Aircraft struck a number of suspects who were identified operating from a structure adjacent to IDF troops in the area of Khan Youni
An Israeli air strike on Gaza hit the home of a doctor and killed nine of her 10 children, the hospital where she works in the city of Khan Younis says.
Nasser hospital said one of Dr Alaa al-Najjar’s children and her husband were injured, but survived.
Graeme Groom, a British surgeon working in the hospital who operated on her surviving 11-year-old boy, told the BBC it was “unbearably cruel” that his mother, who spent years caring for children as a pediatrician, could lose almost all her own in a single missile strike.
Israel’s military said its aircraft had struck “a number of suspects” in Khan Younis on Friday, and “the claim regarding harm to uninvolved civilians is under review”.
A video shared by the director of the Hamas-run health ministry and verified by the BBC showed small burned bodies lifted from the rubble of a strike in Khan Younis.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said its “aircraft struck a number of suspects who were identified operating from a structure adjacent to IDF troops in the area of Khan Younis”.
“The Khan Younis area is a dangerous war zone. Before beginning operations there, the IDF evacuated civilians from this area for their own safety,” the Israeli military said.
In a general statement on Saturday, the IDF said it had struck more than 100 targets across Gaza over the past day.
The health ministry said at least 74 people had been killed by the Israeli military over the 24 hour-period leading up to about midday on Saturday.
Dr Muneer Alboursh, director of the health ministry, said on X that the al-Najjars’ family house was hit minutes after Dr al-Najjar’s husband Hamdi had returned home after driving his wife to work.
Dr Alboursh said the eldest of Dr al-Najjar’s children was aged 12.
Mr Groom said the children’s father was “very badly injured”, in a video posted on the Instagram account of another British surgeon working at Nasser hospital, Victoria Rose.
He told the BBC that the father had a “penetrating injury to his head”.
He said he had asked about the father, also a doctor at the hospital, and had been told he had “no political and no military connections and doesn’t seem to be prominent on social media”.
He described it as an “unimaginable” situation for Dr Alaa al-Najjar.
Mr Groom said the surviving 11-year-old boy, Adam, was “quite small” for his age.
“His left arm was just about hanging off, he was covered in fragment injuries and he had several substantial lacerations,” he told the BBC.
“Since both his parents are doctors, he seemed to be among the privileged group within Gaza, but as we lifted him onto the operating table, he felt much younger than 11.”
“Our little boy could survive, but we don’t know about his father,” he added.
bbc.com