Report by Muhammad Raiyd Qazi
The story of Dr. Alaa al-Najjar — a Palestinian paediatrician who lost nine of her ten children in a single Israeli airstrike while she was treating wounded patients in a Khan Younis hospital — is not just a deeply personal tragedy. It is a searing indictment of the conduct of modern warfare and the moral degradation of international response to the Gaza conflict.
On Friday, an Israeli missile strike obliterated the Najjar family home, killing children aged between infancy and 12, reducing their lives to charred remains pulled from rubble, and adding yet another entry to the ever-growing ledger of civilian casualties in Gaza. Only her husband and one child survived, both injured. Yet Dr. Najjar, shattered but dutiful, remained at her post in the al-Tahrir Hospital, treating the very victims of the violence that destroyed her world.
This is not an anomaly. This is the pattern.
Israeli military operations in Gaza have killed over 79 people in a single 24-hour period, targeted more than 100 locations, and left entire families, like the Dardounas, 30 members of whom died in another airstrike, annihilated. The justification, as per the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), is always similar: militants were allegedly present nearby, and civilians were “warned.” But how does one meaningfully evacuate from a territory that has no safe zones, where the borders are sealed, and where even designated “humanitarian corridors” are frequently bombed?
To accept these justifications without interrogation is to normalise the deaths of children as collateral, and to allow the machinery of war to roll on, unquestioned and unrestrained.
The IDF’s statement that the area was a “dangerous war zone” does not absolve it of the responsibility to distinguish between combatants and civilians. International humanitarian law — particularly the principles of proportionality and distinction — requires that all parties to a conflict take active steps to avoid civilian harm. The staggering scale of destruction in Gaza, particularly to homes, schools, hospitals, and now aid convoys, raises credible concerns that these principles are being routinely violated. That the airstrike occurred just after Dr. Najjar’s husband returned home from escorting her to the hospital further undercuts any claim of targeted precision.
Hamas, for its part, has continued to embed operations in densely populated areas, cynically exploiting civilian presence to score propaganda points when the inevitable happens. But the asymmetry of power between a nuclear-armed state and a stateless, blockaded population must inform any ethical analysis of responsibility.
The UN special rapporteur’s description of a “distinguishable sadistic pattern” is a stark warning. There is growing evidence, photographic and testimonial, that what is unfolding in Gaza may not merely be a war against Hamas, but an intentional campaign of collective punishment that skirts dangerously close to war crimes, and, as some allege, genocide.
Meanwhile, the international community remains paralysed. Calls for a ceasefire from humanitarian groups and UN officials have been repeatedly vetoed or diluted in forums like the UN Security Council. The United States, Israel’s principal ally, continues to supply arms and defend Israeli actions even as the humanitarian catastrophe worsens.
That catastrophe now includes famine. With fuel, food, and medicine being restricted in Gaza for months, the population of 2.3 million is on the brink. Aid agencies warn that hundreds of thousands may starve. A proposed “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation” might theoretically coordinate aid distribution, but it does not yet exist. The blockade continues. The suffering grows.
Dr. Najjar’s tragedy is a symbol of this suffering, not just because she lost her children, but because even in that moment, she continued to heal others. Her story compels us to look beyond statistics. It demands that we restore humanity to a conflict that has turned too many lives into numbers, and too many children into headlines.
If this war continues on its present trajectory, it will not only destroy Gaza. It will destroy what remains of the global rules-based order. International humanitarian law is meaningless if its violations are met only with silence or geopolitical convenience.
The world must demand an immediate ceasefire. It must insist on full humanitarian access. And it must hold all actors — state or non-state — accountable for their actions under international law.
Because if the image of a mother, burying her children while continuing to save others, does not move the world to action, then what will?
Note: Muhammad Raiyd Qazi is the Editor of the News & Affairs Network — globalnan.com
