<\/p>\n
by Dave DeCamp
\nAntiwar.com<\/p>\n
An American surgeon who volunteered in Gaza told \u201cCBS Sunday Morning\u201d<\/a> in an interview that aired Sunday that Israeli snipers were purposely shooting Palestinian children, including toddlers.<\/p>\n \u201cI had children who were shot twice,\u201d said Dr. Mark Perlmutter, who said he was in Gaza at the end of April and the first couple weeks of May. \u201cI have two children that I have photographs of that were shot so perfectly in the chest I couldn\u2019t put my stethoscope over their heart more accurately and directly on the side of the head in the same child.\u201d<\/p>\n Perlmutter added, \u201cNo toddler gets shot twice by mistake by \u2018the world\u2019s best snipers.\u2019 And they\u2019re dead-center shots.\u201d Other foreign doctors who volunteered in Gaza gave a similar account to The Guardian<\/em><\/a> back in April, saying Israeli snipers were shooting children in the head.<\/p>\n Earlier this month, the Israeli outlet 972 Magazine<\/em> <\/a>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 \u201croutinely executes\u201d civilians who enter areas the military deemed \u201cno-go zones,\u201d and it detailed shootings where young children were killed.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s seen combined. \u201cForty mission trips, 30 years, Ground Zero, earthquakes. All of that combined doesn\u2019t equal the level of carnage that I saw against civilians in just my first week in Gaza,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n When asked if the civilians he saw wounded or killed were mostly children, Perlmutter said, \u201cAlmost exclusively children. I\u2019ve never seen that before. Never seen that. I\u2019ve seen more incinerated children than I\u2019ve ever seen in my entire life combined. I\u2019ve seen more shredded children in just the first week.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked what he meant by \u201cshredded\u201d children, Perlmutter explained, \u201cMissing body parts, being crushed by buildings, the greatest majority, or bomb explosions, the next greatest majority. We\u2019ve taken shrapnel as big as my thumb out of eight-year-olds.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Gaza\u2019s Health Ministry,\u00a0nearly 16,000 children have been killed by the Israeli assault on Gaza<\/a>, and about 38,000 have been wounded, which includes many amputees. Due to the Israeli siege, children\u2019s limbs\u00a0have been amputated without anesthetics.<\/a><\/p>\n