2025-06-03 IDOPRESS
Dr Hamdi al-Najjar with two of his children Eve and Rakan – all three died as a result of the Israeli attack on their home (Picture: Reuters)
A Palestinian doctor who lost nine of his children in an Israeli air strike on Gaza has died from the injuries he sustained in the same attack.
Dr Hamdi al-Najjar,40,had just arrived home in Khan Younis after dropping off his wife,Dr Alaa al-Najjar,at Nasser Hospital,where the couple both worked, when the family property was hit.
Nine of their children were killed in the bombardment,which happened on May 23,while Hamdi and their only remaining child Adam,11,were seriously hurt.
Hamdi suffered brain and internal injuries and despite efforts by severely depleted medical teams,died on Saturday. Adam remains in hospital.
Hamdi and Alaa founded a private medical compound in Khan Younis,which Hamdi headed up. His brother,Dr Ali al-Najjar,described him as a loving father who would treat poorer patients for free.
Alaa learnt about her children’s deaths when their charred remains were brought to the hospital,with eyewitnesses saying she collapsed on seeing them.
They were identified as Yahya,Rakan,Ruslan,Jubran,Eve,Rivan,Saydeen,Luqman and Sidra and ranged in age from just six months to 12-years-old,according to local media.
Graeme Groom,a British surgeon working in the hospital who operated on the surviving son,Adam,told the BBC that it was ‘unbearably cruel’ that Alaa lost almost all her family in the Israeli strike.
Hamdi’s wife Dr Alaa al-Najjar by her husband’s hospital bed after he was critically injured
(Picture: Anadolu)
The youngest of the couple’s children to die was just six months old (Picture: Reuters)
He said that Adam’s ‘left arm was just about hanging off,he was covered in fragment injuries and he had several substantial lacerations’.
‘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.’
On Thursday,Italy’s government offered to treat Adam after his uncle,Ali,told Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper that Nasser hospital was ill-equipped to treat him.
The Italian foreign ministry said it was willing to transfer the boy to Italy and was looking into the feasibility of the proposal.
The Israeli military confirmed it carried out an air strike on Khan Younis on the day the al-Najjar family were struck,but said it was targeting suspects in a structure that was close to Israeli soldiers.
The military was looking into claims that ‘uninvolved civilians’ were killed,it said.
On Sunday,meanwhile,at least 31 Palestinians were killed and more than 170 wounded after Israeli forces fired towards crowds on their way to a US-backed aid distribution centre near Rafah,according to health officials and witnesses.
Hamdi suffered brain and internal injuries and died on Saturday(Credits: REUTERS)
Palestinians gather to perform a funeral prayer for Hamdi on Sunday (Picture: Anadolu)
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