Media Report 2025.05.26
Nine of doctor’s 10 children killed in Israeli strike on Gaza
The Age & Sydney Morning Herald / AP | Sally Albou Aljoud | 26 May 2025
A doctor has returned home from work to find nine of her 10 children killed in Israel’s renewed military offensive, col leagues and Gaza’s Health Ministry said.
Alaa Najjar, a paediatrician at Nasser Hospital, was on duty and ran home to find her house on fire, Ahmad al-Farra, head of the hospital’s paediatric department, said. Najjar’s husband, reportedly also a doctor, was severely wounded and their only surviving child, an 11-year-old son, was in a critical condition after the strike in the southern city of Khan Younis, Farra said.
The children ranged in age from seven months to 12 years old. They were among 79 people killed by Israeli strikes who had been brought to hospitals in the previous 24 hours, the Health Ministry said, a toll that didn’t include hospitals in the north that it said were inaccessible.
Israel’s military said in a statement that it struck suspects operating from a structure next to its forces, and described the area of Khan Younis as a “dangerous war zone”.
It said it had evacuated civilians from the area, and “the claim regarding harm to uninvolved civilians is under review”.
The Health Ministry said the new deaths brought the toll in Gaza to 53,901 since October 7, 2023, when Hamas militants at tacked Israel, killing some 1200 people and taking 251 hostage.
The ministry said 3747 people had been killed in Gaza since Israel resumed the war on March 18 in a bid to pressure Hamas to accept different ceasefire terms. Israel’s pressure on Hamas has included a blockade of Gaza and its more than 2 million people since early March.
Last week, the first aid trucks entered the territory and began reaching Palestinians. COGAT, the Israeli defence body overseeing aid for Gaza, said 388 trucks had entered since Monday. About 600 trucks a day had entered during the ceasefire.
Warnings of famine by food security experts, and images of desperate Palestinians jostling for bowls of food at the ever-shrinking number of charity kitchens, led Israel’s allies to press the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to allow some aid to return.
Netanyahu’s government has sought a new aid delivery and distribution system by a newly established US-backed group, but the United Nations and partners have rejected it, saying it allows Israel to use food as a weapon and violates humanitarian principles.
Israel may now be changing its approach to let aid groups remain in charge of non-food assistance, according to a letter obtained by the AP. Israel accuses Hamas of siphoning off aid but the UN and aid groups deny there is significant diversion.
The Health Ministry said 11 security personnel had been trapped at the European Hospital in southern Gaza following heavy gunfire and airstrikes since at least Tuesday.
Saleh Hams, director of the nursing department, said patients were evacuated after an Israeli strike on May 13. Hams said security staff stayed behind to stop looting, and that it was the only hospital in Gaza offering neurosurgery, cardiac care and cancer treatment. Israel said it would continue to strike Gaza until Hamas released all of the 58 remaining Israeli hostages and disarmed.
Fewer than half of the hostages are believed to be alive. Hamas has said it will only return the remaining hostages in exchange for more Palestinian prisoners, a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal from the territory.
Netanyahu has rejected those terms. “The Israeli government has a clear choice: deal or war, saving lives or abandonment,” Liran Berman, brother of hostages Gali and Ziv Berman, told a weekly rally in Tel Aviv.
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Crisis of identity
The Age | Letters | 26 May 2025
Your correspondent (Letters,25/5) poses the crucial question: If there were to be cease fire in Gaza, what would happen next? Speculation about what influence Hamas would have is just that: speculation. What is certain is that the Netanyahu government has no plan for a future that allows Gaza to be re built, offers any prospect of a Palestinian state, or pledges adherence to international law. To paraphrase Descartes, the maxim that guides the Israeli establishment is “I am at war, therefore I am”. A ceasefire in Gaza would confront Israel with a crisis of identity.
Tom Knowles, Parkville
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Heartbreak over Gaza
Sydney Morning Herald | Letters | 26 May 2025
I am writing to you not only as a concerned Australian but as a mother of young children whose heart is breaking over what is happening in Gaza. Each day, I witness the unimaginable suffering of Palestinian families through the screens of my phone – mothers just like me crying out for help as their children starve and are targeted by drones. Thousands of innocent children face death by starvation. I cannot turn away from this, and I ask – can you? This is not a distant tragedy, it is a humanitarian catastrophe unfolding before our eyes. The international community, including Australia, has a moral obligation to act. This is not about politics, this is about children. This is about life and death. Please, stand with humanity, stand for peace.
