GAZA, (PIC)
The American orthopedic and hand surgeon and vice president of the International College of Surgeons Dr. Mark Perlmutter said that the Israeli occupation army deliberately killed Palestinian children in Gaza with sniper fire.
He said that all of the disasters he has seen in his life over 30 years including earthquakes doesn’t equal the level of carnage that he saw against civilians in just his first week in Gaza.
In an interview with CBS, Dr. Perlmutter, who volunteered in Gaza from the end of April until the first half of May 2024, said that the majority of civilian victims in Gaza are children.
The American doctor said, “I saw children in Gaza who were deliberately targeted by Israeli army snipers,” saying that he has evidence of the systematic targeting of children and the war crimes committed against them.
“We took out fragments the size of my finger from young children, and there were also sniper bullets. I treated children who were shot twice,” he added.
In response to the question: “Are you saying that children in Gaza are being shot by snipers?” Perlmutter replied, “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,” he added.
He continued talking about the horror of the crimes he witnessed by saying, “I saw bodies torn apart, crushed under buildings. I have never seen anything like this before. I saw a large number of children who were burned in an unprecedented manner, and have never seen children mutilated and injured in my life as I had seen in the Strip.”
Perlmutter stated that the situation in Gaza reflects a bleak picture of the level of targeted violence against innocent children in the region, stressing that it is an intolerable crime against humanity.
His harsh testimony shows the gross violations committed by the Israeli occupation army against civilians, especially children in Gaza, which calls on the international community to intervene quickly to protect their lives and basic human rights, according to the US channel.
Perlmutter’s testimony is not the first, as more than twenty doctors in Gaza have recently spoken to the Sunday Morning newspaper about injuries resulting from gunshot wounds among children.
In late March, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor said it documented the Israeli army’s execution of 13 children by direct fire in and around Al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza. The rights group described these executions as a flagrant violation of the rules of international law, including international humanitarian law.
The Euro-Med explained that its field team received “identical testimonies” regarding executions and killings of children between the ages of 4 and 16 years, some of them while being besieged along with their families inside their homes in Gaza, and others during their attempt to flee along paths that the Israeli occupation army had previously declared as safe zones.
