The Palestinian father, who lost nine of his 10 children in an Israeli airstrike, died of persistent wounds in the same attack, local health officials said.
Hamdi al-Najal, a doctor at Nasser Hospital, was seriously injured when Israeli forces bombed a family home in South Gaza city in Gaza Yunis on May 23, killing nine children. He had just returned home after accompanying his wife Ara, a pediatrician at the Nasser Medical Complex, and worked when the building was attacked. He initially survived with his son, Adam, 11, who was still in the hospital.
Even by the horrific standards of Gaza’s conflict, their deaths shocked the international community.
Video shared by the director of the Gaza Ministry of Health and verified by the Guardian showed burnt, dismembered bodies of Najal children being pulled away from the tiled bleed house near a gas station as the flames engulfed what remained in the family’s home.
Alaa had received the body while still working. Sources at Nasser Hospital said the children’s bodies were moved one by one to the morgue. The mother said she couldn’t identify them.
The doctor said her husband was seriously injured. He was placed on a ventilator and equipped with a medical tube.
He died Sunday from severe wounds sustained in the attack, they said.
Following an appeal published by Adam’s uncle Ali Al Najar, age 50, and reported by Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said the country is ready to receive Adam for medical care and is working to arrange for his evacuation on June 11th.
Italy had expressed an desire to evacuate both his father and mother, but due to Najar’s serious condition, moving him out of Gaza was deemed too dangerous. His wife had agreed that her son, Adam, would be taken to Italy with her aunt and three cousins, but she said she would remain by her husband’s side.
After Najar’s death, sources within the Italian Foreign Ministry have shown that his wife could also be evacuated to Italy.
(Guardian)