‘Israeli drones knew they were children’, says brother of Gaza doctor who lost 9 kids
The brother of a Gaza doctor who lost nine of his children in an Israeli airstrike on their home in Khan Yunis says Israeli drones had a clear view of the children and “knew they were children” before the attack.
“Hamdi Al-Najjar had dropped his wife off at the hospital and returned home, where his children were playing in the yard. The Israeli drones could clearly see them and knew they were children,” Ali Al-Najjar told Press TV’s correspondent in Gaza.
Recalling the moments before the tragedy, Ali said his brother was preparing a simple meal for the children, who had gathered on the ground floor of their home.
“Just before they could eat, we heard an explosion in their area. I immediately called my brother, but couldn’t reach him. When we arrived at the scene, warplanes had struck them with two missiles,” he said.
Ali described how his sister-in-law, Dr. Alaa Al-Najjar, was on duty at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis on Friday, treating children wounded in Israeli airstrikes, when the bodies of her own children began arriving—seven of them, one after another.
The family lost nine of their ten children that day, as the Israeli airstrike leveled their home. The bodies of two of the children have yet to be recovered.
Two of the children, Sidor and her two-year-old brother Uman, are still missing beneath the rubble.
“This is the unimaginable reality faced by Dr. Alaa Al-Najjar,” Ali said. “The first strike didn’t explode. As their father rushed to get the children out, the second missile struck, flattening the building and burning the children and their father.”
“When we arrived at the scene,” he said, “we found seven charred, tiny bodies, barely intact.”
Hamdi, himself a physician, was critically wounded and remains in intensive care.
“The oldest child, Gerya, was just 12. The youngest, Sidor, born during this genocide, hadn’t yet reached six months,” Ali said.
“The Israeli occupation assassinated my brother’s children, burning them” before the world’s eyes, he said.
He also urged the international community to help evacuate his brother and his surviving 11-year-old son for lifesaving treatment abroad.
