'Catastrophe' in Gaza, says humanitarian chief - after doctor's nine children killed

A medical charity chief has spoken out about the deaths of a doctor's nine children in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza, and the "almost impossibility" of providing care in the region.

Warning: This article contains graphic details of child deaths Chris Lockyear - the secretary general of Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), or Doctors Without Borders - told Sky News' Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips the bodies of nine of paediatrician Alaa al Najjar's 10 children arrived at the Nasser Medical Complex, in the city of Khan Younis, while she was on shift. The attack in southern Gaza on Friday also left her husband, Hamdi al Najjar, severely wounded, and her only surviving son, Adam, aged 11, in a critical condition.

The dead brothers and sisters ranged in age from seven months to 12 years old. Mr Lockyear, who has been in contact with some of the MSF team working in the hospital, said: "Our team on the ground were saying that not only were the bodies of her children delivered to her while she was on shift, not only were they burnt, but they were describing them as charcoaled." He continued: "And this hospital, which is one of the very few partially remaining in Gaza to this day, has been subject to three airstrikes in the last two months - at one point killing two people in the surgical ward, which is just an illustration of the complexity, almost impossibility, of providing humanitarian services in Gaza at the moment." Hospitals in Gaza have repeatedly come under attack during the war.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claims Hamas has been hiding in them or in tunnels underneath. Four major hospitals have had to suspend medical services in the past week or so due to their proximity to hostilities and attacks, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said.

There were 28 attacks on healthcare in Gaza during this period and 697 attacks in total since October 2023. Almost all of the 36 hospitals in the Gaza Strip are damaged or destroyed, according to the WHO, and only 19 remain operational.

In total, the bodies of 79 people killed by Israeli strikes were taken to hospitals in a 24-hour period, Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry said on Saturday - a toll that does not include hospitals in the battered north, which it said were now inaccessible. Mr Lockyear told Sky News there are "no public hospitals open in the north anymore.