LONDON: A former Conservative minister in the UK has admitted a change of heart over the killing of a prominent young Palestinian nurse and accused the Israeli government of murdering her, The Independent reported.
The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was also accused by Alistair Burt of carrying out fake inquiries into the death of Razan Al-Najjar in 2018.
The young nurse, who was killed aged 20, was popularly dubbed the “Angel of Mercy.”
She was shot dead by Israeli forces while coming to the aid of a wounded demonstrator on Gaza’s border with Israel in 2018, prompting international condemnation.
Burt, who at the time served as Middle East minister in the Conservative government led by Theresa May, said the UK was wrong not to “call out” Israel after Al-Najjar’s killing.
After the killing, Burt refused to criticize Israel and urged the Israel Defense Forces to investigate the death.
Yet a UN probe found “reasonable grounds” to believe that Al-Najjar had been deliberately targeted by Israeli security forces responding to the demonstrations, despite posing no threat.
The UK minister had also blamed Palestinians for the violence and argued that “extremist elements exploited the protests for their own violent purposes.”
However, Burt now regrets his “grim” reaction to the killing, and says he is now certain Al-Najjar was “clearly targeted and murdered” by Israel.
The UK had been wrong to trust Israeli government denials and promises to investigate the killing, he added, describing the internal probes as bogus.
“I know exactly what I did. I know why I did it. And it’s grim. I have thought about this a lot. The strongest memory I have was the shooting of the young paramedic Razan Al-Najjar. She was clearly targeted and murdered by the Israelis,” he said.
“We relied on the Israeli response that they know all about every shot that was fired by the IDF. My suspicion then — since confirmed — is that these investigations were effectively useless and used as a cover by the Israelis for the killing and covering up such as this.
“I and the UK should have been more bold in calling this out.”
The former minister’s U-turn is described in a new book on Britain’s ties to the war in Gaza, “Complicit, Britain’s Role In The Destruction of Gaza,” by journalist Peter Oborne.
Burt’s change of heart is emblematic of a wider shift in Western attitudes toward Israel in the wake of the Gaza war.
The IDF cleared itself of wrongdoing after Al-Najjar’s death, but was accused of conducting a smear campaign against the young nurse after releasing a film in which she appeared to describe herself as a “human shield.”
But it later emerged that the video had been manipulated, and the nurse had instead called herself a “human shield to save the injured.”
Before her death, Al-Najjar had become an icon among Palestinians in the occupied territories and beyond. Thousands of Gazans attended her funeral.
