AN Israeli strike has killed nearly the entire family of a Khan Younis doctor while she was at work, Gaza health officials said.
The attack hit the home of Alaa al-Najjar, a paediatrician at the southern city’s Nasser Hospital, on Friday, setting it ablaze and killing nine of her 10 children, according to the head of the hospital’s paediatrics department, Ahmad al-Farra.
Al-Najjar’s husband is severely wounded, and the couple’s only surviving child, 11-year-old Adam, is in critical condition, Gaza’s Government Media Office said in a statement.
The dead children, two of whom remain under the rubble, range in age from seven months to 12 years old, the media office added.
The attack “encapsulates the ongoing genocide faced by the Palestinian people in Gaza,” said the office. “It is a full-fledged war crime under all international laws and conventions.”
The UN’s special rapporteur for the Palestinian territory, Francesca Albanese, slammed the attack as part of a “sadistic pattern” of a “new phase of genocide” facing Palestinians in the besieged enclave.
Hamas said it followed a routine of Israel “deliberately targeting … medical personnel, civilians and their families in an attempt to break their will”.
The Israeli military said it had struck suspected fighters operating from a structure next to its forces in an area where civilians had been evacuated. “The claim regarding harm to uninvolved civilians is under review,” the military added.
On Monday, Israel issued forced evacuation orders for Khan Younis, Gaza’s second-largest city, warning of an “unprecedented attack”. There has been heavy, deadly bombardment in the area daily.
The al-Najjar children were among dozens killed in Israel’s attacks on Friday and Saturday.
According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, the bodies of 79 people killed in Israeli attacks were brought to hospitals between Friday and midday Saturday. That count does not include facilities in the north of the enclave that are inaccessible, it said.
The ministry puts the overall death toll in Gaza since October 2023 at 53,901, with 122,593 injured.
