NEW YORK (AP) 鈥� A nurse was fired by a New York City hospital after she referred to Israel's war in Gaza as a 鈥済enocide鈥� during a speech accepting an award.
Labor and delivery nurse Hesen Jabr, who is Palestinian American, was being honored by NYU Langone Health for her compassion in caring for mothers who had lost babies when she drew a link between her work and the suffering of mothers in Gaza.
鈥淚t pains me to see the women from my country going through unimaginable losses themselves during the current genocide in Gaza,鈥� Jabr said, according to a . 鈥淭his award is deeply personal to me for those reasons.鈥�
Jabr wrote on Instagram that she arrived at work on May 22 for her first shift back after receiving the award when she was summoned to a meeting with the hospital's president and vice president of nursing 鈥渢o discuss how I 鈥榩ut others at risk鈥� and 鈥榬uined the ceremony鈥� and 鈥榦ffended people鈥� because a small part of my speech was a tribute towards the grieving mothers in my country.鈥�
She wrote that after working most of her shift she was 鈥渄ragged once again to an office鈥� where she was read her termination letter and then escorted out of the building.
A spokesperson for NYU Langone, Steve Ritea, confirmed that Jabr was fired following her speech and said there had been 鈥渁 previous incident as well.鈥�
鈥淗esen Jabr was warned in December, following a previous incident, not to bring her views on this divisive and charged issue into the workplace,鈥� Mr. Ritea said in a statement. 鈥淪he 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. As a result, Jabr is no longer an NYU Langone employee."
Ritea did not provide any details of the previous incident.
Jabr defended her speech and said talking about the war 鈥渨as so relevant鈥� given the nature of the award she had won.
鈥淚t was an award for bereavement; it was for grieving mothers,鈥� she said.
Gaza's Ministry of Health says that more than 36,000 people have been killed in the territory during the war that started with the . Around 80% of Gaza鈥檚 population of 2.3 million has been displaced and U.N. officials say .
Critics say Israel's military campaign amounts to genocide, and the government of South Africa in January when it asked the United Nations鈥� top court to order a halt to Israeli military operations in Gaza.
Israel has and told the International Court of Justice it is doing everything it can to protect Gaza's civilian population.
Jabr is not the first employee at the hospital, which was renamed from NYU Medical Center after a major donation from Republican Party donor and billionaire Kenneth Langone, to be fired over comments about the Mideast conflict.
A prominent researcher who directed the hospital's cancer center after he posted anti-Hamas political cartoons including caricatures of Arab people. That researcher, biologist Benjamin Neel, has since filed suit against the hospital.
Jabr's firing also was not her first time in the spotlight. When she was an 11-year-old in Louisiana, the American Civil Liberties Union on her behalf after she was forced to accept a Bible from the principal of her public school.
鈥淭his is not my first rodeo,鈥� she told the Times.
Karen Matthews, The Associated Press
