BOUNDLESS U.S./ISRAELI DEPRAVITY: Multiple Doctors Report Children Routinely Targeted By Israeli Snipers In Gaza

Doctors said that apparent sniper shots also account for numerous amputations and long-term disabilities, made all the worse in children because a bullet often causes more damage to small bodies.

A child hospitalized with a gunshot wound at the European public hospital near Rafah, Gaza, in February 2024. Photograph: Courtesy of Dr Fozia Alvi

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(EDITOR’S NOTE: Kudos to The Guardian for this courageous reporting. Unfortunately, the original headline writers were too timid and the rote denial by the Israeli military didn’t get the challenge it deserved, so I did some headline and subhead editing to better reflect reality. Also, please note, if you do not understand the difference between the bullets used by snipers and routine soldiers, the larger caliber rounds used by snipers leave unique wounds quite different from regular military rifles, which confirms deliberate, careful targeting by snipers and not injuries in the ‘heat of battle’.

Keep in mind what history teaches about all corrupt, collapsing empires like ours: the weapons and tactics of colonization are always brought home to control a citizenship bled dry to pay for useless wars.What you are seeing here will eventually be brought home and directed at us.

And, as always, remember, as the funder, supplier of weapons and the diplomatic lies to shield Israeli fascist forces, WE — the United States — are directly responsible for every one of these precious dead and wounded children. Shame on the United States. Shame on us.— Mark Taylor)

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In Gaza City, three-year-old Emad Abu al-Qura was shot outside his home as he went to buy fruit with his cousin, Hadeel, a 20-year-old medical student, who was also killed. The family said they were targeted by an Israeli sniper.

A video of the pair lying together in the street shows Emad still alive after he is first hit and trying to lift his head. More shots hit the ground close by including one that strikes a plank next to Emad. The boy’s mother said he was then hit again and this time killed.

By Chris McGreal
The Guardian (4/2/24)

Dr Fozia Alvi was making her rounds of the intensive care unit on her final day at the battered European public hospital in southern Gaza when she stopped next to two young arrivals with facial injuries and breathing tubes in their windpipes.

“I asked the nurse, what’s the history? She said that they were brought in a couple of hours ago. They had sniper shots to the brain. They were seven or eight years old,” she said.

The Canadian doctor’s heart sank. These were not the first children treated by Alvi who she was told were targeted by Israeli soldiers, and she knew the damage a single high-calibre bullet could do to a fragile young body.

“They were not able to talk, paraplegic. They were literally lying down as vegetables on those beds. They were not the only ones. I saw even small children with direct sniper shot wounds to the head as well as in the chest. They were not combatants, they were small children,” said Alvi.

A brain scan shows a bullet lodged in the skull of an eight-year-old Palestinian girl. Photograph: Courtesy Dr Vanita Gupta.

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Children account for more than one in three of the more than 32,000 people killed in Israel’s months-long assault on Gaza, according to the Palestinian health ministry. Tens of thousands more young people have suffered severe injuries, including amputations.

Nine doctors gave the Guardian accounts of working in Gaza hospitals this year, all but one of them foreign volunteers. Their common assessment was that most of the dead and wounded children they treated were hit by shrapnel or burned during Israel’s extensive bombardment of residential neighbourhoods, in some cases wiping out entire families. Others were killed or injured by collapsing buildings with still more missing under the rubble.

Single bullet wounds to the head or chest

But doctors also reported treating a steady stream of children, elderly people and others who were clearly not combatants with single bullet wounds to the head or chest.

Some of the physicians said that the types and locations of the wounds, and accounts of Palestinians who brought children to the hospital, led them to believe the victims were directly targeted by Israeli troops.

Other doctors said they did not know the circumstances of the shootings but that they were deeply troubled by the number of children who were severely wounded or killed by single gunshots, sometimes by high-calibre bullets causing extensive damage to young bodies.

In mid-February, a group of UN experts accused the Israeli military of targeting Palestinian civilians who are evidently not combatants, including children, as they sought shelter.

Netanyahu at work. December 9, 2023 US/Israeli genocide protest, Madison, WI. / Photo by Mark Taylor, DeMOCKracy.ink . Free to use.

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“There was another little girl about the same age. I saw a bullet entry wound on her head. Her father was there, crying and asking me, ‘Can you save her? She’s my only child.’”

Gupta said that a third young child also had a shot to the head and was sent for a CT scan.

“The neurosurgeon looked and said, ‘There’s no hope.’ You could see the bullet had gone through the head. I don’t know how old he was, but young,”

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“We are shocked by reports of the deliberate targeting and extrajudicial killing of Palestinian women and children in places where they sought refuge, or while fleeing. Some of them were reportedly holding white pieces of cloth when they were killed by the Israeli army or affiliated forces,” the group said.

The Guardian shared descriptions and images of gunshot wounds suffered by eight children with military experts and forensic pathologists. They said it was difficult to conclusively determine the circumstances of the shootings based on the descriptions and photos alone, although in some of the cases they were able to identify ammunition used by the Israeli military.

Eyewitness accounts and video recordings appear to back up claims that Israeli soldiers have fired on civilians, including children, outside of combat with Hamas or other armed groups. In some cases, witnesses describe coming under fire while waving white flags. Haaretz reported on Saturday that Israel routinely fires on civilians in areas its military has declared a “combat zone”.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) deploy snipers – or sharpshooters, as the military calls them – during combat operations, often as part of elite units. They are trained to “target and eliminate particularly difficult terrorist threats”, according to the military’s own definition.

Israeli and foreign human rights groups have documented a long history of snipers firing on unarmed Palestinians, including children, in Gaza and the West Bank.

Sniper quadcopter drones

Palestinians in Gaza also report a terrifying new development in the latest Gaza war – armed drones able to hover over streets and pick off individuals. Called quadcopters, some of these drones are used as remote-control snipers that Palestinians say have been used to shoot civilians. …

Read the rest

In December, the Palestine Red Crescent Society said that 13-year-old Amir Odeh was killed by an Israeli drone at its headquarters in the Al-Amal hospital in Khan Younis. The family told Euro-Med Monitor he was shot through a window as he played with his cousins on the eighth floor of building where they had sought shelter from the fighting. The killing was especially notable because the single shot to the chest came from a type of drone not seen in combat in Gaza before – a quadcopter, fitted with a gun, camera and speaker. Unlike some other drones, quadcopters are able to hover over their targets.

Cartoon by Mark Taylor / DeMOCKracy.ink / Free to use