{"id":852905,"date":"2026-09-19T05:16:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T05:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/852905\/"},"modified":"2026-09-19T05:16:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T05:16:09","slug":"azeez-al-shaair-on-publicizing-hind-rajabs-story-most-of-you-might-not-even-know-who-she-was","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/852905\/","title":{"rendered":"Azeez Al-Shaair on publicizing Hind Rajab’s story: Most of you might not even know who she was"},"content":{"rendered":"

The NFL fined Texans linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair $11,941<\/a> for writing the name \u201cHind Rajab\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think everybody knows what it\u2019s about,\u201d Al-Shaair said, via D.J. Bien-Aime of ESPN. \u201cI think that was the point. Because before that, probably most of you guys might not even know who she was<\/a>. That\u2019s kind of the point. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere 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\u2019s 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. . . . <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of issues that I speak on, that\u2019s really just to shed a light, because a lot of people don\u2019t care nothing about it. . . . We\u2019re 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\u2019s 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\u2019re \u2014 as Americans \u2014 are paying, that are being used to bomb innocent men, women, and children. So that\u2019s really what that was about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dallas Mavericks star Kyrie Irving offered to pay the fine. Al-Shaair said that he and Irving \u201calign on the cause, which is humanity; we both care about humanity<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRegardless of skin color, race, anything like that,\u201d Al-Shaair said. \u201cThat\u2019s 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\u2019t 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\u2019t need anybody to gaslight me into saying that, \u2018Well, you gotta ask. . . .\u2019 I just know that\u2019s not right, whether they\u2019re here in America or somewhere halfway across the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

It remains to be seen whether Al-Shaair will have a similar message during Sunday\u2019s game against the Bengals, and whether the league will threaten to keep him from playing if he does.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NFL fined Texans linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair $11,941 for writing the name \u201cHind Rajab\u201d on his eye-black strips…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":852906,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-852905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=852905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852905\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/852906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=852905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=852905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=852905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}