An Israeli air strike on Gaza this morning targetted the home of a doctor and killed nine of her 10 children in the city of Khan Younis, as its war crimes against civilians reaches new heights, and the West fails to act.
Nasser hospital said one of Dr Alaa al-Najjar’s children and her husband were injured, but survived.
Graeme Groom, a British surgeon working in the hospital who operated on her surviving 11-year-old boy, said it was “unbearably cruel” that his mother, who spent years caring for children as a paediatrician, could lose almost all her own in a single missile strike.
Israeli military actions in Gaza have resulted in the deaths of over 1,400 healthcare workers and more than 400 humanitarian aid workers since October 2023, against all international law. The World Health Organization (WHO) has reported that by April 2024, 94% of Gaza’s hospitals had been destroyed or damaged, rendering them non-operational. As of May 2025, the healthcare system in Gaza remains in a state of collapse.
On March 23, Israeli forces attacked a convoy comprising ambulances, a UN vehicle, and a fire truck in Rafah, killing 15 aid workers, including eight Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) paramedics, five civil defense personnel, and one UN staff member. The IDF attempted to hide their bodies in a mass grave and also buried their service vehicles nearby.
According to Middle East Eye, a 12-year-old Palestinian boy had been identified as a key witness to the incident. He was reportedly set to testify about the events when he was fatally shot by Israeli forces.
His father said the boy, Mohammed al-Bardawil, was deliberately targeted after witnessing the execution of medics by Israeli soldiers.
On April 1, 2024, seven World Central Kitchen aid workers, including three British nationals, were killed in an Israeli airstrike on their convoy in Gaza. The vehicles were clearly marked, and the route had been coordinated with Israeli authorities. To date, no-one in the IDF has been charged with the murders of Brits James Henderson, John Chapman or James Kirby – and the British government refuses to assist in providing possible footage of the massacre it filmed from above with a spy plane it was operating over Gaza that day.
It has been 68 days since Israel broke its agreed Gaza ceasefire deal with Hamas and over 8,000 Palestinians have been butchered by Israel in airstrikes and ground offensives since then. Reports indicate that around 70% of the fatalities are women and children.
The total death toll has risen from approximately 53,655 on 18 March to over 61,700 as of 23 May 2025, according to Gaza’s Government Media Office. In addition to the fatalities, thousands more have been injured, and many remain trapped under rubble due to Israel’s ceaseless and indiscriminate bombardments.
Publications including the Economist and The Lancet have estimated the real death toll in Gaza is a multiple of this, at well over 100,000 Palestinians slaughtered or starved by Israel.
The pariah state continues to conduct a completely illegal seige of aid going into Gaza, which has been denounced in the last two weeks by Western leaders who are beginning to fear they could be legally accountable for assisting in Israel’s genocidal war to ethnically cleanse Gaza of all of its 2.1 million Palestinian citizens.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed that leaders such as French President Emmanuel Macron, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer are fostering antisemitism and supporting Hamas by urging Israel to end its illegal blockade of humanitarian aid to Gaza.
These statements have been met with strong rebukes from the leaders, who have criticized Netanyahu’s remarks as defamatory and distorted.
Israel has long criticised and lobbied against any attempts to call it out on its daily war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank and appears to have most recently succeeded in halting the broadcast of a documentary entitled ‘Gaza: Medics Under Fire’, which focuses on Palestinian doctors working under extreme conditions during the conflict in Gaza.
The film was completed and cleared for airing in February 2025, but the BBC postponed its release pending the outcome of an internal review into a separate documentary, ‘Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone’ after the Israel lobby denounced its narrator as being the son of a Hamas official, which was enough for the BBC to remove it from public viewing.
The delay of Gaza: Medics Under Fire has sparked significant criticism. Over 600 cultural figures, including Susan Sarandon, Gary Lineker, and Miriam Margolyes, signed an open letter accusing the BBC of “political suppression” and urging the broadcaster to air the documentary. The film’s production company, Basement Films, and several contributors have expressed frustration, with some doctors and whistleblowers threatening to withdraw their consent for participation due to the prolonged postponement.
Despite offers from other broadcasters to air the documentary, the BBC has reportedly blocked alternative distributions.
A year ago, the same production company delivered a groundbreaking exposé of conditions on the ground with ‘Kill Zone: Inside Gaza’ for Dispatches, providing an esssential view of the conflict area that Israel has banned international journalists from entering.
Last week, the Israel lobby succeeded in getting the much-loved British sports commentator Gary Lineker removed from the BBC for his support of the Palestinian people.
In March, the UK’s National Health Service lost a dedicated and experienced doctor, Nadim Crow (Haddadin), due to what he described as an orchestrated campaign of harassment by pro-Israel advocacy groups. Dr. Crow was a British-Jordanian medical professional with over 15 years of NHS service and another victim of Israel’s growing crackdown on healthcare workers who speak out against its military actions in Gaza.