The Massacre of Nine Children of the Al-Najjar Family
“I turned on my camera and began recording. I didn’t know yet that the fire was burning the bodies of my neighbors’ children.”
KHAN YOUNIS, GAZA STRIP—On the afternoon of May 23, I heard the sound of intense bombing in the near distance and went out onto the balcony. A large plume of thick, black smoke was curling slowly upwards, lingering in the air for more than 15 minutes. My brothers joined me on the balcony to assess where the missile had hit. There were two strikes on what looked like the Qizan al-Najjar neighborhood—where we grew up..
“It’s the Faris gas station,” my older brother, Hassan said. I turned on my camera and began recording. I didn’t know yet that the fire was burning the bodies of my neighbors’ children.
A few minutes later, my sister called out from the next room. "This is Dr. Hamdi Al-Najjar's house—the one opposite the station—and there are martyrs in it." I quickly grabbed my phone to check the news and the WhatsApp group of the neighborhood residents. I got the same horrifying confirmation.
Speaking with relatives later, I found out what happened. Hamdi, a pharmacist, had left his home to drop off his wife, Alaa, at Nasser hospital, where she worked as a pediatrician, tirelessly trying to save the children of others. On his way back, a neighbor informed him that his pharmacy behind his house had been targeted in an airstrike. Panicked, he rushed back to take his ten children out of the house. When he got there, the home took a direct hit.
"With the second missile, the whole house collapsed, and the children were thrown into the neighbors' house from the force of the blast,” said Tahani Al-Najjar, the children’s 16-year-old cousin. "My uncle Hamdi remained conscious and called the journalist Hani Al-Sha'er, asking him to send an ambulance to rescue them and the civil defense to extinguish the fire."
Another uncle, Ali, who was displaced in the middle of Khan Younis, also received a call informing him that his brother’s house had been targeted. He immediately rushed to the scene and arrived before any emergency workers. Ali’s newphew, Adam, was the only child who survived, but he was critically wounded. Ali rescued him and took him to the hospital.
Meanwhile, their mother, Alaa, had heard the news and rushed home. By the time she arrived, her husband, Hamdi, had been taken to hospital with severe injuries, while the charred, dismembered bodies of her children were being lifted out of the rubble. Three children had already been retrieved and she watched, weeping in distress, as four more were carried out. When her daughter, Rivan, was pulled out, she begged rescuers to let her hold her body.
In total, the bodies of seven of her children were retrieved: Rakan, Ruslan, Jubran, Eve, Rivan, Luqman, and Sidra. The eldest, 12-year-old Yahya, and the youngest, six-month-old Sayden, are still missing. "We coordinated with the civil defense and searched for them everywhere, but we couldn't find their bodies," Ali said.
Nine of Alaa’s ten children had been killed.
Tahani remembers meeting her cousins and playing together on the swing or singing, especially with Eve, Yahya, and Adam. They had wanted to become doctors when they grew up, just like their parents. "Eve would always tell me she loves me a lot whenever she saw me," Tahani said.
They were all exceptional and excelling in their studies. Yahya and Adam had fully memorized the Quran, while Ruslan was in the final parts. Hamdi would sometimes ask Tahani to test their memorization, and they would joke and play together.
The family of 12 has now become a family of three, two of whom are in the ICU.
The bombing does not stop. Families are being wiped out. The tragedies are unimaginable. The killing is relentless.
 | A guest post by
|
