When Dr. Mimi Syed returned from her first volunteer trip to Gaza in the summer of 2024, she started flipping through her notes and came to a shocking conclusion: In one month, the ER physician had treated at least 18 children with gunshots to the head or chest. And that’s only the patients she had time to make a note of. 

“They were children under the age of 12,” she says. “That’s something I saw every single day, multiple times a day, for the whole four weeks that I was there.”

Syed’s not the only one. Other physicians who’ve worked in Gaza report seeing similar cases on a regular basis, suggesting a disturbing pattern. The doctors allege that members of the Israeli military may be deliberately targeting children. 

This week on Reveal, in partnership with Al Jazeera’s Fault Lines, we follow Syed from Gaza to the halls of Congress and the United Nations, as she joins a movement of doctors appealing to US and international policymakers to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Dig Deeper

Watch: Kids Under Fire (Al Jazeera’s Fault Lines)

Read: “The Target Is Unmistakable”: The Shooting of Gaza’s Children (Drop Site)

Credits

Reporters: Najib Aminy and Josh Rushing | Producer: Najib Aminy | Editor: Lu Olkowski | From Al Jazeera’s Fault Lines: Laila Al-Arian, Amel Guettatfi, Singeli Agnew, Adrienne Haspel, Yousif Al Saifi, and Mehr Sher | Fact checkers: Serena Lin, Nikki Frick, Kim Freda, and Ruth Murai | Legal review: Victoria Baranetsky | Production manager: Zulema Cobb | Digital producer: Nikki Frick | Score and sound design: Jim Briggs, Fernando Arruda, and Claire Mullen | Interim executive producers: Taki Telonidis and Brett Myers | Host: Al Letson | Special thanks: Sophie Hurwitz and Jacob Rosenberg 

For Kids Under Fire from Fault Lines: Director and producer: Amel Guettatfi | Senior correspondent and producer: Josh Rushing | Executive producer: Laila Al-Arian | Director of photography: Singeli Agnew | Editor and story producer: Adrienne Haspel | Associate producer: Mehr Sher | Writers:  Amel Guettatfi, Josh Rushing, and Laila Al-Arian | Directors of photography in Gaza: Mohammed Ibaida, Hussien Jaber, Omer Zineldeen, Mahmoud Kulab, and Yousuf Alsaifi | Production manager in Gaza: Hasan Mashharawi | Producer in Gaza: Ashraf Mashharawi | Production services in Gaza: Media Town

Support for Reveal is provided by listeners like you, and the Reva and David Logan Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Park Foundation, The Schmidt Family Foundation, and the Hellman Foundation.

Transcript

Reveal transcripts are produced by a third-party transcription service and may contain errors. Please be aware that the official record for Reveal’s radio stories is the audio.