Georgina Whitton, Orange
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Israeli airstrike kills nine of doctors’ 10 kids
The Australian / The Times | Gabrielle Weiniger & Amal Helles | 26 May 2025
An Israeli airstrike hit the home of a pair of married doctors in Gaza on Friday (local time) and killed nine of their 10 children.
Alaa al-Najjar, a paediatrician in the Nasser Medical Complex, was at work when the strike hit her and her husband’s home in the Qizan Al-Najjar area, south of Khan Younis.
One child and husband Hamdi al-Najjar survived, but were severely injured and are in intensive care. The youngest child killed in the attack, Sidar, was less than 12 months old.
The mother of 10 had left home early that morning to work with her husband, also a doctor at the Nasser, driving her to work.
Just minutes after he returned home, a missile struck their house. The eldest of the nine children who died, Yahya, was 12. Their bodies were brought into the morgue of the hospital where the Najjars works.
Their 10th child, Adam, 11, survived but with critical injuries and remains in hospital.
A video shared by the director of the Hamas-run health ministry shows the bodies of at least seven small children being pulled from the rubble.
An Israeli military spokesman said on Saturday that an aircraft struck “a number of suspects who were identified operating from a structure adjacent to IDF troops” in Khan Younis. “The area is a dangerous war zone. Before beginning operations there, the IDF evacuated civilians from this area for their own safety. The claim regarding harm to uninvolved civilians is under review,” he added.
Alaa Najjar mourned the loss of her children at a funeral on Friday. The mother reportedly collapsed upon seeing the remains of her children brought into the hospital.
At the funeral, she said farewell to her children, who were covered in white sheets placed on gurneys.
Samah al-Najjar, a niece of Hamdi, the husband injured in the attack, said on the morning of the strike, she heard “massive and intense” explosions. “The Israeli forces were all around us,” said Samah, 36, a nutritionist.
“While trying to flee the area, we saw my uncle’s house was completely destroyed. My mother shouted ‘Hamdi, Hamdi!, screaming and crying ‘My brother, my brother!’ but there was no response.”
Samah’s sister Sahar, a pharmacist, couldn’t recognise the bodies of her cousins because “They were completely burnt”.
Graeme Groom, a British surgeon working in the hospital who operated on the couple’s surviving child, said the incident was “unbearably cruel”.
The 11-year-old boy was “covered in fragment injuries and had several substantial lacerations,” Dr Groom told the BBC. “His left arm was just about hanging off.”
Dr Groom said the father, who is still in intensive care, “had no political and no military connections. He doesn’t seem to be prominent on social media, and yet his poor wife is the only uninjured one, and has the prospect of losing her husband”.
Victoria Rose, another British doctor working at the hospital, said the Najjar family “lived opposite a petrol station, so I don’t know whether the bomb set off some massive fire.”
She added this “is life in Gaza. That is the way it goes in Gaza.”
Gazan civil defence teams said the strike completely destroyed the home and sparked an intense blaze.
On Saturday, the IDF said it was investigating “several cases” of soldiers allegedly using Palestinian civilians as human shields in Gaza. The use of human shields is forbidden by Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions and is considered a war crime. The claims were made by Palestinians as well as Israeli soldiers. “The use of Palestinians as human shields, or otherwise coercing them to participate in military operations, is strictly prohibited in IDF orders,” an Israeli spokesman said.
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Netanyahu’s military offensive is simply repeating old mistakes
The Australian | Seth J. Frantzman | 26 May 2025
Israel has begun a fresh military offensive in Gaza after 19 months of war that failed to defeat and dislodge Hamas, or free the 58 remaining hostages the terrorist group holds.
The operation attempts to correct mistakes made by Israel at the start of the conflict, yet fails to address several of the fundamental failures to have defined the war effort so far.
The new plan is named Gideon’s Chariots, after a biblical judge and is designed to increase the military pressure on Hamas by sending troops to conquer more territory in Gaza, while providing humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza in a way that keeps Hamas’s hands away from the aid, which it has used to buttress its power in the strip.
Yet since Israel’s security cabinet approved it this month, much has changed. Global outrage at food scarcity in Gaza has grown. President Donald Trump has acknowledged that people were “starving” in the territory.
He also conspicuously left Israel off his recent tour to the Middle East, and has indicated a willingness to engage with Iran on a potential nuclear deal that Israel’s government opposes.
