Palestinian doctor receives charred remains of her 9 children following an Israeli air strike on her home
Rescue services remove the bodies of the children killed in an Israeli strike on their home in Khan Yunis on 23 May 2025
Middle East Monitor reports on 24 May 2025:
Palestinian doctor Alaa al-Najjar, a paediatrician at the Nasser Medical Complex, was devastated by the arrival of the bodies and remains of nine of her children to the hospital where she works. They were burned to death in an Israeli air strike that targeted her family’s home in the Qizan al-Najjar area, south of Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip.
According to Civil Defence teams, yesterday, Friday, the bombing completely destroyed the family’s home and sparked a massive fire that consumed its interior. Crews recovered the bodies of nine martyrs, including eight charred children. Her husband, Dr Hamdi al-Najjar, was seriously injured and transferred to intensive care.
Eyewitnesses reported that Dr Al-Najjar collapsed upon identifying the remains of her children, aged between two and 12, after they arrived at the hospital.
Dr Munir Al-Barsh, Director General of the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip, explained that Dr. Alaa has ten children, the eldest of whom is under 12 years old. She left the morning with her husband to go to work, but their home was targeted minutes after her husband returned.
The bombing resulted in the deaths of children Yahya, Rakan, Raslan, Jubran, Eve, Rifan, Saydin, Luqman, and Sidra. The tenth child, Adam, survived with injuries. Al-Barsh added, “This tragedy reflects the reality of medical personnel in Gaza. Health workers are not only targeted in their workplaces, but also in their homes, within their families. Words fail to describe the magnitude of the tragedy.”
This crime is part of a series of intensive Israeli attacks on Khan Yunis Governorate and other areas in the Gaza Strip over the past weeks, which have claimed the lives of hundreds, the majority of whom were women and children, amid growing international accusations of war crimes against civilians.
With American and European support, Israel has been committing genocide in the Gaza Strip since October, 2023, resulting in more than 175,000 Palestinian deaths and injuries, most of them children and women, in addition to more than 14,000 missing persons.
This article is reproduced in its entirety