Israel wipes out over 2,200 Palestinian families in Gaza

Israel’s relentless military war on Gaza has wiped out more than 2,200 Palestinian families entirely, according to Gaza’s Government Media Office as part of a campaign of “deliberate extermination”.

The figures, confirmed by health and social development ministries in Gaza, revealed that at least 6,350 Palestinians have been killed in strikes that targeted every member of their household. Another 5,120 families have been reduced to a single survivor.

In the latest harrowing case, Dr. Alaa Al-Najjar lost nine of her children in a single Israeli airstrike on her home in Khan Younis. Her husband, also a doctor, was critically injured and remains in intensive care. Their only surviving child is in serious condition.

Dozens of similar massacres have taken place since the war, since October 2023, many targeting residential blocks, displacement camps, and shelters in so-called “safe zones”.

According to the Ministry of Health in Gaza, more than 16,500 children have been killed in the war so far, including 916 infants under the age of one. Children aged 1 to 5 account for 4,365 deaths, those aged 6 to 12 make up 6,101 deaths, and 5,124 teenagers between 13 and 17 have also been killed.

“These figures represent a systematic and deliberate targeting of Gaza’s most vulnerable, an assault on the very fabric of Palestinian society,” the ministry said in a statement.

Many of the thousands of wounded children require urgent medical treatment abroad. But with the healthcare system in total collapse and Israel continuing to block evacuations, many are dying before they can receive care.

Since the start of the war, over 60,000 Palestinians have been killed and over 122,000 wounded. Gaza’s health system is buckling under the weight of daily mass casualties, repeated bombardments of medical facilities, and severe shortages of fuel, medicine and equipment.

Several major hospitals, including the Indonesian Hospital, European Gaza Hospital and Kamal Adwan Hospital, have ceased operations entirely in recent days. Others, such as Al-Shifa, Nasser, and Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, operate at a fraction of their capacity.

The number of orphans in Gaza has doubled to nearly 50,000, according to the Ministry of Social Development, while humanitarian agencies warn of a generation being lost to war, trauma, and neglect.

Meanwhile, forced displacement continues on a massive scale. The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reported that Israel had issued at least 35 forced evacuation orders this year, impacting more than one million people. Entire communities have been pushed toward a narrow coastal enclave in the far south, raising alarm over what rights groups say was a plan for mass expulsion.

Resident Diya’ Abdel Rabbo told The New Arab’s Arabic edition: “My neighbours, the Dalou family, were completely erased, children, women, everyone. The Israeli military knew what they were doing. They want to remove us from the record books.”

Ashraf Muteir, who lost five children from his sister’s family in a strike on Nuseirat refugee camp, said: “They speak openly about removing us. And the world just watches.”