Israel is burning Gaza's children. And the world lets it happen

Al Jazeera

6 days ago

Dr Alaa al-Najjar, a 36-year-old paediatrician and mother of 10, spent the morning of Friday, May 23, doing what she had devoted her life to: Saving children at Gaza's Nasser Hospital. By nightfall, she was no longer a healer but a mourner, cradling the charred, dismembered remains of her own children – Yahya, Rakan, Ruslan, Jubran, Eve, Revan, Sayden, Luqman, and Sidra. Seven were confirmed dead. Two remain buried beneath the rubble, including her youngest, six-month-old Sayden, still asleep in his crib when Dr al-Najjar kissed him goodbye that morning.
In just one Israeli air strike – in just one minute – her entire world was annihilated.
Her husband Hamdy, 40, also a doctor, and their son Adam, 11, are in the ICU, their lives hanging by a thread inside Gaza's disintegrating health system – not by chance but by design. The repeated, intentional targeting of hospitals and clinics has left Gaza's healthcare infrastructure in ruins. In just one week, 12 of Gaza's most dedicated nurses were killed, one by one.
Commenting on the family's condition, Dr Graeme Groom, a British surgeon working in Nasser Hospital who operated on them, said the father had suffered a 'penetrating injury to his head', while 'Adam's left arm was just about hanging off; he was covered in fragment injuries and had several substantial lacerations.'
Her daughter Revan's body was burned beyond recognition – 'nothing remained of her skin or flesh,' her uncle said. In tears, Dr Alaa begged rescuers to let her hold her daughter one last time.
Sadly, the white shrouds wrapped around the bodies of Gaza's children continue to mount.
Yaqeen Hammad is now one of those shrouded and buried children.
Just 11 years old, Yaqeen was one of Gaza's youngest social media influencers. In her short life, she embodied what Palestinian scholar and poet Rafeef Ziadah called Palestinian ways in 'teaching life'. Yaqeen made desserts. She delivered food. She brought happiness to children who had lost everything. In one of her videos, while preparing food, she told the world: 'In Gaza, we don't know the word impossible.' This was her crime.
On May 23, the same day Alaa's children were incinerated, Israel decided that Yaqeen was somehow a threat to its existence. Multiple air raids hit her neighbourhood in Deir el-Balah and ended her life. She was one of 18,000 Palestinian children killed since October, one of 1,300+ since Israel broke the ceasefire in March, and one of dozens in just 48 hours.
Commenting on the moral double standards applied to Palestinians, Dan Sheehan, editor at Literary Hub, noted: 'If an 11-year-old Israeli influencer – a girl who delivered food and toys to displaced children – had been killed, the Empire State Building would be lit up for her. Her face would be on the homepage of every major US news outlet. Her name would be on the tongue of every politician.'
But, for Yaqeen, there is only silence.
A seasoned Palestinian diplomat at the UN, Riyad Mansour, was so disturbed by the scale of this destruction against children that he broke down in tears during a statement. Video footage showed Danny Danon – his Israeli counterpart – stifling a yawn in response.
In the face of the death of Palestinian children, Israel yawns in indifference. This is unsurprising, with a recent poll showing that 82 percent of Jewish Israelis support expelling Palestinians from Gaza. How can Palestinians be told, then, to bring themselves – and their children – to Israeli military aid delivery stations and expect safety, not savagery? 'How,' in the words of leading Gaza human rights lawyer Raji Sourani, 'could the hand that kills also become the hand that feeds?'
Of course, the answer is that it cannot: Israel's killing hands are reaching far into the Gaza Strip, and children feel the brunt.
One of those who avoided the fate of martyrdom is Ward al-Sheikh Khalil, a five-year-old girl who was sheltering at a UN school. She awoke to flames engulfing the classroom where her family was sleeping. Her mum and siblings were killed in the Israeli strike. The roof collapsed, and she was filmed as she tried to escape while her small body was swallowed by smoke and chaos. Rescued by a medic, she whispered, when asked where her mother and siblings were: 'Under the rubble.'
Another young girl was pulled from beneath the ruins of the classroom, her body half burned. Will her pain be enough to move the hearts of politicians? How many girls like her? How many boys? How many broken, charred, or buried bodies will it take before this genocide is named and stopped? Will the number of 18,000 Palestinian children – whose names we may never fully know – not be enough?
In December 2023, UNICEF, the UN's children's agency, declared: 'The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child.' On May 27, the organisation stated that 'Since the end of the ceasefire on 18 March, 1,309 children have reportedly been killed and 3,738 injured. In total, more than 50,000 children have reportedly been killed or injured since October 2023. How many more dead girls and boys will it take? What level of horror must be livestreamed before the international community fully steps up, uses its influence, and takes bold, decisive action to force the end of this ruthless killing of children?'
Typically, when a building is on fire, all emergency measures are taken to save lives. No efforts are spared. In Vietnam, the cries of one napalmed child – 9-year-old Phan Thi Kim Phuc – galvanised global efforts to stop the war. The body of one small Syrian boy – 3-year-old Alan Kurdi – moved an entire continent to receive refugees. But, in Gaza, girls running from fire, pulled from the rubble and burned beyond recognition are not enough to provoke action.
In Gaza, when children are caught in the fire of relentless bombing, the world turns its back. No amount of pain or suffering seems to inspire the leaders of this world to take action to put out this raging inferno on the bodies of the innocents.
As Jehad Abusalim, executive director of the Institute for Palestine Studies USA, put it with raw clarity: 'Why did burning girls matter in Vietnam but not in Gaza?' In Vietnam, a single image – the napalmed girl running down a road – shook the American conscience. But 'in Gaza, there are dozens of 'napalm girl' moments every single day. These images don't arrive filtered through distant photo wires or delayed coverage; they come live, unfiltered, and relentless. The world is not lacking in evidence. It is drowning in it. So why doesn't it react?'
One small glint of hope comes from the 1,200 Israeli academics who have signed a protest letter focused on Palestinian suffering. Their moral clarity is reflected in a very simple statement: We can't say we didn't know. Let these words pierce the conscience of every politician and every diplomat in the Western world: You cannot say you didn't know.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.