Al Letson:From the Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, this is Reveal. I’m Al Letson.  
Speaker 1:[foreign language 00:00:07].  
Al Letson:Like many Americans, Mimi Syed followed Israel’s response to the October 7th Hamas attacks through videos on Instagram and TikTok. This part of the world was foreign to her.  
Dr. Mimi Syed:Shamefully I didn’t know anything about the history. I didn’t know anything about the occupation and things going on there.  
Al Letson:But she became glued to her phone. Mimi kept scrolling, watching post after post. Then in the summer of last year, she saw one image too many.  
Dr. Mimi Syed:It was a child that was pulled out of rubble and just like a ragdoll and was completely dead. I remember driving in the morning to work and I said to my husband, “Hey, babe, I got to talk to you about something.” I texted him and he messaged me back, he goes, “You’re going to Gaza, aren’t you?” I have these skills that this population needs. I need to show up.  
Al Letson:Mimi is a board certified emergency room doctor who knows how to help in a very practical way.  
Dr. Mimi Syed:There was a medical obligation on my part, just as a physician, there is a need.  
Al Letson:At the time, doctors were one of the only groups consistently let into Gaza. Israel wasn’t allowing outside observers from groups like Human Rights Watch. And the only foreign journalists allowed in were embedded with the Israeli army. Now Mimi, a doctor from Olympia, Washington, was about to enter one of the most restricted parts of the world.  
Dr. Mimi Syed:I knew that it was dangerous. I actually didn’t realize how much more dangerous it was until I actually got there.  
Al Letson:This hour, we’re teaming up with Al Jazeera’s Fault Lines to look at Gaza through the eyes of a group of doctors who after treating patients in a war zone decided they needed to do more. And a heads-up, this story contains descriptions of trauma and violence. Reveal’s Najib Aminy takes it from here.  
Najib Aminy:For Mimi, going to Gaza meant she had to say goodbye to her family, her husband, and three kids.  
Dr. Mimi Syed:Okay. Have fun at lunch and have a good game.  
Najib Aminy:Her five elderly dogs that, well, range in size.  
Dr. Mimi Syed:Ready?  
Najib Aminy:Oh my gosh, this guy’s huge.  
Dr. Mimi Syed:[inaudible 00:02:26] this is Molly. This is Yogi. He’s the smallest one, he weighs four pounds. But he attacks all the big dogs.  
Najib Aminy:And then there are the pigs, four of them.  
Dr. Mimi Syed:Hammy wants the most attention and he’ll fight for attention. You be nice. You be nice  
Najib Aminy:If you lost count, that’s one husband, three kids, five dogs, and four demanding pigs.  
Dr. Mimi Syed:They give you a lot of love back and it’s rewarding. And I don’t really think that there’s anything in life that’s worth doing if it’s not a little bit of work.  
Najib Aminy:Mimi’s the medical director at a level four trauma center in Washington State. When she first left for Gaza in August of 2024, Hamas’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, had just been assassinated in Iran and the Israeli military issued evacuation orders for more than 80% of Gaza. By this time, humanitarian access was severely restricted and there were reports of a polio outbreak.  
Newsreel:One after another, hundreds of injured people are brought to Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis.  
Najib Aminy:Mimi goes straight to work at the same hospital, one of the largest in Gaza. It’s in disarray and overcrowded. Far too few beds, far too few doctors, hardly any supplies, and so many people in need of care. And just hours into her first shift, she gets hit by her new reality. Mass casualty events on a daily basis, sometimes multiple times a shift.  
Dr. Mimi Syed:I was seeing things that I never in my life thought I would see. I think that the explosive injuries and the shrapnel and the gunshot wounds overwhelmed my view at that time because there was nothing else that I was seeing because those are such severe injuries.  
Najib Aminy:Then there was something else she rarely saw back home.  
Dr. Mimi Syed:Kids would come in dead with single shots to the head. There was no other injury on them. I mean, it’s never normal to have a child with a gunshot wound in his head or her head or chest.  
Najib Aminy:Mimi was working in the emergency trauma bay where they used a green, yellow, red triage system to handle the influx of patients. Green for minor cases, yellow for more moderate ones, and red for the most critical. And then there’s one other color, black.  
