Dr. Alaa al-Najjar left her ten children at home on Friday when she went to work in the emergency room at the Nasser Medical Complex in southern Gaza.
Hours later, the bodies of seven children – most of them badly burned – arrived at the hospital, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. They were Dr. Najjar’s own children, killed in an Israeli airstrike on her family’s home, Gaza Civil Defense said. The oldest was 12, the youngest just three years old. The bodies of two more children – a 7-month-old and a two-year-old – remained trapped under the rubble as of Saturday morning.
Only one of her children – critically injured – survived. Dr. Najjar’s husband, himself a doctor, was also badly injured in the strike.
Civil defense and the health ministry say that the family’s home, in a neighborhood of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, was targeted by an Israeli airstrike.
Gaza Civil Defense published graphic video from the scene of the strike. It showed medics lifting an injured man onto a stretcher as other first responders try to extinguish a fire engulfing the house. They recover the charred remains of several children from the debris and wrap them in white sheets.
‘Wiping out entire families’
Munir al-Barsh, Director-General of the Ministry of Health in Gaza, said that Dr. Najjar’s husband had just returned home when the home was struck.
“Nine of their children were killed: Yahya, Rakan, Raslan, Gebran, Eve, Rival, Sayden, Luqman, and Sidra,” Barsh posted on X. He said her husband was in intensive care.
“This is the reality our medical staff in Gaza endure. Words fall short in describing the pain. In Gaza, it is not only healthcare workers who are targeted—Israel’s aggression goes further, wiping out entire families,” Barsh said.
Both the father and son underwent two surgeries at the hospital and are still receiving treatment, Farra said.
Youssef Abu al-Reesh, a senior official at the Health Ministry, said Dr. Najjar had left her children at home to “fulfill her duty and her calling toward all those sick children who have no place but Nasser Hospital.”
Reesh said that when he arrived at the hospital, he had seen her “standing tall, calm, patient, composed, with eyes full of acceptance. You could hear nothing from her but quiet murmurs of (glorification of God) and (seeking forgiveness).”
Dr. Najjar, 38, is a pediatrician, but like most doctors in Gaza, she has been working in the emergency room during Israel’s onslaught on the territory.