Latest news with #DrAlaaAlNajjar
Al Jazeera
09-06-2025
- Health
- Al Jazeera
Israeli bombing in Gaza ‘worse than ever': UK doctor after latest mission
On a typical day at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza, Victoria Rose, a British surgeon, would wake up before dawn. 'Because the bombing would start at four,' she said, now back in London, having just wrapped up her third humanitarian mission to Gaza since Israel's war began in October 2023. Over almost four weeks in May, she usually operated on 12 or 13 patients per 14-hour shift, unless there was a mass casualty incident overnight, meaning even longer shifts and more patients. By comparison, in London hospitals, she treats a maximum of three patients per day. 'It's operating nonstop in Gaza,' she said. Recalling some of her many patients, she treated 11-year-old Adam al-Najjar, the sole surviving child of Dr Alaa al-Najjar, whose nine other children and husband, Hamdi, also a doctor, were killed in an attack in Khan Younis last month. She vividly remembers two brothers with lower limb injuries, Yakoob and Mohammed, who were the sole survivors of their family, and an eight-year-old girl named Aziza who was orphaned. 'She had a burn on her face and her shoulder, and somebody found her walking the streets and brought her in,' said Rose, who specialises in plastic and reconstructive surgery. Rose and a team of medics also worked tirelessly to save the leg of a seven-year-old girl who, after an explosion, 'was missing her knee … it was like looking at the back of her leg without the bone in'. Having cleaned the area, removed dead skin and muscle, and dressed the wound, the girl returned three more times for further treatment, but ultimately, her limb was amputated. Al Jazeera spoke with Dr Rose about the growing intensity of Israeli bombardment, the impact of malnutrition which has been exacerbated by a three-month aid blockade, deaths and gunshot wounds she saw among those who desperately tried to get rations via a new mechanism backed by the United States and Israel, and her sense of frustration that as the death toll rises and the scale of injuries is well documented, disbelief in Palestinian suffering prevails. Al Jazeera: How did you feel entering Gaza this time around? Victoria Rose: Definitely once we got in, the bombing was far worse than it's ever been, and it was far, far louder, closer, more constant than it's ever been. The drones – it was as if they were on me. They were constantly there and really loud to the point that it was difficult to have a conversation if you were outside. Al Jazeera: What do the types of injuries you saw reveal about the current intensity of the bombing? Rose: This time, the injuries seemed to be from the heart of an explosion. People had been blown up, and bits of them had been blown off. Last summer, it was far more shrapnel wounds – a bomb had gone off in the vicinity, and something had been whipped up and hit them and did some damage to their bodies. Much more survivable, reconstructable-type injuries, whereas these appeared to be far more direct hits on people. Al Jazeera: You have volunteered three times during the genocide, including in March and August last year. The death toll, now at about 55,000, continues to rise at haste. Was this the most challenging trip? Rose: This is, without a shadow of a doubt, the worst. The volume of patients is more and the kids are more. The number of kids has gone up exponentially. They've doubled since the March (2024) trip – the number of children that I've seen. During the first trip (in March 2024), I thought I was seeing loads of children, but this trip surpassed that. Al Jazeera: How would you describe Nasser Hospital? Rose: It's a very similar scenario, very similar vibe to being in a hospital anywhere, but it's just so packed. It's everybody; it's like the whole population is in there. (Doctors are usually) very selective with the people that we hospitalise. They're normally older, or got cancer, or complications from diabetes or heart attacks – that's normally who gets hospital beds in the UK. But there, it could be everybody on your road. It's just normal people that have been blown up. Healthy people that are otherwise really fit and well, and now have been blown up. It's quite bizarre to hospitalise somebody that was fit yesterday and, well, now is missing an arm or part of an arm. Al Jazeera: You were in Gaza when people desperately trying to secure food aid through the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a new mechanism backed by Israel and the US, were attacked. Many were killed. You did some media interviews at the time. What did you witness and experience? Rose: The bulk of the victims had gunshot wounds. They were shot in the stomach, shot in the leg, shot in the arm. After the GHF shooting, when (the victims) all came in, immediately the next journalist (I spoke to) was saying to me that 'Israel has denied that they've shot anyone and you know, they're saying that it's the Palestinians shooting each other'. And then they sort of said, 'Nobody's been killed', and I was standing in the emergency department with 30 body bags, thinking, you can't lie like this. You just can't. Al Jazeera: Many in Gaza are vulnerable to starvation, and thousands of children are suffering from acute malnutrition, according to the United Nations. How does this affect patients and hospital staff? Rose: