Gaza’s Walking Wounded: Israeli Snipers Have Shot 6,392 Protesters in Lower Limbs This Year

- Gaza’s walking wounded: Israeli Snipers Have Shot 6,392 Protesters in Lower Limbs This Year
by Jack Moore, https://www.thenational.ae/
A wave of sniper fire has left Palestinians of all ages incapacitated or permanently disabled
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Israeli snipers have shot and wounded at least 6,392 Palestinian protesters in the lower limbs in eight months of weekly rallies, according to a new tally, leaving the enclave’s streets and hospitals filled with maimed victims.
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Since March 30, Palestinians have massed along the shared border with Israel to call for a return to the lands themselves and their relatives were displaced from at the birth of the country in 1948. The rallies have turned deadly with Israeli snipers deliberately targeting the legs to quell the unrest.
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Of 10,511 protesters treated since that day in the enclaves hospitals and field clinics, 6,392 were struck in the lower limbs with live ammunition or rubber bullets, according to the Associated Press. That figure does not include the 175 killed by Israeli sniper fire on the border. It total, at least 220 Palestinians have been killed since March in different incidents including air strikes and tank fire. A Palestinian sniper killed one Israeli soldier.
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Rights groups and Gazan medics say the number of wounded is so overwhelming that Gaza’s already crippled medical services cannot cope with the fallout, leaving many unrested and at risk of infection or, worse, death.
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A visible sight in the territory is now one of incapacitation, young Gazans on crutches or with their legs bound together with a metal frame. “This many patients would overstretch the best healthcare systems in the world. In Gaza, it is a crushing blow,” Marie-Elisabeth Ingres, Doctors Without Border’s chief for the Palestinian territories, said in a statement last month.
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Some of those wounded say they were involved in throwing stones at Israeli soldiers but many say that they were unarmed and not posing any threat to Israeli forces when they were shot.
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