At the same time, Israel has increased military pressure on Hamas. Hundreds of people have been killed, according to officials in the Hamas-run administration. One airstrike targeted an underground area beneath a hospital where the Israel Defence Forces believed Hamas’s Gaza leader Muhammad Sinwar was hiding. Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister, has said it “appears” he was killed.
Within Israel, there are different interpretations of what this new offensive may ultimately mean. Some see the operation as designed to create a kind of multiphase anaconda effect, squeezing Hamas until it gives in; others view it as the beginning of an era of conquest and long-term military rule over Gaza.
Netanyahu promised last week Israel would be “taking control of all of Gaza”.
The new plan has been praised by Israel’s right-wing politicians as a way to defeat Hamas. Yet some on the far right, including finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, have spoken about a new “occupation” of Gaza where Israel doesn’t leave the area.
To understand how Israel got to this point, it’s worth looking back at the past 19 months of war.
The war in Gaza began with the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. Hamas massacred about 1200 people and took 250 hostages. The failure of Israel to detect the plans, or stop it when it began, highlighted deep problems within Israel’s military and security establishment.
When Israel recovered from the shock of defeat, the IDF set about preparing for war.
Yet the IDF did not have a plan to conquer Gaza. There was no plan to take territory and hold it long term, because over the years the IDF had settled into a method of managing the conflict with Hamas. This included policies such as “mowing the grass”, which means one fights short conflicts every few years but never seeks to defeat an enemy.
Israel had been more focused on the broader Iranian regional threat and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The Palestinians were an afterthought as a military danger. This arrogance and complacency led to a reduction in intelligence gathering in Gaza, and left no plans in place to remove Hamas.
Even when Israeli troops conquered areas such as Khan Younis, the home town of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, Hamas members often fled to the Central Camps – an area Israel never conquered – and then returned when the IDF departed.
The new war plan by Israel ostensibly seeks to separate civilians from Hamas and cut off Hamas from using aid as a weapon of political control. The new plan is one Israel should have chosen when the war began: a takeover of Gaza designed to remove Hamas completely.
Seth J Frantzman is a security analyst.
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Families ‘wiped out’ in strikes
Daily Telegraph (Herald-Sun) | 26 May 2025
GAZA CITY: Gaza’s civil defence agency said an Israeli strike in the southern city of Khan Yunis killed nine of the 10 children of a pair of married doctors, with the Israeli army saying it was reviewing the reports.
Israel has stepped up its campaign in Gaza in recent days, drawing international criticism as well as calls to allow in more supplies after it partially eased a total blockade on aid imposed on March 2.
Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said the Hamas-run agency had retrieved “the bodies of nine child martyrs, some of them charred, from the home of Dr Hamdi al-Najjar and his wife, Dr Alaa al-Najjar, all of whom were their children”.
He added that Hamdi al-Najjar and another son, Adam, 10, were also seriously wounded in the strike.
Muneer Alboursh, director general of the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, said the strike happened shortly after Hamdi Al-Najjar returned home from driving his wife, a paediatric specialist, to work at the same facility. AFPTV recorded the children’s funeral at Nasser Hospital.
“This is the reality our medical staff in Gaza endure. Words fall short in describing the pain,” he said, accusing Israel of “wiping out entire families”.
Footage of the aftermath released by the civil defence agency showed rescuers recovering badly burned remains from the damaged home.
Asked about the incident, the Israeli military said it had “struck a number of suspects who were identified operating from a structure” near its troops.
“The Khan Yunis area is a dangerous warzone,” it added.
“The claim regarding harm to uninvolved civilians is under review.”
The army had issued an evacuation warning for the city last week. The military said that on Saturday, the air force had struck more than 100 targets across the territory.
At Nasser Hospital, tearful mourners gathered around white-shrouded bodies outside.
“Suddenly, a missile from an F-16 destroyed the entire house, and all of them were civilians — my sister, her husband and their children,” said Wissam Al-Madhoun.
“What did this child do to (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu?”
Israel resumed operations in Gaza on March 18, ending a two-month ceasefire, in a bid to force Hamas to release the remaining hostages it kidnapped from Israel in its attack on the country on October 7, 2023, which triggered the war.
Israel’s National Cyber Directorate said it had received numerous inquiries on the weekend regarding citizens “receiving phone calls in which recordings are played featuring the voice of a hostage, sounds of explosions and screams”.
Israeli media said the calls featured audio apparently taken from a video of hostage Yosef Haim Ohana published by Hamas earlier this month.
“This is an attempt to sow panic and confusion among the public,” the directorate said of the calls, adding “the matter is under investigation”.