Everybody's lost weight. They will tell you, 'I am now five or 10 kg lower in weight.' My medical students I was there with in August, the girls are just so thin now. They're all in their 20s, and all of them looked really as if they'd lost significant amounts of weight. But the children are really small. They're really skinny. Sixty children have died at Nasser Hospital of malnutrition. It is mainly the children that are lactose intolerant or have some other disease as well, because none of the only formula milk that's getting in is suitable for children with lactose intolerance. Then you have children that have other diseases on top of that, which stop them from being able to take normal milk. That was quite shocking. The trauma patients, which is who I was seeing, were also really small. No fat on them at all, quite a bit of muscle wasting. And they didn't really heal very well. It seemed to take a lot longer this time than it did in August for wounds to heal. There were lots of infections, a huge number of infections; with malnutrition, you get a dampening of the immune system. It's one of the areas that's affected the most. You can't mount a good immune response. On top of that, all the wounds were dirty anyway because everyone's living in a tent and there's no sanitation, no clean water. You're starting in a really difficult position, and then you've run out of antibiotics. We only had three types of antibiotics that we could use, and none of them would have been the first-line choice if we'd have been in the UK. Al Jazeera: How would you describe the morale among the doctors you worked with? Rose: Really bad now. So many of them said to me, 'I'd rather die than carry on.' So many of them want a ceasefire, and I think would be prepared to do whatever it takes to get a ceasefire now. They are at their lowest. They've all moved 15 times. They've all lost significant members of the family – these guys have lost kids. Their houses are completely destroyed. It's really, really difficult times for them. Al Jazeera: What are your fears for Gaza? Rose: It's a man-made humanitarian crisis, so it could be man-stopped, and that's what needs to happen. This could be turned off immediately if people put enough pressure on the right governments, the right leaders. I think, if we don't turn it off soon, there won't be a Gaza and there certainly won't be Palestinians in Gaza. It's very difficult to have any conversations with Palestinians about the future because they can't really see it. Note: This interview was lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
Al Jazeera
09-06-2025
- Health
- Al Jazeera
British surgeon: Israeli bombing ‘far more direct hits on people' in Gaza
On a typical day at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza, Victoria Rose, a British surgeon, would wake up before dawn. 'Because the bombing would start at four,' she said, now back in London, having just wrapped up her third humanitarian mission to Gaza since Israel's war began in October 2023. Over almost four weeks in May, she usually operated on 12 or 13 patients per 14-hour shift, unless there was a mass casualty incident overnight, meaning even longer shifts and more patients. By comparison, in London hospitals, she treats a maximum of three patients per day. 'It's operating nonstop in Gaza,' she said. Recalling some of her many patients, she treated 11-year-old Adam al-Najjar, the sole surviving child of Dr Alaa al-Najjar. Her nine other children and husband, Hamdi, also a doctor, were killed in an attack in Khan Younis last month. She vividly remembers two brothers with lower limb injuries, Yakoob and Mohammed, who were the sole survivors of their family, and an eight-year-old girl named Aziza who was orphaned. 'She had a burn on her face and her shoulder, and somebody found her walking the streets and brought her in,' said Rose, who specialises in plastic and reconstructive surgery. Rose and a team of medics also worked tirelessly to save the leg of a seven-year-old girl who, after an explosion, 'was missing her knee … it was like looking at the back of her leg without the bone in'. Having cleaned the area, removed dead skin and muscle, and dressed the wound, the girl returned three more times for further treatment, but ultimately, her limb was amputated. Al Jazeera spoke with Dr Rose about the growing intensity of Israeli bombardment, the impact of malnutrition which has been exacerbated by a three-month aid blockade, deaths and gunshot wounds she saw among those who desperately tried to get rations via a new mechanism backed by the United States and Israel, and her sense of frustration that as the death toll rises and the scale of injuries is well documented, disbelief in Palestinian suffering prevails. Al Jazeera: How did you feel entering Gaza this time around? Victoria Rose: Definitely once we got in, the bombing was far worse than it's ever been, and it was far, far louder, closer, more constant than it's ever been. The drones – it was as if they were on me. They were constantly there and really loud to the point that it was difficult to have a conversation if you were outside. Al Jazeera: What do the types of injuries you saw reveal about the current intensity of the bombing? Rose: This time, the injuries seemed to be from the heart of an explosion. People had been blown up, and bits of them had been blown off. Last summer, it was far more shrapnel wounds – a bomb