Gazan Paediatrician Dr. Alaa Al-Najjar was shattered to learn that an Israeli airstrike had struck her home in Khan Younis, killing nine of her ten children and leaving their bodies severely burned, just moments after she left home.
An Israeli missile struck their home minutes after her husband, Dr. Hamdi Al-Najjar, who had driven her to Al Tahrir Hospital in the Nasser Medical Complex in southern Gaza, where she works, returned.
Nine of her ten children- Yahya, Rakan, Raslan, Gubran, Eve, Revan, Sadin, Luqman, and Sidra- were killed by the Israeli occupation army; the oldest was only 12 years old, while the youngest, Adam, survived but remains injured.
Dr. Hamdi is in critical condition in the intensive care unit of the Jordanian field hospital.
Doctors Against Genocide highlighted the devastating fate of Dr. Alaa, stating, “A mother, a physician, and a woman of unimaginable strength, she was forced to identify the charred bodies of her own children in the very hospital where she works.”
“This is the erasure of an entire family. This is a deliberate act of unfathomable brutality against children, against Palestinian families and against humanity itself,” said the coalition of healthcare workers confronting Genocide.
“There are no words strong enough to capture the scale of this horror. But we must speak. We must bear witness. And we must demand justice,” they added.
Norwegian physician and professor Dr. Mads Gilbert, a long-time advocate for Palestinian healthcare, stated, “This is what is happening in Gaza-the merciless killing of entire families, the eradication of healthcare workers, and the starvation and thirst of 2.1 million people.”
Calling it “Outrageous crimes against humanity, against all of us, against the decency we want in the world,” Mads, who has extensively volunteered in Palestine said, “The Israeli war crimes and the genocide of the people of Palestine will have no end as long as the U.S. and Israel remain the masters of arms.”
Over the past 19 months, the occupying state has repeatedly targeted medical personnel in Gaza. Doctors, nurses, paramedics, and civil defence workers have been killed in airstrikes, detained at checkpoints, or trapped beneath rubble, while hospitals and ambulances have increasingly been turned into military targets.
On Friday, Dr. Munir Al-Bursh, Director General of Health in Gaza, reported that Israeli occupation forces killed 12 of the Ministry of Health’s most skilled nurses and paramedics, many from intensive care units, within a single week, with many killed alongside their entire families.