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Hamas no friend
Daily Telegraph | Letters | 26 May 2025
Perhaps not so surprising to read about Palestinians holding anti-Hamas street protests (“Gazans in Hamas revolt”, DT, 24/5).
For long suffering Gazans, Hamas’ injudicious October 7 attacks on Israel and its dire repercussions for the Gazans people says with friends like Hamas, who need enemies.
Steve Ngeow, Chatswood
Finally Palestinians in Gaza are taking to the streets in protests against Hamas for causing their long-standing grief.
Now we need all those Pro-Palestine protesters here to also realise all the problems in Gaza have Hamas as the root cause. More importantly, our government needs to wake up and see the light.
Emanuel Dos Santos, Bulli
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Spain calls for weapons embargo on Israeli government
Canberra Times / AP, AAP | 26 May 2025
The Spanish government is calling for an international arms embargo on the Israeli government to end the war and the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.
“We must all agree on a joint arms embargo,” Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares told journalists at the start of a ministerial meeting of the so-called Madrid Group in the Spanish capital on Sunday.
“The last thing the Middle East needs right now is weapons.”
Israel has blocked the import of all food, medicine and fuel for two and a half months before letting a trickle of aid enter last week, after experts’ warnings of famine and pressure from some of Israel’s top allies.
Albares also called for an immediate suspension of the European Union’s partnership agreement with Israel – a measure currently being considered in Brussels.
He also wants to impose targeted sanctions against individuals “who obstruct the two-state solution”.
If necessary, sanctions should also be imposed against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Albares said.
“Nothing that is being discussed here is directed against the State of Israel,” the top Spanish diplomat emphasised.
But he also made it clear that “the Palestinian people have exactly the same right to peace and security as the Israeli people”.
There is no alternative to the two-state solution for achieving lasting and just peace, Albares said.
In an interview with French broadcaster France Info shortly before, the minister had said: “What is the alternative? Kill all Palestinians? Drive them… I don’t know where… to the moon? … Or give them Israeli citizenship?”
The Spanish government is one of the harshest critics in Europe of Israel’s military action in Gaza.
Hamas-led militants killed some 1200 people, mostly civilians, in the October 7 attack and abducted 251 people.
Around a third of the remaining hostages are believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Israel’s 19-month offensive has killed over 53,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which says women and children make up most of the dead.
It does not provide figures for the number of civilians or combatants killed.
The offensive has destroyed vast areas of Gaza and displaced around 90 per cent of the territory’s population, often multiple times.
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Palestinian men detained during Gaza war say Israeli forces tortured them
ABC | Matthew Doran, Orly Halpern, Cherine Yazbeck and ABC staff | 25 May 2025
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-25/palestinian-torture-allegations/105308956
WARNING: Some readers might find the details and images in this story distressing.
- Two Palestinian men detained in Gaza have detailed horrific allegations of treatment behind bars.
- Both men say they were starved and beaten by Israeli soldiers, and were held in the infamous Sde Temain defence facility.
- The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it was not aware of the men’s claims, and insisted all prisoners and detainees had access to food and showers.
Two Palestinian men have made shocking allegations of abuse and torture at the hands of Israeli authorities after being detained for months during the war in Gaza.
They allege they were shackled, blindfolded, beaten, dragged across broken glass, scalded with hot water and kept in rooms with dogs at an Israeli detention facility.
They were among thousands of Palestinian prisoners and detainees held in Israeli jails who were released earlier this year as part of a swap for hostages kidnapped by Hamas.
Some of the released Palestinians have serious criminal records, convicted of offences such as murder and terrorism.
Many more are so-called “security detainees” — arrested and held without charge because of a perceived threat to the community.
Among them is Ibrahim Mohamad Khalil Al-Shaweesh, a 44-year-old father of six and school principal from Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza.
Videos of his emaciated appearance went viral on social media in early February when he was released.
The images fuelled accusations of serious mistreatment and neglect.
A second man, 36-year-old mechanic Mohamad Nawaf Ahmad Abu Taweeleh from Gaza City, has also shared allegations of misconduct by Israeli authorities, after he was arrested in March 2024.
Israel has denied mistreatment of prisoners.
But the allegations made by Mr Al-Shaweesh and Mr Abu Taweeleh add to the testimony given by other former prisoners to other media outlets and human rights groups that have said conditions inside Israeli prisons amount to torture.
‘It was 28 days of heavy torture’
Mr Al-Shaweesh recalls the day he was detained by Israeli forces in December 2023.