had gone off in the vicinity, and something had been whipped up and then it ejected at them in a missile-type fashion and hit them and done some damage to their bodies. Much more survivable, reconstructable-type injuries, whereas these appeared to be far more direct hits on people. Al Jazeera: You have volunteered three times during the genocide, including in March and August last year. The death toll, now at about 55,000, continues to rise at haste. Was this the most challenging trip? Rose: This is, without a shadow of a doubt, the worst. The volume of patients is more and the kids are more. The number of kids has gone up exponentially. They've doubled since the March (2024) trip – the number of children that I've seen. During the first trip (in March 2024), I thought I was seeing loads of children, but this trip surpassed that. Al Jazeera: How would you describe Nasser Hospital? Rose: It's a very similar scenario, very similar vibe to being in a hospital anywhere, but it's just so packed. It's everybody; it's like the whole population is in there. (Doctors are usually) very selective with the people that we hospitalise. They're normally older, or got cancer, or complications from diabetes or heart attacks – that's normally who gets hospital beds in the UK. But there, it could be everybody on your road. It's just normal people that have been blown up. Healthy people that are otherwise really fit and well, and now have been blown up. It's quite bizarre to hospitalise somebody that was fit yesterday and, well, now is missing an arm or part of an arm. Al Jazeera: You were in Gaza when people desperately trying to secure food aid through the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a new mechanism backed by Israel and the US, were attacked. Many were killed. You did some media interviews at the time. What did you witness and experience? Rose: The bulk of the victims had gunshot wounds. They were shot in the stomach, shot in the leg, shot in the arm. After the GHF shooting, when (the victims) all came in, immediately the next journalist (I spoke to) was saying to me that 'Israel has denied that they've shot anyone and you know, they're saying that it's the Palestinians shooting each other'. And then they sort of said, 'Nobody's been killed', and I was standing in the emergency department with 30 body bags, thinking, you can't lie like this. You just can't. Al Jazeera: Many in Gaza are vulnerable to starvation, and thousands of children are suffering from acute malnutrition, according to the United Nations. How does this affect patients and hospital staff? Rose: Everybody's lost weight. They will tell you, 'I am now five or 10 kg lower in weight.' My medical students I was there with in August, the girls are just so thin now. They're all in their 20s, and all of them looked really as if they'd lost significant amounts of weight. But the children are really small. They're really skinny. Sixty children have died at Nasser Hospital of malnutrition. It is mainly the children that are lactose intolerant or have some other disease as well, because none of the only formula milk that's getting in is suitable for children with lactose intolerance. Then you have children that have other diseases on top of that, which stop them from being able to take normal milk. That was quite shocking. The trauma patients, which is who I was seeing, were also really small. No fat on them at all, quite a bit of muscle wasting. And they didn't really heal very well. It seemed to take a lot longer this time than it did in August for wounds to heal. There were lots of infections, a huge number of infections; with malnutrition, you get a dampening of the immune system. It's one of the areas that's affected the most. You can't mount a good immune response. On top of that, all the wounds were dirty anyway because everyone's living in a tent and there's no sanitation, no clean water. You're starting in a really difficult position, and then you've run out of antibiotics. We only had three types of antibiotics that we could use, and none of them would have been the first-line choice if we'd have been in the UK. Al Jazeera: How would you describe the morale among the doctors you worked with? Rose: Really bad now. So many of them said to me, 'I'd rather die than carry on.' So many of them want a ceasefire, and I think would be prepared to do whatever it takes to get a ceasefire now. They are at their lowest. They've all moved 15 times. They've all lost significant members of the family – these guys have lost kids. Their houses are completely destroyed. It's really, really difficult times for them. Al Jazeera: What are your fears for Gaza? Rose: It's a man-made humanitarian crisis, so it could be man-stopped, and that's what needs to happen. This could be turned off immediately if people put enough pressure on the right governments, the right leaders. I think, if we don't turn it off soon, there won't be a Gaza and there certainly won't be Palestinians in Gaza. It's very difficult to have any conversations with Palestinians about the future because they can't really see it. Note: This interview was lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
CBC
02-06-2025
- Health
- CBC
Palestinian boy, 11, sole survivor of strike that killed his father and 9 siblings. Still, he smiles
