A medical charity chief has spoken out about the deaths of a doctor’s nine children in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza, and the “almost impossibility” of providing care in the region.
Warning: This article contains graphic details of child deaths
Chris Lockyear – the secretary general of Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), or Doctors Without Borders – told Sky News’ Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips the bodies of nine of paediatrician Alaa al Najjar’s 10 children arrived at the Nasser Medical Complex, in the city of Khan Younis, while she was on shift.
The attack in southern Gaza on Friday also left her husband, Hamdi al Najjar, severely wounded, and her only surviving son, Adam, aged 11, in a critical condition.
The dead brothers and sisters ranged in age from seven months to 12 years old.
Mr Lockyear, who has been in contact with some of the MSF team working in the hospital, said: “Our team on the ground were saying that not only were the bodies of her children delivered to her while she was on shift, not only were they burnt, but they were describing them as charcoaled.”
He continued: “And this hospital, which is one of the very few partially remaining in Gaza to this day, has been subject to three airstrikes in the last two months – at one point killing two people in the surgical ward, which is just an illustration of the complexity, almost impossibility, of providing humanitarian services in Gaza at the moment.”
Hospitals in Gaza have repeatedly come under attack during the war. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claims Hamas has been hiding in them or in tunnels underneath.
Four major hospitals have had to suspend medical services in the past week or so due to their proximity to hostilities and attacks, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said. There were 28 attacks on healthcare in Gaza during this period and 697 attacks in total since October 2023.
Almost all of the 36 hospitals in the Gaza Strip are damaged or destroyed, according to the WHO, and only 19 remain operational.
In total, the bodies of 79 people killed by Israeli strikes were taken to hospitals in a 24-hour period, Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said on Saturday – a toll that does not include hospitals in the battered north, which it said were now inaccessible.
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Mr Lockyear told Sky News there are “no public hospitals open in the north anymore”, and added: “We’re seeing the weaponisation of humanitarian assistance.
“We’re seeing the restriction of the basic essentials of life, such as water and electricity, preventing and further increasing the intolerable situation of this deliberate humanitarian catastrophe which is ongoing in Gaza.”
Israel says around 300 aid trucks have been allowed through since it lifted an 11-week blockade on Monday, but UN secretary general Antonio Guterres called it a “teaspoon” of what is needed with only about a third of the trucks having been transported to warehouses within Gaza due to insecurity.
Uncle tells of fight to save children
Ali al Najjar, the uncle of the nine children killed, was involved in trying to save them.
“We started to get them out, one by one,” he told Sky News. “We got out the third child. Of course, we couldn’t identify the children.
“They were charred. They had no clothes, no face. They were remains.”
Read more from Sky News:
Head of UN condemns ‘teaspoon of aid’ allowed into Gaza
‘Khan Younis looks like Stalingrad’: British doctor describes horror
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Two British doctors working at Nasser Hospital described the attack as “horrific” and “unimaginable” for Dr Najjar.
The IDF told Sky News: “An IDF 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 claim regarding harm to uninvolved civilians is under review.”
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The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping 251 others.
Israel’s military response has flattened large areas of Gaza and killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count.