He had been sheltering in a school in northern Gaza when the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) stormed the building, detaining him and 34 others.
Mr Al-Shaweesh does not know where the group were taken — he was disorientated and fearful for his life.
“They totally undressed me, and they started interrogating me in [a] room,” he told the ABC.
The site of his interrogation appears to have been recently bombed, according to Mr Al-Shaweesh, who recalls seeing broken glass on the floor.
“They interrogated me, and they tortured me in that location — the army would drag me on the glass, and then once on the floor, one soldier would step on me,” he said.
The group was then taken to another location, referred to as Al Barakssat.
Several Palestinians have told the ABC that this is their name for the notorious Sde Temain military facility in the Israeli Negev desert.
Critics have previously called this detention centre “Israel’s Abu Ghraib”.
It has been at the centre of several recent controversies, including the brutal assault of a Palestinian man, which led to charges against five Israeli Defense Force (IDF) reservists.
Mr Al-Shaweesh said the building resembled a warehouse, and they were kept there for a month.
“It was 28 days of heavy torture — all kinds of torture you think about is available in that prison,” Mr Al-Shaweesh said.
‘They detain dogs with humans’
Handcuffed and blindfolded for the duration of his detention, Mr Al-Shaweesh said his restraints were never removed.
“You had to eat, drink, go to the toilet with your hands tied and blindfolded,” he recalled.
“Whenever you want to drink, a person comes over, he takes the glass of water, and he puts it on your lips so you can drink — sometimes it works, sometimes not.”
Mr Al-Shaweesh said he was also fed by hand in the same way.
“When you want to go to the toilet and have a wash, you cannot as your hands are cuffed and you are also blindfolded,” he said.
The group was allowed to sleep from midnight to 5am and remained handcuffed and blindfolded all night.
After 28 days, Mr Al-Shaweesh said he was moved to another location in Al Barakssat, where some detainees were locked up with muzzled dogs.
“They detain dogs with humans, you have to be lucky, as dogs can attack you,” Mr Al-Shaweesh said.
“They let a dog attack someone — they grabbed a prisoner and cut off his earlobe.”
After his time at Al Barakssat, Mr Al-Shaweesh said he was taken to the Naqab prison in Israel, where he remained until he was released on February 8.
Mr Al-Shaweesh is slowly regaining the weight he lost in detention and is up and walking since speaking to the ABC, but he is expected to need a lengthy period of recovery.
IDF denies housing dogs with detainees
The ABC asked the IDF a series of questions about Mr Al-Shaweesh’s treatment.
“The IDF is unaware of the allegations regarding the detainee and has forwarded them for examination by the relevant authorities,” it said in a statement.
“As part of the war against terrorist organisations, the IDF detains individuals in Gaza when there is reasonable suspicion of their involvement in terrorist activities.
“Relevant suspects undergo further questioning and screening, and are detention in designated facilities within Israel territory, where they are held under detention orders issued in accordance with the law.”
The IDF said “detainees” were not forced to remain in a crouching position while shackled, and that there was “no section” in Sde Temain “where dogs are kept alongside detainees.”
“Detainees receive three meals a day, prepared in accordance with nutritional guidelines to maintain their health, and have constant access to water,” it said.
“Contrary to claims, detainees eat independently and are not fed by IDF soldiers. All detainees are provided with means to maintain basic personal hygiene.
“They have regular access to toilets within the detention facility, which are cleaned regularly to ensure hygiene and health, and they are able to shower on a regular basis.”
The IDF said any complaint would be investigated.
Social media users have challenged the veracity of Mr Al-Shaweesh’s story, questioning whether he was held by Israeli forces, given his name did not appear on Israel’s list of “prisoners and security detainees” scheduled for release as part of the ceasefire deal.
That list only showed the details of 736 individuals, and did not include people detained in Gaza during the war.
Mr Al-Shaweesh’s name did feature on lists published by Palestinian prisoner and detainee advocates.
By the end of the initial six-week ceasefire, Israel had released more than 1,000 Palestinians — well beyond the figures on the official Israeli lists.
The release of another 620 on February 22 was delayed by Israel, in protest over what it described as humiliating and degrading hostage handover ceremonies by Hamas.
Social media users have also claimed his appearance is because he is a cancer patient — Mr Al-Shaweesh said he was not.
Others claimed he was an Iraqi — Mr Al-Shaweesh said he was a Palestinian.
Mohamad says he was burned in detention
Mohamad Nawaf Ahmad Abu Taweeleh’s time in detention is etched across his back, with severe scarring from what he alleged were chemical burns inflicted by Israeli forces.
