Gaza Doctors Report Targeted Gunfire on Children As Death Toll Surpasses 64,800
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – International medical teams in Gaza have documented a pattern of deliberate gunfire against children, even as the Palestinian death toll from Israel’s war has climbed beyond 64,800, with famine deaths rising sharply, health officials and foreign doctors said.
An investigation by Dutch daily de Volkskrant cited 17 doctors and a nurse from the US, UK, Australia, Canada and the Netherlands who worked in Gaza’s hospitals and clinics since October 2023.
Fifteen of them reported treating at least 114 children aged 15 or younger with single gunshot wounds to the head or chest. Most of those children did not survive.
US trauma surgeon Feroze Sidhwa recalled his first day at Gaza’s European Hospital in March 2024, when four boys under 10 arrived with identical head wounds in less than 48 hours.
“How is it possible that here in this small hospital, within 48 hours, four children have come in who were shot in the head?” he told the paper. In the following 13 days, he saw nine more cases.
Other doctors confirmed the same pattern of injuries “almost every day” in other facilities. Forensic experts consulted by the newspaper said the consistency of the wounds suggested deliberate sniper or drone fire rather than accident.
Israel has repeatedly denied deliberately targeting civilians. But doctors interviewed said silence was no longer possible despite the risk of being barred from returning to Gaza.
According to the UN, since March 2025 Israel has blocked entry for more than 100 international health workers without explanation.
Meanwhile, Gaza’s Health Ministry said on Saturday that at least 64,803 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s war since October 2023. Another 164,264 have been injured.
The ministry said 47 bodies and 205 wounded were brought to hospitals in the past 24 hours, while many more remain trapped under rubble and in the streets.
Five Palestinians were killed and 26 injured while trying to reach humanitarian aid convoys in the last day, bringing the total killed in such incidents to 2,484, with over 18,117 wounded since late May.
Seven more Palestinians, including two children, died of starvation in the past day, raising the famine-related death toll to 420 people, among them 145 children.
Israel has closed all Gaza crossings since March 2, worsening shortages of food and medicine. The UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification confirmed famine in northern Gaza in August, warning it will spread to Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis by late September.
