Jewish American doctor returns from Gaza, says Israel “shredded” Palestinian children

Jewish American doctor Mark Perlmutter has spoken out about what he saw in Palestine. In an interview with CBS News, Perlmutter said:

I’ve seen more shredded children in just my first week…missing body parts, being crushed by buildings, the greatest majority, or bomb explosions, the next greatest majority.

Perlmutter, vice president of the International College of Surgeons, also said:

All of the disasters I’ve seen, combined – 40 mission trips, 30 years, Ground Zero, earthquakes, all of that combined – doesn’t equal the level of carnage that I saw against civilians in just my first week in Gaza.

Since 7 October, Israel has killed 39,670 Palestinian people including over 15,000 children. Perlmutter continued:

I’ve seen more incinerated children than I’ve ever seen in my entire life

Israel snipers Palestinian children

Perlmutter also spoke of Israeli snipers targeting Gazan children. CBS correspondent Tracy Smith asked him to clarify:

You’re saying that children in Gaza are being shot by snipers?

He responded:

Definitively. I have two children that I have photographs of that were shot so perfectly in the chest, I couldn’t put my stethoscope over their heart more accurately, and directly on the side of the head, in the same child. No toddler gets shot twice by mistake by the ‘world’s best sniper.’ And they’re dead-center shots.

CBS also reported that the more than 20 doctors they spoke to had also seen gunshot wounds in Palestinian children. One American doctor said he had to look again at CT scans because he said he “didn’t believe this many children could be admitted to a single hospital with gunshot wounds to the head”.

The Guardian has reported that the foreign doctors working in Gaza that they had spoken to saw a “steady stream” of children and other civilians “with single bullet wounds to the head or chest”. Other doctors told the Guardian they were troubled by the volume of children Israel severely wounded or killed with gunshots.

In an LA Times piece from February, entitled “I’m an American doctor who went to Gaza. What I saw wasn’t war — it was annihilation”, Irfan Galaria writes:

On one occasion, a handful of children, all about ages 5 to 8, were carried to the emergency room by their parents. All had single sniper shots to the head.

Israel sniping Palestinian children did not begin after 7 October, where Hamas launched an attack into Southern Israel. In the Israeli occupied Palestinian territory of the West Bank in 2019, an IDF sniper shot a nine year old Palestinian boy in the head after a protest dispersed.

More destruction

Save the Children reported in June that on top of the more than 15,000 killed another 21,000 Palestinian children are missing in Gaza. And 4,000 of those are trapped under the debris.

And it’s not just Palestinian children themselves that Israel is targeting. It’s also their educational facilities. A week ago, Israel struck at least six UN-run schools in 10 days. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) said Israel has attacked 120 of their educational institutions since 7 October.

Featured image via CBS Sunday Morning – YouTube