Doctors And Paramedics Who Worked In Gaza Said They Saw Children Shot In The Head Or Chest Nearly Every Day
Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, a trauma surgeon who spent two weeks in Khan Younis said he witnessed a new child who had been shot in the head or the chest nearly every day during his two weeks in Gaza.
A group of 65 doctors, nurses and paramedics who volunteered in Gaza have shared testimonies of their harrowing experiences of treating victims who were injured during Israel's attacks, particularly children who were frequently shot in the head.
Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, a trauma surgeon who spent two weeks in Khan Younis, Gaza, from March to April, spoke to several medical professionals about the heartbreaking and distressing experiences they witnessed while working in Gaza in an opinion post published in the New York Times.
In the piece, Dr. Sidhwa, who grew up in Flint, Michigan, said he has worked in conflict-hit countries like Ukraine and Haiti, but his time in Gaza deeply shocked him, as many of the children he treated had gunshot wounds to the head or chest, and most of them didn’t survive.
After returning to the US, Dr. Sidhwa said he shared with another doctor how he couldn’t believe the number of children he treated who had been shot in the head.
He said he was surprised when the physician responded and said“Yeah, me too, every single day.”
Dr Sidhwa said during his two-week stint in Gaza, he witnessed a new young child who had been shot in the head or the chest nearly every day there, seeing 13 cases in total.
Out of the 65 healthcare workers he surveyed, 44 said children were often the ones most disproportionately affected by Israel’s genocide, and many of them had treated preteen young children who had been shot in the head or chest.
“One night in the emergency department, over the course of four hours, I saw six children between the ages of 5 and 12, all with single gunshot wounds to the skull,” Dr Mohamad Rassoul Abu-Nuwar, a surgeon from Pittsburgh, said.
23-year-old paramedic Rania Afaneh said shetreated a child who had been shot in the jaw. The child was fully conscious but couldn’t stop choking on his own blood, she said.
Nina Ng, a 37-year-old emergency nurse from New York, described the dire conditions in the hospital, where they were overwhelmed, and many children had to be treated on the floor. Some children bled to death because there weren’t enough doctors or medical supplies to help them in time,
Out of the 65 doctors, 63 reported seeing severe malnutrition among patients, the general population and even in paramedics.
“These people were starving. I learned very quickly to not drink my water or eat the food I had brought in front of the health care workers because they had gone so many days without,” Merril Tydings, a critical care nurse, said.
Another nurse, Abeerah Muhammad, said many patients and hospital staff looked thin and dehydrated, having lost 20 to 60 pounds. Some newborn babies, healthy at birth, returned to the hospital later and died from dehydration, malnutrition or infections, she said.
Doctors and nurses also reported seeing children suffering with severe psychiatric distress. They said many children were traumatized, and some had even lost the will to live and showed signs of self-harm after seeing their family members killed. They often didn’t cry, even when in pain.
The healthcare workers also observed several children suffering from infections that could have been easily prevented, with some tragically losing their lives as a result.
In some cases, girls and women had to use “tent scraps and pieces of diapers, towels and cloth” menstrual pads, which led to severe infections like “toxic shock syndrome,” Abeerah Muhammad, an emergency and critical care nurse, said.
In the survey, the medical professionals also noted that even the most essential medical supplies, such as soap and gloves, were often unavailable in Gaza.
In his post, Dr. Sidhwa urged the US to stop supplying weapons to Israel, saying that together, Israel and the US were turning Gaza “into a howling wilderness.”
“The horror must end. The United States must stop arming Israel,” he said.
Since Oct.7, Israel has killed at least 42,010 Palestinians, with at least 17,000 being children and many under the age of two.
It has injured more than 97,166 others, mostly women and children.
Cherry Mohamed
Isha Jain
Sofia Hou
