Gaza's Children III: “No Child Gets Shot Twice by Mistake”
Israel’s Sniping of Children and What Your Media Hides From You
The distinguished orthopaedic and hand surgeon Mark Perlmutter, a Jewish doctor, gave an interview in October last year on France 24, in which he claimed that Israel was deliberately sniping children. The interview went viral on social media, and due to his strong credibility and authority, instantly attracted considerable vitriol and the usual facile counter claims from Israeli spokespeople.
Mark Perlmutter has worked in conflict zones around the world for the past few decades, and so he should know what he is talking about. He has uncompromisingly discussed the evidence that he experienced first-hand, of the deliberate targeting of children.
Speaking of his volunteering work at the European Hospital of Khan Younis (S Gaza) in April 2024, Perlmutter said that not only did he not see a single “military combatant” in hospital as patient or otherwise; but also, that he saw more than one child who had been shot twice: “No child gets shot twice by mistake” were his exact words.
Dr Sidhwa, a trauma and general surgeon, in an October 2024 New York Times article, corroborated this. Sidhwa worked as a trauma surgeon in Gaza from late March to early April 2024. He had previously volunteered in Haiti and Ukraine, but he said that what he saw in Gaza was vastly different: almost every day there was a new young child who had been shot in the head or chest.
Initially he thought that this was possibly the work of one “sadistic” soldier who was targeting children. However, an emergency medicine physician he spoke to back home, who had worked at a completely different hospital in Gaza 2 months previously, also said that he also couldn’t believe how many children had been shot in the head.
Dr Rose, a consultant plastic and reconstructive surgeon who spent two weeks from late March at the European Gaza Hospital near Khan Younis in southern Gaza also said that: “A huge amount of my work was under-16s. Quite a worrying proportion of my work was six and under." She worked mainly on burns, shrapnel injuries and removing bullets from children’s bodies and faces.
A number of other doctors, have reported the heavy Israeli military activity around hospitals, as well as the fact that they haven’t seen any evidence whatsoever of Hamas or other Palestinian combatants in any of the hospitals they worked in.
However, Israel does not allow journalists or human rights investigators into Gaza, with the exception of a very small number of heavily “supervised” trips with the Israeli military, and the accounts of Palestinian journalists are not widely read – not to mention that Israel has killed over 217 journalists and media workers since October 7th.
This is why information about the situation in hospitals has been obtained from voluntary medical health care workers. And in fact, we can correctly surmise that this information is likely to be accurate and impartial. After extensive research by Sidhwa involving a huge search and working with Times Opinion to find and interview American healthcare workers who had worked in Gaza post-Oct 7th, they found that 44 out of 57 healthcare workers saw multiple cases of preteen children shot in the head and chest.
Dr Mohamad Rassoul Abu-Nawar, a surgeon, said that he saw 6 children aged 5-12 with single gunshot wounds to the skull; Dr Galaria, a surgeon, saw 4-5 children aged 5-8 yrs old with a single shot to the head; Dr Ahlia Kattan saw an 18-month-old baby shot in the head.
All went on to die, as medical equipment and facilities have been targeted to the extent that none of these cases can be adequately treated. “Treatment” is often on the floor with no drugs or sterile equipment and often no basic medical equipment like even soap or gloves.
Many doctors described widespread malnutrition in healthcare workers and patients, with doctors and medics working in a state of inadequate nutrition and under extreme psychological stress, with doctors saying 100% of patients were malnourished.
The vast majority (over 90%) of healthcare workers witnessed “psychiatric distress” in young children, who displayed suicidal thoughts, saying such things as they wished they had died. A 4 year old with burns to his whole body was described as not even crying, just humming, in shock. This state of severe shock was also evident in other children with shrapnel injuries. Teens and pre-teens frequently displayed signs of self-harm and cutting marks, along with statements that they wished they had died with their families.
Palestinian children have been severely traumatized in multiple ways, so many of them bear physical and psychological trauma that we cannot imagine – and yet the US continues to fund this illegal and barbaric genocide, and the UK and UK press continue to bury this news and hide from their public, the extent of their complicity, while showcasing trivial and irrelevant news articles to dope the public into silent compliance.
The manipulation of language – when an Israeli dies, they are “killed”, but when a hundred Palestinians are murdered in broad daylight, they just passively died – as well as the filtering of news such as the BBC news, through a Zionist network that squashes any reports critical of Israel, whilst reframing in ways favourable to Israel, is par for the course. Raffi Berg, the BBC’s Middle East editor, is just one of these Israel biased individuals that there is currently a petition to remove.
Therefore, it is important for us to pursue our own, reliable and independent news sources in relation to Israel’s depravity in the Middle East – at least, if you do not care for Palestinian children, you should be extremely worried about the wider implications of this malign influence on our rights, as well as access to the truth about what is happening in our world.
When questioned regarding sniped children, the IDF responded with a standard statement that did not answer any specific questions about this and claiming, as per usual, that they mitigate harm to civilians. However, by now, it should be clear to any reasonable thinking person, that Israel is on a deliberate campaign to wipe out Palestinians and has deeply embedded policies about targeting children.
After all, back as long ago as the First Intifada (1987) the then Israeli PM’s directive was to “break their bones”, to maim and to disable Palestinian children - and so why should we be surprised that the Israeli military directive is to snipe them in the head?
We have seen the genocidal rhetoric from countless Israeli spokespeople, we have seen their endless indiscriminate attacks on civilian shelters and tents. None of this is surprising – what is surprising is that there are possibly reasonable and good people out there who still speak in support of Israel.
Know what you are supporting.
Please circulate this and accompanying articles on Israel’s actions, far and wide.
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Sobia Quazi