Two Palestinian girls in the rubble of a building destroyed by Israeli strikes in Beit Lahiya, in the northern Gaza Strip, on April 28, 2025. (Credit: Bashar Taleb/AFP)
Gaza Doctor Hamdi al-Najjar died on Sunday nine days after suffering severe injuries in an Israeli strike that targeted his home and killed nine of his 10 children, according to Al Jazeera and the Israeli newspaper Haaretz' medical sources.
His death left his 11-year-old son, who was also severely wounded in the strike, as the sole survivor of the attack. Hamdi had driven his wife to work at the hospital, and the strike occurred just minutes after he returned home.
According to Haaretz, Hamdi and his wife Alaa, who also works as a doctor at the same hospital, told several media outlets that the family had no ties to Hamas.
The Gisha Legal Center for Freedom of Movement, which is an Israeli organization, appealed to the Israeli army for Hamdi and his son to receive urgent medical care abroad, noting both were still suffering life-threatening injuries from the strike.
According to the NGO, the World Health Organization told Alaa that it aimed to evacuate her son and husband, adding that Malta and Ireland expressed their willingness to treat patients from Gaza.
The NGO said that the accumulation of a large amount of blood in the chest cavity caused pressure on Hamdi's lung, causing it to collapse, adding that he "subsequently underwent emergency surgery to open his chest, and the lower lobe of his right lung was removed." Hamdi also suffered from a penetrating wound to his abdomen, skull fractures that endanger brain tissue and a serious injury to his right limb that resulted in the amputation of one of his fingers.
Colleagues of Alaa at al-Tahrir, which is part of the Nasser Medical Complex, told local and foreign news outlets that she has not stopped working since then.
The Israeli army responded to reports of that strike, saying that "an aircraft struck several suspects identified by Israeli army forces as operating in a building near troops in the Khan Yunis area, a dangerous combat zone that had been evacuated of civilians in advance for their protection. The claim of harm to uninvolved individuals is being reviewed."
Since the beginning of the war between Hamas and Israel in October 2023, Israeli attacks have killed more than 54,400 Palestinians.
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