Israeli Troops Deliberately Target Gaza Children, Say Volunteer Medical Workers

Dr. Mimi Syed, a U.S. emergency physician who volunteered for two four-week rotations at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis and al-Aqsa Martyrs Government Hospital in Deir al-Balah, described one 4-year-old victim, a girl named Mira. “They said she’d been shot by a quadcopter [drone] while walking around in the humanitarian zone declared by Israel,” Syed told de Volkskrant. “I was told to just let her die by my colleagues. The assessment was, unfortunately, that there wasn’t much we could do. But she was still moving a little bit. She was very young. A little girl. I just couldn’t look away. There was something in her face that struck me. So I took a chance.” Working with colleagues, Syed saved Mira. Seeing so many similar injuries, she thought: “I have to document this. I realized — these are war crimes.” Syed documented 18 children with single-shot wounds to the head or chest. Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, a 43-year-old California trauma surgeon, described his first day volunteering at European Hospital in Gaza in March 2024. Sidhwa — who has previously described seeing children as young as 3 years old being deliberately targeted in numerous interviews and his own writing — told de Volkskrant that he saw four boys under age 10 with identical head wounds within 48 hours of his arrival. “I thought: What the hell?” he said. “How is it possible that, in this small hospital, four children are lying here with gunshot wounds to the head — all admitted within the past 48 hours?” Over the following 13 days, Sidhwa saw nine more children with similar single gunshot wounds to the head and chest by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers, who pride themselves on being some of the world’s best-trained marksmen. Israel and the U.S. have frequently described the IDF as the “most moral army” in the world. “I started to wonder if my hospital was near some crazy sniper,” he said. “Or a drone team killing children just for fun.”