Plumes of smoke rose after the Israeli Air Force carried out airstrikes on villages in southern Lebanon on Friday.
Jim Urquhart/Reuters
A Beirut surgeon has accused Israel of waging a “war against children” in Lebanon, citing how large numbers of young people faced death and injury during Israel’s bombing of Gaza.
Dr. Ghassan Abu Shitta, a British-Palestinian surgeon at American University Beirut Medical Center who previously worked in Gaza, gave testimony from the field to CNN’s Michael Holmes on Saturday.
“We’re seeing a similar pattern to what I saw in Gaza last October and November,” he said.
He said he was witnessing children being injured in their homes and, in some cases, multiple family members being killed.
“What we are seeing again is a war against children,” the doctor said.
More than 690 children have been injured in Lebanon in the past six weeks and at least 100 have been killed in the past 11 days as Israel steps up attacks against Hezbollah, according to UNICEF.
Israel said it was taking steps to minimize damage to civilians, including calling and texting residents of buildings designated for attack. Human rights groups such as Amnesty International say such warnings do not absolve Israel of its responsibility under international humanitarian law to limit harm to civilians.
Abu Shitta, director of plastic surgery at the prestigious American University Hospital, also spoke of the similarities between injuries sustained in two Israeli attacks in Gaza and Lebanon.
“We are seeing a similar pattern: explosion injuries to the faces of these children, amputation of limbs, crush injuries when they are pulled out from under the rubble.The medical system is responding to all of this. ” he pointed out.
More than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 96,006 injured in Gaza since Israel began its war with Hamas following the October 7 attack, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. did. The Ministry of Health does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its statistics, but says most of the dead are women and children. Israel announced earlier this year that it had killed more than 17,000 fighters in the Gaza Strip since the start of the war. CNN cannot independently verify the department’s numbers.
