Last week, I logged onto social media and quickly came across a story about a Palestinian pediatrician in Gaza. While Dr. Alaa al-Najjar was working at a hospital in the city of Khan Younis, she learned that her home, where she lived with her 10 children and husband, had been struck by an Israeli bomb in her absence. The bodies of seven of her children were brought to the hospital where she was working, some charred. The bodies of two others, including her 6-month-old, were trapped under the rubble. The only surviving member of her family is her 11-year-old son, Adam, who sustained severe injuries. Her husband, Hamdi, succumbed to his wounds days after the bombing.
It is difficult to face the grim stories and staggering statistics coming out of Gaza. But as Americans, whose tax dollars and political leaders have enabled Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza, we should not turn away. And as Catholics, who believe that every person is created in God’s image, we are called to be attentive. In processing the extent of the suffering, it is helpful to recall the foundational principle of our Catholic social teaching—that every child, woman and man possesses inherent dignity and the God-given right not just to survive, but to live well.
Dr. al-Najjar’s deceased children are among the estimated 14,000 Palestinian children who have been killed in Gaza over the last 19 months—hundreds of whom have been slain just since the end of the brief cease-fire in mid-March 2025. In total, over 50,000 Palestinians have reportedly been killed since October 2023, but scholars believe that the number could be much higher. Israel launched its military campaign in the wake of Hamas’ attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, when around 1,200 people were killed and 250 taken hostage.
The scale of violence and death in Gaza is particularly jarring when compared with the wars and atrocities of recent decades. A 2024 analysis by Oxfam found that during the first year of the Gaza war, more women and children were killed than in any other conflict in the equivalent period in the last two decades. Another analysis by UN Women found that, on average, one girl or woman has been killed every hour in Gaza due to the ongoing Israeli attacks, totaling over 28,000.
Far exceeding the death count is the number of those wounded in Gaza—over 110,000. Dr. Al-Najjar’s son, Adam, is among the over 34,000 children who have been injured, often severely. According to a new study, Gaza has the highest number per capita of child amputees in the world.
Israel’s widespread bombing, forced evacuations, ground incursions and targeted killings of civilians (including two women sheltering at Gaza’s only Catholic church) has pushed most of Gaza’s two million residents from their homes. Much of the housing infrastructure has been severely damaged or destroyed, meaning that many Palestinians are sheltering in tent camps, schools, hospitals and churches, many of which have themselves been damaged in airstrikes. Entire neighborhoods have been reduced to rubble.
Palestinians are living in unsanitary and crowded conditions. There is little to no access to clean water—Israel cut power to the main water treatment plants—and sewage flows freely. In a recent webinar hosted by the Catholic Advisory Council of Churches for Middle East Peace (of which I am a member), Dr. Greg Shay, an American Catholic pulmonologist who volunteered in Gaza hospitals both before and during the current war, shared disturbing accounts and photos about the surge of diseases, especially in children.
For 10 weeks this spring, Israel instituted a complete blockade on Gaza, barring even necessities like food, fuel and medicine. Now a trickle of aid is being provided through deadly militarized zones, but it is nowhere near enough; a United Nations representative called it a situation of “engineered scarcity.” Children and elderly people are starving to death, and many who haven’t succumbed are acutely malnourished.
The situation of pregnant women and babies is particularly troubling. Women are miscarrying at alarmingly high rates, due to stress and lack of nutrition and prenatal care. Many are having C-sections without anesthesia, and struggle to find formula and diapers. Some newborns have been killed in Israeli airstrikes or have died from infection just days after birth.
On top of this, Gaza has become the deadliest war zone for journalists ever recorded. A new report from the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs’ Costs of War project found that “more journalists have been killed in Gaza than in both world wars, the Vietnam War, the wars in Yugoslavia, and the U.S. war in Afghanistan combined.” Hospitals across Gaza have been attacked by Israel, and every university has been damaged or destroyed. Aid workers have been directly targeted by the Israeli military, and Palestinian doctors who have been detained have reported being tortured.
Faced with these realities, many of which have been deemed war crimes by a U.N. commission, more and more human rights groups, scholars and journalists believe that Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute a genocide—even those who were initially wary to use the term. These experts are concerned not only with the scale of violence and withholding of necessities from the civilian population, but also dehumanizing rhetoric coming from some Israeli officials.
The carnage in Gaza must stop. The principle of Catholic social teaching known as the preferential option for the poor reminds us to focus our energy on alleviating the suffering experienced by those who are most vulnerable and oppressed.
What can we do, half a world away? It is easy to feel hopeless and powerless after months of advocacy have failed. Still, we can push our elected officials to end U.S. complicity in Israel’s onslaught in Gaza. One new multifaith campaign, Letters for Gaza, encourages Americans to write handwritten letters as often as possible to their representatives in Congress until adequate humanitarian aid is provided, a cease-fire is reached, and the hostages are released. There are many other ways to exercise our solidarity, too.
At a minimum, we can, like the late Pope Francis and our new Pope Leo, raise our prayers and our voices. We can affirm the rights and dignity of all people, and in doing so let the families in Gaza know that we have not forgotten them.