Dr. Mimi Syed:Yeah, black is the patient’s dead or there is nothing you can do to salvage them. Or if you could, it’s wasting resources because the prognosis is so poor.  
Najib Aminy:One morning, around 8:00 or 9:00 AM, the hospital quickly gets overwhelmed. Another mass casualty event, patients are flooding in. That’s when a four-year-old girl named Meera shows up to the trauma bay. Her injuries are not considered green, yellow, or red, but black.  
Dr. Mimi Syed:She had a wound in her head.  
Najib Aminy:Mimi knows what the other doctors in the room know. Meera’s chances at survival are not great. In fact…  
Dr. Mimi Syed:The prognosis for that to survive is very poor. Very, very low.  
Najib Aminy:Near impossible. Taking the time and resources to save Meera could mean that someone else might not be saved. But then she notices Meera wince.  
Dr. Mimi Syed:And that usually is a good neurologic sign.  
Najib Aminy:Mimi pulls out a medical device, a laryngoscope, which is a small curved blade with a light that allows a doctor to see inside one’s throat. She says she had to smuggle this basic device into Gaza because of Israel’s restrictions on medical equipment out of security concerns. In the medical world, this device is used for airway protection and she uses it to help intubate Meera right away. As the girl’s breathing steadies, Mimi orders a CT scan.  
Dr. Mimi Syed:There was a bullet lodged in her head. And I just remember thinking immediately, she needs to go to surgery.  
Najib Aminy:Mimi sprints upstairs to get the attention of a neurosurgeon. They rush Meera to surgery and miraculously she survives. It’s a tiny win for Mimi, who immediately is tending to newer patients. She only gets to reflect on it much later.  
Dr. Mimi Syed:This was the only child that actually that I saw I was able to get to the CT scan that survived. A lot of them came in very similar to her presentation, but were dead already.  
Najib Aminy:During this trip, Mimi says she treated at least 18 children with gunshot wounds to the head or chest. To her, these injuries seemed deliberate.  
Dr. Mimi Syed:They were in children under the age of 12. That’s something I saw every single day, multiple times a day for the whole four weeks that I was there.  
Najib Aminy:It would take an investigation to determine whether these shootings were deliberate. But to pursue one would be impossible because the Israeli defense forces haven’t allowed independent observers to enter Gaza. After 30 days in Gaza, Mimi returns home with an immense sense of guilt. Yes, she saved some lives, but it paled in comparison to the greater need.  
Dr. Mimi Syed:In Gaza, there is no end, it just keeps going. And futility is the only way to describe it because no matter what you do, you’re not changing the outcome.  
Najib Aminy:But that feeling changes one day when Mimi gets an email.  
Dr. Mimi Syed:Feroze had actually sent out an email shortly after I’d gotten back asking physicians to complete a survey with some questions about what they saw when they were in Gaza.  
Najib Aminy:His name is Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, a trauma surgeon who’s based in Stockton, California.  
Dr. Feroze Sidh…:I kept a diary while I was there, and actually it wasn’t until I came back I realized like, holy shit, I saw a lot of kids shot in the head. I saw a lot of kids maimed. A war doesn’t explain why half the people in your ER are 10 years old or younger.  
Najib Aminy:Like Mimi, Feroze also worked in Gaza. Now he was writing a letter to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. The letter called for an immediate ceasefire and weapons embargo on Israel. He was trying to corral signatures from other American doctors and healthcare workers who also worked in Gaza. But getting them to sign on was harder than he thought.  
Dr. Feroze Sidh…:They were like, “Oh, no, it’s not going to make any difference. Why sign the letter?” I’m like, “Dude, just sign the fucking letter. What is your problem? It takes 30 seconds of your time.” “Oh, I read it. It’s a good letter, but I don’t think it’s going to do anything.” Who cares? Just try.  
Najib Aminy:He landed with 99 signatories, including Mimi. Next, Feroze created a survey for the doctors to complete. And he began tallying the data for an op-ed for the New York Times. Mimi filled out the survey and submitted a few photos, including one of Meera’s CT scan, showing a bullet, bright white, lodged deep in her skull. After a rigorous round of fact checking the op-ed went live.  
Dr. Mimi Syed:Suddenly everyone becomes a ballistic expert and radiologist on X apparently  
Najib Aminy:People didn’t believe Meera had been shot in the head.  
