A New York City hospital fired a Palestinian American Muslim nurse after she called Israel’s war in Gaza a “genocide” during an acceptance speech for an award for her work with bereaved mothers who lost their children during pregnancy and childbirth.
A spokesperson for the hospital, NYU Langone Health, said on Thursday that labor and delivery nurse Hesen Jabr had previously been warned not to bring her views “on this divisive and charged issue into the workplace.”
Jabr posted on Instagram that she was awarded on May 7, when she made her remarks, adding that she was handed a termination letter later in the month.
Hesen Jabr
In a portion of her acceptance speech, she spoke about mothers who had lost babies during the war in Gaza, saying the award was “deeply personal” to her.
“It pains me to see the women from my country going through unimaginable losses themselves during the current genocide in Gaza,” Jabr said in the video of her speech that she posted online.
“As a Palestinian American Muslim woman in this country, I am proud to represent my mother’s and my grandmother’s upbringing through our tradition, which obliges us to always hold space for warmth and compassion for all humans,” Jabr said on stage to a gathering of nurses. “It pains me to see the women from my country going through unimaginable losses themselves during the current genocide in Gaza. This award is deeply personal to me for those reasons. Even though I can’t hold their hands and comfort them as they grieve their unborn children and the children they have lost during this genocide, I hope to keep making them proud as I keep representing them here at NYU.”
The hospital’s spokesperson said in an email Jabr had been warned in December, “following a previous incident, not to bring her views on this divisive and charged issue into the workplace.
“She instead chose not to heed that at a recent employee recognition event that was widely attended by her colleagues, some of whom were upset after her comments,” the spokesperson said without providing details about the earlier incident.
Hesen Jabr worked for NYU Langone Health since 2015.
“As a result, Jabr is no longer an NYU Langone employee.”
In an interview with the Times, Jabr, who had worked at NYU Langone Health since 2015, said what she said in her speech “was so relevant”, given “it was an award for bereavement; it was for grieving mothers.”
Jabr did not mention any prior incident in her post on Monday.
However, she has detailed on Facebook heated exchanges over politics on the labor and delivery floor of the hospital in recent months.
“The pure psychological warfare NYU has waged on me as a nurse, Muslim, Palestinian and woman has only left me resolute,” Jabr wrote in one post.
Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza has left more than 36,000 dead in the past eight months, the local health ministry says. The war has also caused widespread hunger in the narrow coastal enclave and displaced nearly its entire 2.3 million population.
The conflict has led to rising Islamophobia and anti-Semitism and widespread demonstrations in the U.S. and all over the world.
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