A surgeon in Beirut has accused Israel of waging a “war on children” in Lebanon, comparing it to the death and injury of scores of young people during Israel’s bombardment of Gaza.
Dr. Ghazan Abu-Siddah, a British-Palestinian surgeon at the American University of Beirut Medical Center who previously worked in Gaza, gave his account from the ground to CNN’s Michael Holmes on Saturday.
“We’re watching [a] It was similar to what I saw in Gaza in October and November last year,” he said.
He said children were injured in their homes and sometimes multiple family members were killed.
According to UNICEFMore 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.
Israel says it is taking measures to minimize civilian harm, such as sending phone calls and text messages to residents of buildings designated for attack. Human rights groups such as Amnesty International say such warnings do not absolve Israel of responsibility under international humanitarian law for harming civilians.
Abu-Sidda, who serves as the director of the Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at the prestigious American University Hospital, also spoke about the similarities between injuries sustained in two Israeli attacks in Gaza and Lebanon.
More than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 96,006 wounded in Gaza since Israel began its war following an October 7 attack by Hamas, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The health ministry does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its statistics but says most of the dead are women and children. Earlier this year, Israel said it had killed more than 17,000 militants since the war in Gaza began. CNN could not independently verify the ministry’s numbers.
