November 2023: An Israeli soldier helps to provide incubators to Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza. Photo: Screenshot

What comes to mind when you think of a paramedic who rushes to save innocent people during a war — only to be attacked and detained?

Most people would envision a peaceful individual devoted to saving lives, and instinctively view those who detained him as brutal and unjust. You’re also far more likely to trust his version of events over those who arrested him.

This is precisely the narrative dominating most Western media outlets in their coverage of Asaad al-Nasasra, a paramedic from Gaza. Readers too easily fall into the trap set by biased journalists at The Guardian and other outlets who, as usual, haven’t done their due diligence.

Because just a cursory check of Asaad al-Nasasra’s public Facebook account reveals someone far from the peaceful medic he’s portrayed as.

His posts are filled with incitement to terrorism and praise for Gaza’s “martyrs.” Here are just a few examples.

In a post from May 2021, accompanied by a poster whose design disturbingly echoes Nazi-style antisemitic visuals, al-Nasasra wrote (translated from Arabic):

Muslims today, due to their weakness and shallow understanding of the true essence of religion, are waiting for a miracle from God to destroy their enemies — while their enemies are growing stronger! This is foolishness…

God Almighty said: ‘And prepare against them whatever you are able of power and of steeds of war.’ After you prepare all that you can, say: O Lord, You are the Supporter, You are the Granter of success, You are the Protector, You are the Sustainer. We must take the necessary means as if everything depends on them, then put our trust in God as if they mean nothing. This is the lesson Muslims need today more than at any time in the past. [emphasis added]

We now know all too well what “necessary means” stands for in Gaza: taking hostages and slaughtering civilians, and sacrificing thousands of Gazans, using them as human shields.

Above is another post from this “peaceful” paramedic, written during Operation Guardian of the Walls in May 2021. The phrases on the rockets read (translated from Arabic):

• • اللهم يبّس عظامهم – “O Allah, dry up their bones.”
  • ورمّل نساءهم – “…make their women widows.”
  • ويتم أطفالهم – “…orphan their children.”
  • وانصرنا عليهم – “…and grant us victory over them.”

And one more, from May 13, 2021 (translated from Arabic): “May everyone who struck Haifa, Tel Aviv, Ashdod, Ashkelon, the Gaza Envelope*, and the occupied territories be well every year. #Every_Year_Our_Resistance_Is_Our_Pride”

It’s crucial to remember that many of those who lived — and were brutally murdered — in the Gaza Envelope were known for being among Israel’s most passionate advocates for a two-state solution and harsh critics of the Israeli government. As Douglas Murray noted during his recent appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast (timestamp 01:51:05):

So many of them, particularly the people in the south who were attacked on the morning of the 7th, were literally people who dreamed of living in peace with their Palestinian neighbors.

They were people like Vivian Silver, whose body wasn’t identified for months because there wasn’t enough of her charred remains to even extract DNA from. She spent every weekend, like so many people in the southern communities of Israel, driving Palestinian children with rare medical conditions to hospitals.

So what kind of peace deal exactly is expected from Israel when Gaza’s so-called “peaceful paramedics” openly support Hamas, refer to terrorists as “our resistance,” and glorify rocket attacks on the strongest advocates of coexistence?

And this is likely just the cleaned-up version of al-Nasasra’s profile, which features near-daily posts up until late June 2021. One can only imagine what was posted there on or around October 7, 2023.

While the incident involving the Red Crescent ambulances is still under investigation, most Western media outlets continue to prioritize the narratives of Hamas officials and Gazan eyewitnesses. But after everything found on al-Nasasra’s Facebook, it’s hard not to question whether his colleagues share similar views — views that include denying Israel’s right to exist and supporting terrorism.

The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.