Adam, 11, smiles brightly in the face of unimaginable horrors. The Palestinian boy is recovering in Gaza's Nasser Hospital from injuries sustained in a May 23 Israeli airstrike on his home that killed his father, who was a doctor, and all nine of his siblings. "Adam is doing remarkably well. He is much, much better than I thought he would [be]," Dr. Graeme Groom, the British orthopaedic surgeon caring the boy, told As It Happens host Nil Kӧksal. "He has an angelic little face and it lights up in the most gorgeous smile." Adam and his mother, a pediatrician who was working at Nasser when her husband and children were killed, are now their immediate family's sole survivors. And their situation, says Groom, is not remotely unique in Gaza. 'Like a crushed can of sardines' Adam's father, Dr. Hamdi Al-Najjar, died on Saturday from brain and internal injuries sustained in the strike on his home in Khan Younis. His nine other children — Yahya, Rakan, Ruslan, Jubran, Eve, Rivan, Saydeen, Luqma and Sidra — were all killed in the same strike. When their mother, Dr. Alaa al-Najjar, heard about the airstrike, she ran on foot from the hospital to her home, Hamdi's niece, Sahra Al-Najjar, told CBC News last week. But she was too late. When she arrived, her home was reduced to rubble, and her children's bodies were so badly burned, she couldn't tell them apart. "Who were you targeting? Kids?" Sahra said. "This is your strength? WATCH | 9 children, all siblings, killed by Israeli airstrike: Airstrike kills 9 children of Gaza doctor as Israelis demand end to war 8 days ago Duration 2:11 The Israeli military says it's reviewing an airstrike that killed nine children of a doctor working at a hospital in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, as patience with the war grows thin among some Israeli citizens demanding an end to the fighting and a return of the remaining hostages. The youngest of the slain children was six months old, and the oldest was 13, according to Al-Najjar's brother, Ali Al-Najjar. He, too, rushed to the scene of the bombing that day. "The house was like a crushed can of sardines," he told CBC News the day after the strike, while his brother was still in intensive care. The Israeli military has confirmed it conducted an airstrike on Khan Younis that day, but said it was targeting suspects in a structure that was close to Israeli soldiers. The military is looking into claims that "uninvolved civilians" were killed, it said, adding that the military had evacuated civilians from the area before the operation began. Sahra says there's no good reason her uncle and his family should be targeted. "He was very straight," she said. "He was very famous in the medical field. He had nothing to do with any political movements." Dozens of Palestinians marched in Hamdi's funeral in Gaza on Saturday. Doctor has served in 14 wars, but none so bad as this Groom says he's been in regular contact with Adam's mother, though their conversations have focused on her surviving son's health. "She's poised and professional," he said. "She is keenly interested in Adam and his progress." Groom says whole families being nearly wiped out has become par for the course in Gaza. He works for the charity Islamic Help U.K., and says he's served in 14 global conflicts. "If we put all the others together, it would not come close to matching this," he said. "The number of injured, the appalling nature of their injuries, the inevitable long-term disability outstrip anything we have encountered to date — and I've had a long career looking after the wounded of many wars." Just last week, he says, he operated on a seven-year-old boy who lost both of his parents and all of his siblings but one. At night, he cried out for a mother who was already gone. "Every operating [room] has stories like that," he said. "When I speak to Palestinian friends and colleagues about this, they shrug and say, 'This is our life.'" Israel began its offensive in Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli tallies, and saw 251 taken as hostages into Gaza. Israel's campaign has devastated much of Gaza, killing more than 54,000 Palestinians, according to Gazan tallies, and left huge swaths of the territory, including schools, hospitals and residential buildings, in ruin. The International Court of Justice is investigating whether Israel's actions in Gaza constitute a genocide, an allegation Israel strongly denies, and which has been repeated by human rights group Amnesty International. Last month, Canada joined Britain and France in threatening Israel with sanctions if it does not stop a renewed military offensive in Gaza and lift aid restrictions. That smile again As for Adam, Groom says he's making a remarkable recovery. When the child first arrived in the operating room just over a week ago, he was filthy and badly wounded, his body peppered with penetrating wounds from the force of the explosion. He was bleeding from both ears, the result of a cranial nerve injury, and his left arm and wrist were broken. Groom says they thought they would have to amputate his arm, but in the end, they were able to save it. Adam speaks English well, says Groom, so he's able to communicate clearly with him. But he's not sure how much the boy understands about what's happened to his family. "Our conversation is at a functional level. I try to make friends with him. I try to make him confident when he sees me," he said. "And I have an absolutely certain way of producing this glorious smile that he has by offering him a chocolate bar."
