Dr. Alaa al-Najjar, a 36-year-old pediatrician and mother of 10 children, spent the morning of Friday, May 23, doing what she had devoted her life to: Saving children at Nasser Hospital in Gaza. At nightfall, she was no longer a healer but a mourning, cradling the charred and dismembered remains of her own children – Yahya, Rakan, Ruslan, Jubran, Eve, Revan, Sayden, Luqman and Sidra. Seven were confirmed dead. Two remain buried under the rubble, including his youngest Sayden, six months old, still asleep in his cradle when Dr. Al-Najjar kissed him goodbye that morning.
In a single Israeli air strike – in one minute – his whole world was wiped out.
Her husband Hamdy, 40, also a doctor, and their son Adam, 11, are in USI, their life suspended by a thread inside the Gaza disintegration health system – not by chance but by design. The repeated and intentional targeting of hospitals and clinics has left the Gaza health infrastructure in ruins. In just a week, 12 of the most dedicated nurses in Gaza were killed, one by one.
Commenting on the state of the family, Dr. Graeme Groom, a British surgeon working in Nasser’s hospital who operated them, said that the father had undergone a “penetrating injury”, while “Adam’s left arm was simply to hang; It was covered with injuries by fragment and had several substantial lacerations ”.
The body of his daughter Revan was burned beyond recognition – “nothing remained of her skin or his flesh,” said his uncle. In tears, Dr. Alaa begged the rescuers to let her hold her daughter one last time.
Unfortunately, the white shrouds wrapped around the bodies of the children of Gaza continue to go up.
Yaqeen Hammad is now one of these enveloped and buried children.
At just 11 years old, Yaqeen was one of the youngest influencers in Gaza’s social media. In her short life, she embodied what the Palestinian scholar and poet Rafeef Ziadah called Palestinian ways in “teaching life”. Yaqeen makes desserts. She has delivered food. She brought happiness to the children who had lost everything. In one of her videos, while preparing food, she said to the world: “In Gaza, we don’t know the word impossible.” It was his crime.
On May 23, on the same day, Alaa’s children were cremated, Israel decided that Yaqeen was somehow a threat to his existence. Several aerial raids hit his neighborhood in Deir El-Balah and ended his life. She was one of the 18,000 Palestinian children killed since October, one of the 1,300+ since Israel broke the ceasefire in March, and one of the dozens in just 48 hours.
Commenting on the double moral standards applied to the Palestinians, Dan Sheehan, editor -in -chief of Literary Hub, noted: “If an 11 -year -old Israeli influencer – a girl who delivered food and toys to the displaced children – had been killed, the Empire State Building would be lit for her.
But, for Yaqeen, there is only silence.
A Palestinian diplomat experienced at the UN, Riyadh Mansour, was so disturbed by the extent of this destruction against the children he melted in tears during a statement. Video sequences have shown Danny Danon – his Israeli counterpart – stifling a yawn in response.
Faced with the death of Palestinian children, Israel yawns with indifference. It is not surprising, with a recent survey showing that 82% of Jewish Israelis support expeling the Palestinians from Gaza. How can we say the Palestinians to be brought – and their children – to the Israeli military aid stations and to expect safety, not wild? “How”, in the words of the main human rights lawyer in Gaza, Raji Sourani, “The hand that kills could also become the hand that feeds?”
Of course, the answer is that she cannot: the killed hands of Israel go far in the Gaza strip, and the children feel the weight.
One of those who avoided the fate of martyrdom is Ward al-Sheikh Khalil, a five-year-old girl who is discouraged in a United Nations school. She woke up with the flames engulfing the classroom where her family was sleeping. His mother and siblings were killed in the Israeli strike. The roof collapsed and it was filmed as it was trying to escape while its small body was swallowed by smoke and chaos. Saved by a doctor, she whispered, when asked where her mother and siblings were: “under the rubble”.
Another young girl was pulled under the ruins of the classroom, her half -burned body. Will his pain be sufficient to move the hearts of politicians? How many girls love it? How many boys? How many broken, charred or buried bodies will take before this genocide is named and arrested? The number of 18,000 Palestinian children – whose names we may never know – not enough?
In December 2023, UNICEF, the UN children’s agency, said: “The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child.” On May 27, the organization said that “since the end of the ceasefire on March 18, 1,309 children were killed and 3,738 injured. In total, more than 50,000 children have been killed or injured since October 2023. Killing ruthless children?
As a rule, when a building is on fire, all emergency measures are taken to save lives. No effort is spared. In Vietnam, the cries of a napalmed child – Phan Thi Kim Phuc, 9 years old – galvanized global efforts to stop the war. The body of a little Syrian boy – Alan Kurdi, 3 years old – has moved a whole continent to receive refugees. But, in Gaza, the girls who run fire, drawn from the rubble and burned beyond recognition are not sufficient to cause action.
In Gaza, when children are caught in the fire of the implacable bombardments, the world turns its back. No pain or suffering seems to inspire the leaders of this world to take measures to extinguish this hell which rages on the bodies of the innocents.
While Jehad Abusalim, Executive Director of the Institute for Palestine Studies USA, put it with raw clarity: “Why did the burning girls counted in Vietnam but not in Gaza?” In Vietnam, only one image – the napalmed girl who runs on a road – rocked the American conscience. But “in Gaza, there are dozens of moments” napalm girl “every day. These images are not filtered through distant photo wires or delayed coverage; They come to live, not filtered and implacable. The world is not lacking in evidence. He drowns there. So why does he not react? “
A small glow of hope comes from the 1,200 Israeli academics who signed a letter of protest focused on Palestinian suffering. Their moral clarity is reflected in a very simple declaration: we cannot say that we did not know. Let these words unite the conscience of each politician and each diplomat of the Western world: you cannot say that you did not know.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Tel Aviv Tribune.