'Death is sometimes kinder': Relatives recount Gaza strike that devastated family
by AFP Staff Writers
Gaza City, Palestinian Territories (AFP) May 25, 2025

Alaa al-Najjar was tending to wounded children at a hospital in the southern Gaza Strip when the news came through: the home where her own 10 children were staying had been bombed in an Israeli air strike.

The paediatrician, with no means of transport, ran from the Nasser Hospital to the family house in the city of Khan Yunis, a relative told AFP, only to be met with every parent's worst nightmare.

"When she saw the charred bodies, she started screaming and crying," said Ali al-Najjar, the brother of Alaa's husband.

Nine of her children were killed, their bodies burned beyond recognition, according to relatives.

The tenth, 10-year-old Adam, survived the strike but remains in critical condition, as does his father, Hamdi al-Najjar, also a doctor, who was also at home when the strike hit.

Both are in intensive care at Nasser Hospital.

When the body of her daughter Nibal was pulled from the rubble, Alaa screamed her name, her brother-in-law recounted.

The following day, under a tent set up near the destroyed home, the well-respected paediatric specialist sat in stunned silence, still in shock.

Around her, women wept as the sounds of explosions echoed across the Palestinian territory, battered by more than a year and a half of war.

- 'Their features were gone' -

The air strike on Friday afternoon was carried out without warning, relatives said.

Asked about the incident, the Israeli military said it had "struck a number of suspects who were identified operating from a structure" near its troops, adding that claims of civilian harm were under review.

"I couldn't recognise the children in the shrouds," Alaa's sister, Sahar al-Najjar, said through tears. "Their features were gone."

"It's a huge loss. Alaa is broken," said Mohammed, another close family member.

According to medical sources, Hamdi al-Najjar underwent several operations at the Jordanian field hospital.

Doctors had to remove a large portion of his right lung and gave him 17 blood transfusions.

Adam had one hand amputated and suffers from severe burns across his body.

"I found my brother's house like a broken biscuit, reduced to ruins, and my loved ones were underneath," Ali al-Najjar said, recalling how he dug through the rubble with his bare hands alongside paramedics to recover the children's bodies.

Now, he dreads the moment his brother regains consciousness.

"I don't know how to tell him. Should I tell him his children are dead? I buried them in two graves."

"There is no safe place in Gaza," he added with a weary sigh. "Death is sometimes kinder than this torture."

Gaza rescuers say 22 killed in Israeli strikes
Gaza City, Palestinian Territories (AFP) May 25, 2025 - Rescuers in Gaza said 22 people were killed and dozens more wounded in Israeli air strikes across the Palestinian territory on Sunday.

Civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said seven people were killed in a strike on a home in Jabalia, in the north.

Some people were still under the debris, he added, as "the civil defence does not have search equipment or heavy equipment to lift the rubble to rescue the wounded and recover the martyrs".

Two more people, including a woman who was seven months pregnant, were killed in an attack targeting tents sheltering displaced people around Nuseirat in central Gaza, he said, adding doctors were unable to save the unborn child.

Also included in the toll were the civil defence's director of operations Ashraf Abu Nar and his wife, who were killed in a strike on their home in Nuseirat, according to Bassal.

Fatal strikes were also recorded around Deir el-Balah in the centre of the territory, Beit Lahia in the north, and the main southern city of Khan Yunis.

In all, civil defence teams recovered "at least 22 martyrs, including a number of children, and dozens of injured" on Sunday, with a number of people still missing, Bassal said.

The Israeli army did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the strikes.

Israel has stepped up its Gaza operations in recent days in what it has described as a renewed push to destroy Hamas.

At the same time, facing mounting international pressure, it has partially eased a total blockade on aid that has led to widespread shortages of food and medicine in Gaza.

COGAT, the Israeli defence ministry body that coordinates civilian affairs in the Palestinian territories, said "107 trucks belonging to the UN and the international community carrying humanitarian aid... were transferred" into Gaza on Sunday.

Gaza's health ministry said Sunday that at least 3,785 people had been killed in the territory since a ceasefire collapsed on March 18, taking the war's overall toll to 53,939, mostly civilians.

Hamas's October 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Militants also took 251 hostages, 57 of whom remain in Gaza including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

Related Links
Space War News