BBC News
02-06-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Gaza doctor whose nine children were killed in Israeli strike dies from injuries
A Palestinian doctor whose children were killed in an Israeli air strike in Gaza on 23 May has died from injuries sustained in the same attack, health officials Hamdi al-Najjar had just returned from dropping his wife, Dr Alaa al-Najjar, off at Nasser Hospital, where the couple both worked, when their home in Khan Younis was struck. Nine of their children were killed, while the 10th was severely was treated in hospital for brain and internal injuries but died on Saturday. Alaa and their 11-year-old son Adam, who remains in hospital, are the sole remaining survivors of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said at the time that the incident was being reviewed. In a statement, it said "an aircraft struck several suspects identified by IDF forces as operating in a building near troops in the Khan Younis 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."Dr Milena Angelova-Chee, a Bulgarian doctor working at Nasser hospital, told the BBC last week that Hamdi sustained significant injuries to his brain, lungs, right arm, and kidney in the Groom, a British surgeon working in the hospital who operated on the couple's son, Adam, told the BBC it was "unbearably cruel" that his mother Alaa, who spent years caring for children as a paediatrician, could lose almost all her own in a single said that Adam's "left arm was just about hanging off, he was covered in fragment injuries and he had several substantial lacerations." "Since both his parents are doctors, he seemed to be among the privileged group within Gaza, but as we lifted him onto the operating table, he felt much younger than 11." Italy's government on Thursday offered to treat Adam after an appeal from his uncle, Dr Ali al-Najjar, who told Italy's La Repubblica newspaper that the Nasser hospital was ill-equipped to treat him."He needs to be taken away immediately, to a real hospital, outside of the Gaza Strip. I beg the Italian government to do something, take him, Italians save him," he said."The Italian government has expressed its willingness to transfer the seriously injured boy to Italy," the foreign ministry said in a statement, adding that it was studying the feasibility of the proposal. Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to Hamas's cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken least 54,418 people have been killed in Gaza during the war, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.
Arab News
31-05-2025
- Business
- Arab News
Israel stands condemned, but why has it taken so long?