He was arrested in Gaza City in March 2024, around the time the IDF stormed the nearby Al Shifa hospital, and he said he was taken to a building where he was tortured for three days.
“They used chemicals including nitric acid, chlorine, liquid washing detergent, and other chemicals,” he told the ABC.
“They kept it on my skin for three days. They put out their cigarettes on my back, they also sprayed my wounds with air freshener, lit a fire, and set my body on fire to make it burn.”
It was after that when Mr Abu Taweeleh said he was then taken to Al Barakssat, or Sde Temain where he remained for three months.
“During this period, we were all handcuffed, unconscious, and sitting on our feet,” he said.
“There was no movement. You couldn’t move as you wanted.
“We stayed like this from 5am until 10pm, when we went to bed, when they let us sleep. Only then we would sit and rest.”
He said Israeli forces would hit him and other people in detention, and he also alleged muzzled dogs were used to intimidate or attack detainees.
“They beat us and released dogs to attack us, and the young men became paralysed [with fear], of course, because they get injuries to their faces, to their bodies,” he said.
“They are wounded from the impact of the dogs’ muzzles that they put on the dog’s nose.
“These muzzles hit the young men and their heads, which hurt them and cause these injuries and wounds in their bodies and their faces.”
Mr Abu Taweeleh said he did not experience further torture at Sde Temain, but he witnessed the mistreatment of others, particularly younger detainees.
“They would pull out their nails with pliers and tongs, hammer iron chisels into their feet, and break their legs with sticks and hammers,” he claimed.
“They would also be subjected to hanging from cranes by their feet and hands for long hours.”
He said he had received medical treatment in Sde Temain, and claims he was treated “as a sick person” rather than a terrorist by the doctors there.
Mohamad says he spent almost a year in detention
Mr Abu Taweeleh says he was interrogated by Israeli officials before he was transferred to Sde Temain.
They asked me about the kidnapped Israelis, where they were,” he said.
“They wanted me to show them the locations of the [Hamas] fighters, where they were staying, where they were going, where they were coming from. They asked me also where I was on October 7.”
Mr Abu Taweeleh eventually ended up at Ofer prison in the West Bank, near Ramallah, before being transferred again to the Al Naqab prison in Israel’s south where he remained until he was released back into Gaza in late February.
He said that while he was gone, he had no idea what was going on with his family, including his son, who was just two months old when he was arrested.
His father was killed five days before his release.
“We did not know anything about the condition of our families in Gaza and the situation in Gaza at all — except when they brought someone from another region, or if they brought prisoners from Gaza into our section, then we would know what the situation was in Gaza,” he said.
“The army used to tell us that they wiped out Gaza. [They would say], ‘If you leave here, you will find all of Gaza like rubble on the ground, there is no place for you. We bombed your families while they were all in their homes, there is no life in Gaza’.
“They told us, you will leave here, and you will not find anyone, you will all go and be displaced far away.”
During the almost 12 months he spent in Israeli custody, he said he lost around 10 to 15 kilograms in weight.
“The food served was also very little, some rice with some lentils, there were only three spoons for each one of us,” he said.
The ABC has not been able to independently verify the specific claims made by Mr Al-Shaweesh and Mr Abu Taweeleh about what they say occurred inside Israeli prisons.
Israel is continuing to block international journalists from entering Gaza, apart from rare, highly choreographed embeds with the military.
ABC interviews are conducted through freelance journalists or remotely.
The IDF echoed the same comments about Mr Abu Taweeleh’s treatment as it did with Mr Al-Shaweesh.
“Mistreatment of detainees during their detention constitutes a violation of both Israeli and international law and of IDF regulations and is therefore strictly prohibited,” it said in a statement.
“Concrete allegations regarding inappropriate behaviour by detention staff or inadequate conditions are referred to the relevant authorities for investigation and examination and are addressed accordingly.
“Among the detainees held in the IDF detention facilities are highly skilled terrorist operatives who are considered extremely dangerous.
“Prolonged restraint during detention is implemented only in exceptional cases and only as long as significant security and safety considerations exist, while taking into account the detainee’s health condition.”
The IDF insisted people held in custody were fed appropriately and given access to showers and toilets.
