Doctors report alarming pattern of Gaza children shot in head, chest
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International doctors working in Gaza report a disturbing pattern of gunshot wounds in children, many fatal, raising concerns of deliberate targeting by snipers or drones.
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A man carries the body of 3-year-old Palestinian child Nour Abu Ouda, killed in an Israeli airstrike on the Gaza Strip, at Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, Sunday, Sept. 14, 2025 (AP)
An international team of doctors working in Gaza has reported a deeply disturbing pattern of gunshot wounds among children, raising serious concerns about the possibility of deliberate targeting, according to an investigation published Saturday by the Dutch daily de Volkskrant and reported by Anadolu.
The newspaper spoke with 17 doctors and a nurse from the US, UK, Australia, Canada, and the Netherlands, all of whom had worked in six hospitals and four clinics in Gaza since October 2023, with many possessing long experience in crisis zones, such as Sudan, Afghanistan, and Ukraine.
Of the medical professionals interviewed, fifteen reported to de Volkskrant that they had treated a minimum of 114 children, all aged 15 or younger, each with a single gunshot wound to either the head or the chest, wounds which proved fatal for the majority of these children. These specific cases have been documented across 10 different medical facilities between late 2023 and mid-2025.
Four boys under 10 with identical head wounds in 48 hours
According to the report, one of the doctors, US trauma surgeon Feroze Sidhwa, recalled his first day at the European Hospital in Gaza in March 2024, an experience during which he encountered four boys all under the age of 10 who had been admitted with identical head wounds within 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?” Sidhwa told the newspaper, noting that over the following 13 days, he encountered nine children with similar wounds.
Sidhwa later met a colleague who confirmed seeing the same injuries “almost every day” in another hospital, which led him to state, “That was the moment I decided: I have to find out what is happening here.”
Highly unlikely to be accidental
The doctors who were interviewed stressed that such injuries were highly unlikely to be accidental, a point which was supported by forensic experts consulted by the newspaper, who stated that the uniform pattern of the wounds suggested the use of aimed fire, potentially from snipers or drones.
This comes as "Israel" sustains its brutal war on Gaza, mercilessly killing dozens of Palestinians every day while forcibly displacing them from one warzone to the next.
Rising toll
According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, 68 martyrs and 346 new injuries arrived on Sunday at hospitals in the Gaza Strip in 24 hours.
This brings the total casualties from the Israeli aggression since October 7, 2023, as of September 14, 2025, to 64,871 martyrs and 164,610 injuries, with 12,321 martyrs and 52,569 injuries recorded since March 18, 2025.
Meanwhile, the number of aid seekers who were killed and whose bodies were received by hospitals in 24 hours has reached 10, with 18 injured, bringing the total number of Palestinians killed at aid distribution sites to 2,494, in addition to more than 18,135 injuries.
