Physicians Describe ‘Most Appalling Atrocities’ in Gaza
A group of four critical-care doctors who were recently in Gaza spoke on a UN panel about the horrors they witnessed in the besieged Strip. The doctors described multiple war crimes, horrendous injuries to children, kids dying of treatable wounds, and a shortage of supplies so severe that young patients die on the floors of hospitals without anesthetic to ease their suffering.
Addressing the UN on Tuesday, four physicians from France, the US, and Britain described the dire conditions in Gaza. “I saw the most appalling atrocities, and I saw things that I never would have expected to have seen in any healthcare setting,” Dr. Nick Maynard told the panel.
Maynard said that Israeli forces were bombing Gaza indiscriminately and intentionally attacking healthcare facilities, noting that some media outlets had uncritically repeated Tel Aviv’s assertion that it was carefully targeting Hamas. “I want to just dispel some of the narratives coming from the Israelis, [and] from some of the media,” which claimed the bombs were “only targeting Hamas.”
“I can certainly bear witness, as can any medic who’s been on the ground in Gaza in recent months, [and] dispel that notion with absolute certainty,” he continued. “There is mass indiscriminate bombing killing many, many thousands of civilians and a very clear targeting of healthcare facilities and healthcare workers.”
Maynard’s first-hand account is backed by Israeli and US sources. The White House has known for several months that Tel Aviv is bombing targets in Gaza without “solid intelligence” indicating any military value. President Biden himself previously described the Israeli onslaught as “indiscriminate,” while the Tel Aviv-based +972 Magazine detailed Israel’s intentional strikes on civilian “power targets” in what it dubbed an “assassination factory.”
Dr. Zaher Sahloul explained the toll the indiscriminate bombing has taken on the civilians in Gaza. “The number of children killed is 13,000 or so or more. Which means, one out of 100 children in Gaza has been killed and this is an astronomical number; the equivalent of that in the US would be half a million children,” he said.
“Of the 70,000 people who were injured, half of them have moderate to severe injuries. That means they will have some type of disability for the rest of their lives,” Sahloul continued before adding the numbers are likely an undercount.
Dr. Thaer Ahmad stated he was providing care to wounded Palestinians at the Nassar Hospital in Khan Younis before Israeli forces surrounded, raided, and disabled the medical center. He said aid could not enter the Strip and that doctors did not have the medicines needed to treat patients.
https://libertarianinstitute.org/news/physicians-describe-most-appalling-atrocities-in-gaza/