Dr. Alaa al-Najjar, a pediatrician who works at the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, lost nine out of her 10 children in an Israeli airstrike that hit their home on Friday.
Alaa’s husband, Hamdi, who is also a doctor, survived the massacre but was badly wounded. Their only surviving child, 11-year-old Adam, is in critical condition after undergoing surgery.
“His left arm was just about hanging off, he was covered in fragment injuries and he had several substantial lacerations,” Graeme Groom, a British surgeon who operated on Adam, told the BBC.
The youngest of the al-Najjar children who was killed was only seven months old, and the oldest was only 12. They were targeted after Hamdi returned home from driving Alaa to the hospital for work.
Alaa received seven of her children’s charred bodies while on duty at the Nasser Hospital, and two remain missing under the rubble.
Groom said he asked about the father and was told he had “no political and no military connections and doesn’t seem to be prominent on social media.”
The Israeli military claimed its aircraft “struck a number of suspects who were identified operating from a structure adjacent to IDF troops,” but offered no evidence for the claim. The IDF also noted that it had ordered a forced evacuation for Khan Younis last week.
The al-Najjar children were among more than 100 Palestinians killed by the Israeli military since Friday. Gaza’s Health Ministry said on Saturday that at least 74 Palestinians were killed and 211 were injured over the previous 24-hour period.
On Sunday, the Health Ministry said the death toll was 38 and the number of wounded reached 204 over the previous 24 hours. The ministry’s numbers are based on the number of dead and wounded Palestinians brought to hospitals. In both statements, the ministry said that its numbers didn’t account for northern Gaza hospitals “due to the difficulty of accessing them.”
Palestinians are still starving to death as there have been significant difficulties in distributing the small amount of aid Israel has allowed to enter Gaza in recent days. On Saturday, Gaza health officials said four-year-old Mohammad Mustafa Yassin died of prolonged malnutrition.
