An American surgeon who volunteered in Gaza told “CBS Sunday Morning” in an interview that aired Sunday that Israeli snipers were purposely shooting Palestinian children, including toddlers.
“I had children who were shot twice,” said Dr. Mark Perlmutter, who said he was in Gaza at the end of April and the first couple weeks of May. “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.”
Perlmutter added, “No toddler gets shot twice by mistake by ‘the world’s best snipers.’ And they’re dead-center shots.” Other foreign doctors who volunteered in Gaza gave a similar account to The Guardian back in April, saying Israeli snipers were shooting children in the head.
Earlier this month, the Israeli outlet 972 Magazine published a report citing Israeli soldiers that detailed how the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) in Gaza essentially had no restrictions on who they could shoot. The report said the IDF “routinely executes” civilians who enter areas the military deemed “no-go zones,” and it detailed shootings where young children were killed.
In his interview, Perlmutter, vice president of the International College of Surgeons, said what he saw in Gaza was worse than all of the disaster zones he’s seen combined. “Forty 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,” he said.
When asked if the civilians he saw wounded or killed were mostly children, Perlmutter said, “Almost exclusively children. I’ve never seen that before. Never seen that. 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.”
Asked what he meant by “shredded” children, Perlmutter explained, “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.”
According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, nearly 16,000 children have been killed by the Israeli assault on Gaza, and about 38,000 have been wounded, which includes many amputees. Due to the Israeli siege, children’s limbs have been amputated without anesthetics.