His testimony provides compelling evidence that, despite assurances from Israeli officials, civilians are not merely collateral damage and the IDF’s military campaign in Gaza is not solely aimed at eliminating Hamas. Dr. Mark Perlmutter, an orthopedic surgeon from North Carolina and vice president of the International College of Surgeons, volunteered in Gaza from late April through mid-May. When asked by a CBS News reporter to describe what he observed in Gaza, he replied, “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." Perlmutter explained that civilian casualties are almost exclusively children. "I've never seen that before," he said. "I've seen more incinerated children than I've ever seen in my entire life, combined. I've seen more shredded children in just the first week … missing body parts, being crushed by buildings, the greatest majority, or bomb explosions, the next greatest majority. We've taken shrapnel as big as my thumb out of eight-year-olds. And then there's sniper bullets. I have children that were shot twice." When asked, “You're saying that children in Gaza are being shot by snipers?" Perlmutter replied, “Definitively.” He added, “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." An IDF spokesperson told CBS, “The IDF has never, and will never, deliberately target children. … Remaining in an active combat zone has inherent risks." However, more than 20 doctors told the news outlet that they are treating children suffering from gunshot wounds from Israeli troops. One unnamed American doctor said he reviewed CT scans to confirm his observations because he “didn't believe that this many children could be admitted to a single hospital with gunshot wounds to the head." A Virginia-based doctor told CBS, “We all see gunshots in the U.S., but we have never seen anything like the gunshots to kids in Gaza.” Another Virginia-based anesthesiologist said during his two weeks in Gaza, he saw gunshot wounds to kids on a daily basis, estimating that he saw at least 30 children shot by IDF snipers. A Chicago-based physician told CBS, “I thought these kids were in the wrong place at the wrong time, like sadly, some of the kids we treat in Chicago. But after the third or fourth time, I realized it was intentional; bullets were being put in these kids on purpose." These doctors’ accounts are not unique. They align with reports from other physicians detailing the IDF’s intentional shooting of innocent children, suggesting that this practice is a feature, rather than a bug, of Israeli military strategy. Dr. Irfan Galaria, a physician with a plastic and reconstructive surgery practice in Chantilly, Virginia, joined a group of doctors and nurses who traveled to Gaza to volunteer in late January. In an op-ed written about the journey, he said that what he saw over “10 days in Gaza was not war — it was annihilation.” According to his account:A Jewish American orthopedic surgeon who recently traveled to Gaza to treat the continuous stream of wounded civilians reports that Israeli Defense Force (IDF) snipers are intentionally targeting children.
I stopped keeping track of how many new orphans I had operated on. After surgery they would be filed somewhere in the hospital, I’m unsure of who will take care of them or how they will survive. 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. These families were returning to their homes in Khan Yunis, about 2.5 miles away from the hospital, after Israeli tanks had withdrawn. But the snipers apparently stayed behind. None of these children survived. On July 25, a group of 45 American physicians, surgeons, and nurses who have volunteered in the Gaza Strip sent an 8-page letter to President Joe Biden, explaining that children targeted by IDF snipers is a regular occurrence. “Children are universally considered innocents in armed conflict. However, every single signatory to this letter treated children in Gaza who suffered violence that must have been deliberately directed at them,” they wrote. “Specifically, every one of us on a daily basis treated pre-teen children who were shot in the head and chest.” The medics, who worked with the World Health Organization and other groups, revealed the actual death toll is much higher than is being reported. “It is likely that the death toll from this conflict is already greater than 92,000, an astonishing 4.2% of Gaza’s population,” they wrote. Earlier this year, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor blasted the Israeli military for its “blatant violation of international law” after it said “the the Israeli army has executed 13 children by direct shooting in Al-Shifa Medical Complex and its Gaza City environs.” The group added, “This is a war crime and a crime against humanity, and is part of the genocide that the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip having been experiencing for the past six months.” IDF soldiers intentionally targeting children is not purely a phenomenon that has emerged in the aftermath of Hamas’s deadly October 7 attack. Last August, the Israeli military faced criticism for killing children in the years prior, with 2022 being the deadliest year for Palestinian children in the West Bank in 15 years, and 2023 projected — at the time — to exceed 2022 numbers. “Israeli forces are gunning down Palestinian children living under occupation with increasing frequency,” said Bill Van Esveld, associate children’s rights director at Human Rights Watch, roughly five weeks prior to the October 7 attack. “Unless Israel’s allies, particularly the United States, pressure Israel to change course, more Palestinian children will be killed.”