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‘One of the most heartbreaking tragedies’: Gaza doctor’s last goodbye before nine children killed in airstrike
Dr Alaa al-Najjar was at work when Israeli strike destroyed her home, leaving one son and her husband as survivors
The Guardian | Malak A Tantesh & Lorenzo Tondo | 26 May 2025
In the early hours of Friday, as she did every day, Dr Alaa al-Najjar said goodbye to her 10 children before leaving the house. The youngest, Sayden, six months old, was still sleeping. And like every day, with war raging in Gaza and Israeli strikes landing just metres from her neighbourhood in Khan Younis, Najjar worried about leaving them at home without her.
But Najjar, 35, had little choice. One of Gaza’s dwindling number of medics, a respected paediatrician at the Nasser medical complex, she had to go to work to care for injured babies who had barely survived Israeli attacks. She could never have imagined that that farewell to her family would be her last.
A few hours later, the charred bodies of seven of her children, killed by an Israeli airstrike on Khan Younis, arrived at her hospital. Two other bodies, including Sayden’s, remained under the rubble. Of her 10 children, only one had survived, along with their father, Hamdi al-Najjar, 40, also a doctor. Both are now in hospital.
“It’s one of the most heartbreaking tragedies since the beginning of the conflict,” Mohammed Saqer, the head of nursing at Nasser hospital, said. “And it happened to a paediatrician who dedicated her life to saving children, only to have her own motherhood stolen in a moment of fire and deafening silence.”
Footage shared by the director of Gaza’s health ministry and verified by the Guardian shows the burnt, dismembered bodies of children being pulled from the rubble of Najjar’s building near a petrol station as flames still engulfed what remained of the family’s home.
Ali al-Najjar, 50, the older brother of Hamdi, Alaa’s husband, said: “When I heard the house was bombed, I instinctively rushed to my car and headed to the place as I knew my brother and his children were inside. When I arrived, I was shocked. I found my nephew Adam, who survived, lying on the road under the rubble. He was covered in soot, his clothes were almost torn, but his soul was still inside him. My brother was lying on the other side, bleeding heavily from his head and chest, and his arm was cut off. He was still breathing with difficulty.”
Ali called the medical team and took the two survivors to the hospital. Then he began searching for his nine missing nieces and nephews.
“The house was very difficult to clear because the ceiling was stacked on top of itself. I started searching around the house hoping to find any of the children because I assumed the bombing might have thrown them outside the house,” he said. “But then, sadly, the first burnt body appeared. After completely putting out the fire, we found the rest of them – some were mutilated and all were burnt.”
Alaa al-Najjar rushed to the site of the explosion as rescuers pulled the body of her daughter Revan from the rubble. In tears, she begged the rescuers to let her hold her one last time.
“Her [Revan’s] body was completely burnt from the upper part, nothing remained of her skin or flesh,” Ali said. “There are still two bodies of my brother’s children we could not find: the oldest, 12-year-old boy, Yahya, and the six-month-old girl, Sayden.”
Najjar returned to the hospital to check on her son Adam, 11, and her husband. Sources at the Nasser hospital who transferred the children’s bodies one by one to the morgue said their mother was not able to identify them, so bad were the burns.
The children’s names were Yahya, Rakan, Ruslan, Jubran, Eve, Revan, Sayden, Luqman and Sidra.
“Alaa went to the morgue, held her children in her arms, recited the Qur’an over them and prayed for them,” said Dr Ahmed al-Farra, 53, the director of the children’s building at the Nasser medical complex. “Other female doctors around her collapsed from grief and rage, but Dr Alaa remained composed. God sent peace upon her heart. After they were buried, she went directly to check on her husband and son and began caring for them.”
Colleagues at the hospital described Najjar as a committed, polite and ethical doctor, capable of enduring immense pressure, treating dozens of children and patients daily, and at the same time caring for a large family.
“She was in constant worry for her children when she was at the hospital. When she heard a house had been bombed in the Qizan al-Najjar neighbourhood, her mother’s heart sensed something was wrong,” Farra said.
He said there were no words for her loss. “If anyone wants to share an opinion, let them first imagine it happening to them – to suddenly lose every person connected to you.”
After saying goodbye for the last time to the lifeless bodies of her seven children, Alaa went to the ward where her surviving child was being treated.
“Her husband was suffering from severe injuries – brain damage and fractures caused by shrapnel, along with shrapnel wounds and fractures in the chest. He was placed on a ventilator and fitted with medical tubes,” Farra said. ‘‘Her son’s condition was relatively better – his injuries ranged from moderate to severe.”
Najjar’s colleagues and friends said her children held Egyptian citizenship and that Alaa and Hamdi had been planning to leave for Egypt and enrol their children in Cairo’s Al-Azhar University.
