The 36-year-old paediatrician and mother of 10 Dr. Alaa al-Najjar did what she had devoted her life to: rescuing children from Gaza’s Nasser Hospital on May 23. By nightfall, she was no longer a healer but a mourner, cradling the dismembered, charred remains of her own children, Yahya, Rakan, Ruslan, Jubran, Eve, Revan, Sayden, Luqman, and Sidra. Seven people died as a result. Sayden, her six-month-old, was among the others still buried beneath the rubble when Dr. al-Najjar kissed him goodbye that morning, and he is still there.
Her entire world was destroyed by one Israeli airstrike, lasting just one minute.
Her 40-year-old husband Hamdy, a doctor, and their 11-year-old son, Adam, are both in the ICU, and this is not a design defect. The healthcare system in Gaza is inruins because of repeated, deliberate targeting of hospitals and clinics. Twelve of Gaza’s most devoted nurses were killed one by one in a week.
Dr. Graeme Groom, a British surgeon who operated on the family, described the family’s condition as “penetrating injury to his head,” “adam’s left arm was just about hanging off, he was covered in fragment injuries and had several significant lacerations,” while referring to the father’s condition.
Her uncle claimed that nothing of her daughter Revan’s body could be identified because it was completely burned. Dr. Alaa begged rescuers to let her hold her daughter for one more time while she was crying.
Unfortunately, the number of children in Gaza who have been wrapped in white shrouds continues to grow.
Yaqeen Hammad is now one of those children who has been buried and buried.
Yaqeen, one of Gaza’s youngest social media influencers, was only 11 years old. She lived up to what the Israeli poet and scholar Rafeef Ziadah called “the ways of teaching life” in her short life. Desserts were made by Yaqeen. She delivered the food. She made children who had lost everything happy. She said to the world in one of her videos, “In Gaza, we don’t know the word impossible,” as she was preparing food. She committed this crime.
Israel decided that Yaqeen was in some way a threat to its existence on May 23 and the day Alaa’s children were being burned. She was killed when multiple air raids targeted her Deir el-Balah neighborhood and killed her. One of the 1,300 Palestinian children killed since Israel’s ceasefire was broken in March, and another of dozens in just 48 hours, was her.
The Empire State Building would be lit up for an Israeli influencer who had delivered food and toys to displaced children when she was killed, according to Dan Sheehan, editor at Literary Hub, in a comment on the moral double standards that Palestinians are subject to. Her image would appear on every major US news outlet’s homepage. Every politician would pick her name.
There is only silence for Yaqeen, though.
Riyad Mansour, a seasoned Palestinian diplomat at the UN, was so alarmed by the scale of the destruction that he cried during a statement. Danny Danon, his Israeli counterpart, yawned in response, according to video footage.
Israel yawns indifference in response to the deaths of Palestinian children. Unsurprising, given that a recent poll found that 82 percent of Jewish Israelis support the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza. Then, how can Palestinians be told to expect safety from Israeli military aid delivery stations and their children? How might the hand that kills turn into the hand that feeds, asks respected Gaza human rights lawyer Raji Sourani?
The Gaza Strip’s children are the victims, and Israel’s killing hands are doing it, which is, of course, impossible.
Ward al-Sheikh Khalil, a five-year-old girl who was sheltered at a UN school, is one of the lucky ones to avoid martyrdom. The classroom where her family was sleeping caught fires as she awoke. In the Israeli attack, her mother and siblings were killed. She was filmed trying to flee as the roof collapsed, and smoke and chaos engulfed her tiny body. When asked where her mother and siblings were, she murmured, “Under the rubble,” and was later saved by a doctor.
Another young girl’s body was half burned as she was pulled from beneath the classroom’s rubble. Will her suffering be enough to sway politicians’ hearts? How popular is she among girls? What number of boys? How many bodies will need to be identified and stopped before this genocide is named? Will the 18, 000 Palestinian children’s names, whose names we may never fully understand, be sufficient?
The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place to be a child, according to UNICEF in December 2023. The organization reported that “1, 309 children have reportedly been killed and 3, 738 have been injured since the ceasefire’s end on March 18.” Since October 2023, more than 50 000 children have reportedly died or been hurt. How many more dead boys and girls will there be? What level of horror must be recorded live before the international community fully reaches out, exerts its influence, and takes bold, decisive action to put an end to this child-righteous killing?
All necessary emergency measures are typically taken to save lives when a building is on fire. No efforts are spared. The cries of a 9-year-old napalmed child, Phan Thi Kim Phuc, sparked global efforts to end the conflict in Vietnam. An entire continent was displaced by the 3-year-old boy’s body, which was named Alan Kurdi. However, in Gaza, girls who are escaping from the rubble, pulled from the rubble, and burned beyond recognition are insufficient to compel action.
The world turns its head in Gaza when children are caught in the constant bombardment. No amount of suffering or suffering seems to motivate the world’s leaders to act immediately to expel this bloody rage.
Why did burning girls matter in Vietnam but not in Gaza, according to Jehad Abusalim, the executive director of the Institute for Palestine Studies USA, in blatant clarity? The napalmed girl running down a road in Vietnam was a singular instance of American conscience. However, “every single day there are dozens of “napalm girl” moments in Gaza.” These images are live, unfiltered, and relentless, not filtered through distant photo wires or delayed coverage. There is sufficient evidence in the world. It is engulfed in it. Why, then, does it not react?
The 1,200 Israeli academics who have signed a protest letter that is focused on Palestinian suffering offer one glint of hope. We can’t say we didn’t know, which is reflected in a very straightforward statement. You can’t say you didn’t know, let these words pierce the conscience of every politician and diplomat in the Western world.
