Nine of doctor’s 10 children killed in latest Gaza strikes, colleagues and Hamas-run Health Ministry say

CAIRO, Egypt — The bodies of 79 people killed by Israeli strikes have been brought to hospitals in the past 24 hours, Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry says— a toll that doesn’t include hospitals in the battered north that it said are now inaccessible.

Figures provided by the ministry cannot be verified and do not differentiate between civilians and fighters.

The dead over the past day in Israel’s renewed military offensive included nine of a doctor’s 10 children, say both horrified colleagues and the Health Ministry.

Alaa Najjar, a pediatrician at Nasser Hospital, was on duty at the time and ran home to find her family’s house on fire, Ahmad al-Farra, head of the hospital’s pediatric department, tells The Associated Press.

Najjar’s husband was severely wounded, and their only surviving child, an 11-year-old son, was in critical condition after Friday’s strike in the southern city of Khan Younis, Farra says.

The dead children ranged in age from seven months to 12 years old. Khalil Al-Dokran, a spokesperson for Gaza’s Health Ministry, tells the AP that two of the children remained under the rubble.

The IDF says it is looking into the reports.

Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas, including homes, hospitals, schools and mosques.