Doctors working in Gaza’s overwhelmed hospitals are warning of a deliberate and systematic campaign by Israeli forces to target and mutilate Palestinian children using sniper rifles and armed drones—often as part of what frontline medical personnel are now describing as a “game.”
These accusations, once whispered in triage rooms, are now being corroborated by multiple eyewitnesses, frontline surgeons, and even members of Israel’s own military.
🎯 “Shoot the Head Today, the Testicles Tomorrow”
Dr. Nick Maynard, a British gastrointestinal surgeon serving at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, was among the first to break silence. Speaking to BBC Radio, he described an appalling and consistent pattern of wounds suffered by children:
“One of them—a 12-year-old—died on the operating table. They were all gunshot wounds… We’re seeing a very clear and disturbing pattern. One day, it’s all abdominal gunshot wounds. Another day, it’s all head wounds. Another day, neck or limbs. Just last Saturday, four teenage boys were brought in with gunshot wounds to their testicles.
It’s almost as if a game is being played—shoot the head today, the neck tomorrow, the testicles the day after. Just process that: on each day, different parts of children’s bodies are being targeted. That’s not random. That’s deliberate.”
Maynard also noted the use of Israeli-operated armed quadcopter drones to fire on food lines and children. “We’re operating on boys who say, ‘I was lying on the ground and the drone hovered and shot me.’”
🧠 Prof. Nizam Mamode: “Persistent Targeting of Civilians, Day After Day”
The testimony is supported by Prof. Nizam Mamode, a retired British surgeon who also served at Nasser Hospital. Speaking before the UK Parliament’s International Development Committee in November 2024, Mamode described children being shot after bombings by low-flying drones:
“A bomb would drop—maybe on a crowded, tented area—and then the drones would come down and pick off civilians—children.
I was operating on children who said: ‘I was lying on the ground after the bomb dropped and this quadcopter hovered over me and shot me.’ That’s clearly a deliberate act—and it was a persistent act—persistent targeting of civilians, day after day.”
Mamode added that the drones used small cuboid pellets more destructive than conventional bullets. In one case, a seven-year-old boy suffered injuries to his liver, spleen, bowel, and arteries from a single projectile. “It was a very consistent story,” he told MPs.
🧨 Haaretz: Israeli Troops Treated Killing as a Game
These accounts are echoed—and damningly confirmed—by Israeli soldiers themselves. In a Haaretz exposé published June 27, 2025, an active-duty IDF soldier admitted that sniper fire on starving civilians was treated like a real-life version of “Squid Game.”
“It’s a killing field,” the soldier said. “No crowd control measures, no tear gas—just live fire with everything imaginable.”
He said the activity was internally referred to as “Operation Salted Fish,” a slang reference to the children’s game Red Light, Green Light—“If Palestinians moved toward food aid outside the designated hour, they were machine-gunned.”
“Our form of communication is gunfire,” the soldier added. “There’s no enemy. No weapons. No threat.”
According to Haaretz, at least 549 Palestinians were killed near Israeli-controlled aid centers between May 27 and June 20. Many more were reportedly maimed or shot in the back while fleeing. Now the number of aid-seekers murdered by Israel, since it broke its agreed ceasefire, is reportedly over 1,000…
Commanders justified the killings as necessary despite admitting that “every time we fire, there are casualties and deaths. And when someone asks why, there’s never a good answer.”
🍞 Food as a Weapon of War
The so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF)—run in coordination with U.S. evangelical groups and private Israeli contractors—was revealed to be operating aid centers for only one hour per day. These centers, according to the UN, became entrapment zones, where people knew they would be shot if they sought food early or lingered late.
UN spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan called the GHF “a cover for military operations,” warning:
“This is a clear violation of international law and constitutes a war crime.”
📊 The Deadliest War for Civilians This Century
A study by wartime mortality expert Prof. Michael Spagat concluded that the war in Gaza now holds the highest civilian death ratio of any modern conflict since World War II. According to his research:
- Over 100,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 2023
- 56% of the dead are women and children
- It has the highest per capita death toll of any conflict in the 21st century
🧾 Legal and Moral Reckoning
Human rights experts, including from the International Court of Justice (ICJ), have already stated there is a plausible case of genocide against Israel. The newly surfaced testimonies from medical personnel and Israeli troops alike remove any remaining ambiguity.
Labour MP Sarah Champion, chair of the UK Parliamentary Committee that heard Prof. Mamode’s testimony, called it “profound and deeply chilling,” adding:
“The UK needs to take seriously the prospect of international humanitarian law having been egregiously broken in Gaza.”
The mounting evidence—from battlefield medics, wounded children, and IDF whistleblowers—points to a unified conclusion: Israeli forces are deliberately targeting civilians using starvation, mutilation, and psychological terror as policy.
Whether by drones picking off the wounded, snipers aiming for genitals, or artillery shells fired as “warnings” into aid lines, the violence is not random—it is structured, approved, and implemented.
“Shoot the head today, the neck tomorrow, the testicles the day after.”
This is not a metaphor. It is a system. A policy. A game—played with Palestinian lives.