Dr. Mimi Syed:There was particular radiologists, surgeons, trauma surgeons, who all started saying, “That’s impossible. It is an impossibility that a bullet would just get retained. This is obviously a bullet taped onto a child’s head or a person’s head or something.”  
Najib Aminy:Taped?  
Dr. Mimi Syed:Taped.  
Najib Aminy:People accused Mimi of lying, even though the CT scan showed the entry wound and swelling in Meera’s brain. For Mimi, having other physicians second guess her work felt like a betrayal.  
Dr. Mimi Syed:I mean, honestly, it felt like this is an impossibility that physicians who call themselves humanitarians are ignoring that children are being shot in the head. How could you do that?  
Najib Aminy:The Israeli military hasn’t publicly commented on the New York Times op-ed, but they have in the past rejected the claim that its troops have deliberately fired on civilians. Here’s Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.  
Benjamin Netany…:Israel does not target Palestinian civilians. We target Hamas terrorists. And when these terrorists embed themselves in civilian areas, when they use civilians as human shields, they’re the ones who are responsible for all unintended casualties.  
Najib Aminy:Hamas has rejected the Israeli claim that they use human shields. The overall response to the op-ed didn’t change the reality on the ground in Gaza, which at the time was facing a famine. Israel continued its blockade on aid and the multiple attempts at ceasefires had all broken down. So Mimi, defeated but Undeterred, decides to book a return trip back to Gaza.  
Dr. Mimi Syed:I mean, I decided to go back because it was getting worse.  
Najib Aminy:This time, Mimi goes with a different intention.  
Dr. Mimi Syed:Well, I went back because I felt I was needed, but because I’m a healthcare worker, we are one of few that actually go in to witness this. So I felt another moral obligation to go witness and report and to bring it to attention of media, of humanitarian organizations around the world so that we could stop this.  
Najib Aminy:And this time, she also recorded audio diaries. This is how that second trip starts.  
Dr. Mimi Syed:It’s about six o’clock in the morning and that’s what we’re waking up to.  
Najib Aminy:Mimi spends most of her time in central Gaza, working shifts at Al-Aqsa Hospital, a large medical complex that’s been the target of multiple Israeli attacks since October 7th. She’s living inside the hospital, in a small area that has been repurposed with a few mattresses laid out on the floor. The kitchen area is just a hot plate. There’s no heat, it’s cold, and the windows provide very little insulation. The hospital is crowded with people living in the hallways and outside in tent encampments. But as the days unfold, one major difference Mimi notices since her last trip to Gaza is that there aren’t as many mass casualty events.  
Dr. Mimi Syed:The trauma cases that we are seeing secondary to military conflict is decreased.  
Najib Aminy:Instead, she notices a different kind of medical emergency. The kind of thing you see when you look at photos of Holocaust survivors in concentration camps.  
Dr. Mimi Syed:We, are noticing patients with temporal wasting and cachexia.  
Najib Aminy:Picture images of people with unusually thin faces and protruding cheekbones. That is usually a sign of extreme malnourishment.  
Dr. Mimi Syed:Just terrible conditions that you would typically not see in any other normal country.  
Najib Aminy:Mimi was seeing this at scale in Gaza. Mimi continues to treat patients and take photos and document what she can, but the magnitude of it all gets to her.  
Dr. Mimi Syed:I feel defeated, discouraged, and like coming here was a big mistake.  
Najib Aminy:And then a surprise. Mimi gets to visit with Meera, the four-year-old girl she helped save.  
Dr. Mimi Syed:Hi, Meera. I’m Mimi.  
Speaker 2:[foreign language 00:14:20].  
Dr. Mimi Syed:You remember me? Hi. How are you?  
Speaker 2:[foreign language 00:14:27] I miss you.  
Dr. Mimi Syed:I miss you. Can I have a hug?  
Najib Aminy:Meera is wearing a pink hoodie, sitting in a tent next to her mom, who you can also hear. Meera’s a little shy, but she’s showing off her nail polish.  
Dr. Mimi Syed:How are you? Look at your fingers.  
Meera:[foreign language 00:14:47].  
Speaker 2:[foreign language 00:14:47].  
Dr. Mimi Syed:Oh, manicure. Wow. I love it.  
Meera:[foreign language 00:14:53].  
Dr. Mimi Syed:She’s talking good.  
Speaker 2:Yes.  
Mimi Syed:Very good. And she’s playing and interacting normally?  
Speaker 2:[foreign language 00:15:02].  
Dr. Mimi Syed:Oh, that’s amazing.  