Since the EU's recent decision to initiate a review of Israel's compliance with its obligations under international law in the EU-Israel Association Agreement, and after the UK suspended trade talks with Israel and the leaders of Canada, France, and the UK issued a joint statement condemning the expansion of Israel's military operations in Gaza, hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in Israeli military operations. In one incident, nine siblings of the same family were killed, and the war is still raging. So, forgive me if I find it difficult to get too excited about these latest diplomatic maneuvers to stop the senseless bloodshed, especially as this approach is still toothless, with no work on any time frame for introducing tangible measures. It is also the case that the argument 'better late than never' hardly holds water. Yes, if those baby-steps are the start of a concerted international effort to bring the war to an end, they will become immensely valuable, but there is much doubt about how effective they will be — and if they are not, what those countries intend to do. There is also the painful and lingering question: What has taken them so long? After all, every single day of delay in stopping the war has resulted in the deaths of many dozens of people, sometimes up to 100 a day, most of them noncombatants. In late May, nine of the 10 children of Dr. Alaa Al-Najjar and her husband Dr. Hamid were killed in an Israeli airstrike while she was on duty in the Nasser medical hospital. Only Hamid and one of their children survived, although both were badly injured. How could anyone remain indifferent in the face of such a tragedy, and one that could have been avoided, had the terms of the ceasefire agreed in January been adhered to? This is just one case of an entire family or a large part of them being wiped out in this war. If this heartbreaking tragedy does not move the world sufficiently to ensure that the Israeli government stops this war, what will? All the alarm bells regarding how Israel would conduct the war in Gaza were ringing from the first week of the conflict. Without taking anything away from the genuine anger at what Hamas inflicted on Oct. 7, the wish for revenge, and not only against those who carried out the attack, but against the entire population of Gaza, was instantly apparent. The unsubstantiated claim that every person in Gaza was complicit in the massacre should have been a warning sign. Moreover, between a government that failed to defend its people with horrendous consequences and would not admit to that failure, and senior Cabinet ministers who harbor messianic fantasies of expelling the Palestinians from Gaza, annexing the Strip and rebuilding settlements there, the likelihood of a proportionate response was always close to nil. Hence, it should not have taken the EU, UK, and Canada 19 long and blood-soaked months to figure this out. Every single day of delay has resulted in the deaths of dozens of people. Yossi Mekelberg Part of the explanation for the lack of will on the part of those who have suddenly found their voice in the past week or two and described what some Israeli ministers are suggesting will be the next stage in the war in Gaza as 'extremist,' 'dangerous' and 'monstrous' is that their working assumption has been that only Washington can make a difference, and that at best they could only play a supporting role. This has been more a case of relinquishing responsibility and avoiding friction, with Israel particularly, in the hope that either the US would use its influence to end the war, or the conflict would just run its course. This has proved to be misguided. In the immediate aftermath of Oct. 7, most of the world, and with good reason, showed its support for Israel's collective pain and trauma. However, at the same time it was irresponsible and shortsighted to give an extreme right-wing government led by a populist leader who happens also to be on trial for corruption, and whose sole interest is political survival at any cost, a blank check to respond to the massacre. For Europe, including the UK, what happens in the region is consequential and can have an immediate impact, whether it affects energy security, trade routes, radicalization within their own societies, or threatens a refugee crisis. Notwithstanding Europe's declared commitment to ensure human rights, Brussels also underestimates the enormous economic, diplomatic, and social power it has over Israel, not to harm its security, but to do the exact opposite: to save the country from itself when it is being governed by a reckless government. Moreover, at least some European powers should feel a moral and historical obligation for being the root cause of this conflict and for letting it fester for so long. It is nothing short of shocking that only in the past two weeks have there been some signs of concerted effort in Europe, out of despair at being unable to talk any sense into the Israeli government, or to stop the war and allow adequate humanitarian aid to enter the enclave. The EU's top diplomat Kaja Kallas explained the reason for its review of the association agreement that gives Israel many economic and scientific advantages as being the 'catastrophic' situation in Gaza, with Israel 'potentially' in breach of its commitments to human rights in the agreement. In the UK Parliament, David Lammy, the foreign secretary, said that the suspension of trade talks was a response to both the prevention of humanitarian aid reaching Gaza, and Israel's intention, as stated by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, to 'cleanse' the enclave, with resident Palestinians 'being relocated to third countries.' And, out of character, Germany, which traditionally refrains from criticizing Israel, has felt that it can no longer stand on the sidelines, with its new Chancellor Friedrich Merz declaring that to cause such suffering to the civilian population 'can no longer be justified as a fight against Hamas terrorism.' Declarations and statements aside, reviewing agreements and suspending talks are not going to change Israel's course of action. At this juncture in the war, as it once more deploys massive forces on the border and inside Gaza, and with the government's ill intentions out in the open, Europe, the UK, and Canada will have to go beyond 'suspending' and 'reviewing.' If they do, it might also serve as a wake-up call for more Israelis to take to the streets and stop this murderous madness by its government.
