The NFL fined Texans linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair $11,941 for writing the name “Hind Rajab” on his eye-black strips during a Week 1 game against the Bills. On Friday, Al-Shaair explained his decision to publicize the name of the five-year-old Palestinian girl who was killed, along with six family members, by Israeli forces in 2024.
“I think everybody knows what it’s about,” Al-Shaair said, via D.J. Bien-Aime of ESPN. “I think that was the point. Because before that, probably most of you guys might not even know who she was. That’s kind of the point.
“There a lot that goes on in the world, not just overseas, right here in our own country. . . . This past Tuesday, a friend of mine, literally just sitting there crying in front of me on the phone, come to find out her cousin, who’s been here since he was five years old, got detained on the way to a concert and is being deported. Mind you, he has no family, no nothing over there. And that was my first interaction, my first experience, with somebody that I personally know. . . .
“There’s a lot of issues that I speak on, that’s really just to shed a light, because a lot of people don’t care nothing about it. . . . We’re blessed to be able to have the comforts of, you know, living in the United States and not having to worry about certain things, but there’s issues here and all over the world that, you know, when you talk about even what happened with Hind Rajab and her family, those are taxpaying dollars that we’re — as Americans — are paying, that are being used to bomb innocent men, women, and children. So that’s really what that was about.”
Dallas Mavericks star Kyrie Irving offered to pay the fine. Al-Shaair said that he and Irving “align on the cause, which is humanity; we both care about humanity.”
“Regardless of skin color, race, anything like that,” Al-Shaair said. “That’s what I think, more than anything, when it comes to me and him, that we align on, and just not being afraid to do that. . . . We don’t have to have all the answers to everything to know that an innocent man, an innocent woman, an innocent child losing their life is not right. Like, I don’t need anybody to gaslight me into saying that, ‘Well, you gotta ask. . . .’ I just know that’s not right, whether they’re here in America or somewhere halfway across the world.”
It remains to be seen whether Al-Shaair will have a similar message during Sunday’s game against the Bengals, and whether the league will threaten to keep him from playing if he does.