Israeli-made weapons designed to disperse high levels of shrapnel are causing catastrophic injuries to civilians in Gaza, disproportionately affecting children, according to foreign doctors who recently worked in the territory. These medical professionals, who volunteered at European and al-Aqsa hospitals, described to The Guardian newspaper extensive and severe wounds caused by “fragmentation” shrapnel, which experts believe is intended to maximiSe casualties.
Surgeons, including Feroze Sidhwa from California, told Guardian reporter Chris McGreal that many of the injuries they treated involved children struck by tiny shrapnel fragments that leave minimal external wounds but cause significant internal damage.
“About half of the injuries I took care of were in young kids. We saw a lot of so-called splinter injuries that were very, very small to the point that you easily missed them while examining a patient. Much, much smaller than anything I’ve seen before but they caused tremendous damage on the inside,” Sidhwa explained.
Weapons experts have confirmed that the injuries align with the use of Israeli-made weapons designed to maximiSe casualties. These weapons, often fired into densely populated civilian areas, pose a severe risk, particularly to children.
“Children are more vulnerable to any penetrating injury because they have smaller bodies. Their vital parts are smaller and easier to disrupt. When children have lacerated blood vessels, their blood vessels are already so small it’s very hard to put them back together,” Sidhwa added.
Mark Perlmutter, an orthopedic surgeon from North Carolina, described to McGreal the typical wounds as having one or two millimeter entry and exit points, with internal damage likened to bones being demolished by a tractor trailer. “The children we operated on, most of them had these small entrance and exit points,” he noted, emphasizing the extreme internal damage caused by the high-velocity fragments.
Australian surgeon Sanjay Adusumilli recovered small metal cubes from a young boy’s wounds, which are consistent with fragmentation weapons. “These wounds from fragmentation weapons are distinguished by the shards of shrapnel destroying bone and organs while leaving just a scratch on the skin,” he said.
Dr. Iain Overton, Executive Director of Action on Armed Violence (AOAV), said of the report, “The use of such weapons in heavily populated areas poses significant concern. The severe impact on children is particularly harrowing and demands urgent international attention and action.”
The UN children’s agency, UNICEF, has described the number of wounded children as “staggering,” estimating over 38,000 deaths in Gaza, with at least 8,000 being children. Many of these injuries are due to the use of fragmentation weapons. The UN has condemned the scale of killing as “an unprecedented scale and intensity of grave violations against children.”
Doctors reported that many injuries could have been treated more effectively if not for the severe shortage of medical supplies and overcrowded hospitals. Some children had to undergo amputations without anesthesia due to the lack of resources. Adusumilli recounted the tragic case of a seven-year-old girl who lost her arm in a missile strike and later succumbed to her injuries due to inadequate medical care.
The extensive use of these highly lethal weapons in densely populated areas raises significant ethical and legal questions.
AOAV contends that the testimonies of these doctors, combined with the harrowing statistics from UNICEF and other humanitarian organisations, underscore the urgent need for international intervention to protect the lives of Gaza’s children and hold those responsible for these atrocities accountable.