The Israel Defense Forces said: “Yesterday, an IDF aircraft struck a number of suspects who were identified operating from a structure adjacent to IDF troops in the area of Khan Younis. The Khan Younis area is a dangerous war zone. Before beginning operations there, the IDF evacuated civilians from this area for their own safety. The claim regarding harm to uninvolved civilians is under review.”
The Gaza health ministry says nearly 54,000 Palestinians, including 16,503 children, have been killed in Israeli attacks across the territory.
Farra said: “My only hope is that those who were killed are not just names on paper. We were created just like every other human being in this world. And like every other human, we have the right to live.”
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Israeli strikes over past 24 hours killed at least 38 people in Gaza, Palestinian officials say
Civil defence agency says some people are still under rubble after attacks on Deir al-Balah and Jabaliya
The Guardian / Reuters, AFP, AP | Lorenzo Tondo | 26 May 2025
Israeli strikes over the past 24 hours have killed at least 38 people in Gaza, health officials in the Palestinian territory have said, bringing the death toll to more than 100 in less than three days.
An attack on a tent housing displaced people in the central city of Deir al-Balah killed a mother and her two children, according to Gaza’s health ministry. Another strike in the Jabaliya area of northern Gaza killed at least five, including two women and a child, it added.
Civil defence agency spokesperson Mahmud Bassal said some people were still under the debris, as “the civil defence does not have search equipment or heavy equipment to lift the rubble to rescue the wounded and recover the martyrs.”
Two more people, including a woman who was seven months pregnant, were killed in an attack targeting tents sheltering displaced people around Nuseirat in central Gaza, said Bassal.
Sunday’s death toll includes the civil defence’s director of operations, Ashraf Abu Nar, and his wife, who were killed in a strike on their home in Nuseirat, according to Bassal. Local media reports said that in Jabaliya, journalist Hassan Majdi Abu Warda and several family members had been killed by an airstrike that hit his house earlier in the day.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said in a statement that two of its staff, Ibrahim Eid and Ahmad Abu Hilal, had been killed in a strike on a house in Khan Younis on Saturday.
“Their killing points to the intolerable civilian death toll in Gaza. The ICRC reiterates its urgent call for a ceasefire and for the respect and protection of civilians, including medical, humanitarian relief, and civil defence personnel,” the ICRC statement added.
Israel has intensified its air campaign in Gaza in recent days. On Friday, a strike on Khan Younis destroyed the home of doctors Alaa and Hamdi al-Najjar, killing nine of their 10 children.
The Israel Defense Forces said on Saturday it had targeted more than 100 sites across the territory over the weekend, despite aid agencies warning that the Palestinian population is plunging deeper into malnutrition and famine.
For nearly three months Israel blocked food, fuel, medicine and all other supplies from entering Gaza, worsening a humanitarian crisis for 2.3 million Palestinians.
Under international pressure, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who has vowed that the entire Gaza Strip will be under Israeli security control by the end of the war, said last week he would ease the 11-week siege of Gaza to prevent a “starvation crisis”. Aid agencies and many governments say that crisis already exists.
A total of 107 aid trucks belonging to the UN and other aid groups carrying flour, food, medical equipment and pharmaceuticals were transferred on Thursday into Gaza, the Israeli military said.
The UN secretary general said on Friday that Israel had only authorised for Gaza what “amounts to a teaspoon of aid when a flood of assistance is required” to ease the crisis.
“Without rapid, reliable, safe and sustained aid access, more people will die – and the long-term consequences on the entire population will be profound,” António Guterres told reporters.
“The entire population of Gaza is facing the risk of famine … The Israeli military offensive is intensifying, with atrocious levels of death and destruction.”
Israel accuses Hamas of siphoning off aid. The UN and aid groups deny there has been significant diversion.
Israel says it plans to seize full control of Gaza and facilitate what it describes as the voluntary migration of much of its population, a plan rejected by Palestinians and much of the international community. Experts say it would probably violate international law.
Health officials in Gaza said on Sunday that at least 3,785 people had been killed in the territory since Israel ended the ceasefire on 18 March.
Israel’s 19-month offensive followed the Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023 in which more than 1,200 people, mostly Israeli civilians, were killed.
The Israeli offensive has killed more than 53,939, Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which says women and children make up most of the dead. It does not provide figures for the number of civilians or combatants killed.
The offensive has destroyed vast areas of Gaza and displaced about 90% of the population, often multiple times.
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