Gaza.

Najjar’s body was wrapped in a Palestinian flag because of the funeral procession began from the hospital and passed near her home in Khuzaa, a village near the Khan Younis which is very close to the border and has served as one of 5 protest encampments across Gaza in recent weeks.

Najjar was the eldest of six siblings.

“I want the world to hear my voice … what’s my daughter’s fault?” asked her mother Sabreen, dressed in black and seated on a mattress in her living room. “She will leave a large emptiness at home.”

On 14th May, when the protests peaked over the opening of the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem, Wessal Sheikh Khalil, a 14-year-old girl, was the first female protesters who were shot dead. She was among more than 60 people who on very same that day, in the deadliest war between Hamas and Israel ended in 2014.

The Gaza protests are being organized by the territory’s militant Hamas leadership and were set to have a drawing attention to the decade-long Israeli-Egyptian blockade on the territory.

This blockade, meant to weaken Hamas, was the reason of the widespread economic hardship in Gaza. The protesters are also demanding the “right of return” for Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war and their dynasty.

A colleague of Najjar, Fares al-Kidra, said they were approaching the fence to relinquish a wounded man and, because they were leaving, three gunshots were heard and Najjar fell to the ground.

A Gaza-based rights group, Al-Mezan, said Najjar was 100 meters from the fence and wearing a clearly marked paramedic’s vest when the open fire was done on her.

Social media videos, and one captured by Associated Press footage display that Najjar and a cohort of medics walking toward the fence and raising their hands in order to reach towards the injured man lying on the ground. Najjar was seen in a dark blue headscarf and a white coat with the logo of the Palestinian Medical Relief Society, where she works as a volunteered.

A volunteering ambulance worker, Izzat Shatat, 23, said he and Najjar were set to declare their engagement at the end of the holy month of Ramzan. On Friday, He said he was worried and asked her not to go to the border area, but she refused and she said she will help those victims.

“She helped all people. She has never refused to help. She was the first to run toward anybody when he is shot,” he said with his teary eyes.


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