It began on Friday afternoon with an immense boom that residents say reverberated throughout the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis.
Alaa al-Najjar, a pediatric physician, was at work at the city’s Nasser Hospital when she heard her neighborhood south of the city had been hit in an Israeli airstrike. By the time she arrived, emergency workers were pulling out the bodies of her children, said Ali al-Najjar, her brother-in-law, who had also rushed to the scene.
“We had pulled out three charred bodies and were pulling out the fourth,” said Mr. al-Najjar. “She recognized them immediately.”
At least seven of the Najjar family’s 10 children were killed, according to Gaza health officials and the family. Two remain missing, presumed dead under the rubble of their home, according to Ali al-Najjar and Mohammad al-Najjar, the nephew of Dr. Najjar’s husband.
The building next door had been storing car tires, said Ali al-Najjar, and they went up in flames in the blast. The fire quickly spread to the Najjars’ home, he said.
They were the latest casualties in a renewed round of fighting between Israel and Hamas after more than a year and a half of full-blown war. The Israeli military has escalated its airstrikes across the enclave in recent weeks and threatened a major ground assault.
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