Najib Aminy:Seeing Meera temporarily brightens Mimi’s spirits. But Mimi can’t shake the fact that so many kids didn’t survive and she wants policymakers to know what she’s seen. So not long after she returns home, she plans another trip, this time it’s to Washington DC.  
Al Letson:Up next, Mimi walks the halls of the Capitol.  
Dr. Mimi Syed:I have a little bit of hope being here.  
Al Letson:Hope?  
Dr. Mimi Syed:Hope that someone will listen.  
Al Letson:That’s coming up on Reveal.  
Al Letson:From the Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, this is Reveal. I’m Al Letson. It’s January 2025 and Dr. Mimi Syed has just wrapped up her month-long stint working in one of the few functioning hospitals remaining in Gaza. She’s now in Washington making her way towards the US Capitol.  
Dr. Mimi Syed:We’re in DC and we’re walking to some meetings with state reps, and hoping to discuss the various issues that are ongoing in Gaza.  
Al Letson:Mimi is here as a part of a grassroots movement of doctors who want to share what they saw in Gaza with members of Congress. She wants them to understand the catastrophic health conditions on the ground. Reveal’s Najib Aminy is tagging along.  
Najib Aminy:How are you feeling?  
Dr. Mimi Syed:A little anxious.  
Najib Aminy:Why?  
Dr. Mimi Syed:I’m not sure what to expect. I’ve not done anything like this before.  
Al Letson:Donald Trump has just started his second term and was already making headlines with his new ideas about Gaza.  
Donald Trump:You’re talking about probably a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing.  
Al Letson:A new ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has recently gone into effect, so the attacks have mostly stopped. Mimi sees the ceasefire and the incoming Congress as a new window of opportunity to bring relief to those in Gaza.  
 Her day on Capitol Hill is jam-packed with 30-minute meetings at the offices of both Democrats and Republicans. Her bare minimum ask to policymakers: get aid in, get patients out.  
 But Mimi has one other message to pass on, one about the children she treated when she was in Gaza. She carries with her what she feels is evidence of this humanitarian problem, evidence that finally might get Congress to act.  
Dr. Mimi Syed:Yeah, it’s a Walgreens photo envelope that says, “Find smiles inside.” It’s not filled with smiles at all, actually. It’s filled with pretty disturbing images of a child with a bullet in her head.  
Al Letson:The child is four-year-old Mira, who you heard about earlier in the show. One child of many who suffered a critical gunshot wound.  
 As Mimi heads towards one of her meetings, she runs into a familiar face, Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, the trauma surgeon who penned the New York Times op-ed. They walked down the hallways, passing senators on their left and right.  
Dr. Feroze Sidhwa:I’m not a political expert, honestly. I could recognize Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump.  
Dr. Mimi Syed:Yeah, I think I’m the same.  
Al Letson:For the two American doctors who just left Gaza, a new kind of work begins.  
Dr. Mimi Syed:Yeah, we’re about to walk into Senator Thune’s office. He’s the majority leader of the Senate.  
Dr. Feroze Sidhwa:Just walking to Pete Aguilar’s office in California.  
Dr. Mimi Syed:We are walking into Senator Amy Klobuchar’s office of Minnesota.  
Dr. Feroze Sidhwa:We are going to Representative Ronny Jackson from Texas, who, as I understand, is President Obama’s former physician. So this will be interesting.  
Al Letson:But it quickly turns into an uphill battle. The two never meet with any representatives or senators, mostly junior staff and aides. They go through similar talking points in each meeting, including for Mimi, showing the photo of Mira’s CT scan. But during one meeting, there’s skepticism about that image.  
Dr. Mimi Syed:Feroze was pointing out the swelling in the head and the entrance of the wound here, the bullet here, on the front there, left side of the head.  
Dr. Feroze Sidhwa:And still people are skeptical of this image. It’s just completely insane.  
Al Letson:They aren’t given any assurances that members of Congress will take action. All they hear is that their requests will be passed on to the Congress member. It’s like the people they’re talking to won’t allow the message to sink in.  
Dr. Feroze Sidhwa:Once you consider the possibility that Israel and the US aren’t always doing the right thing just by definition, then maybe your mind can also be open to the path that maybe Israel is actually committing crimes deliberately, and maybe we have aided and abetted them deliberately.  
Dr. Mimi Syed:I think that people already know this.  
Dr. Feroze Sidhwa:No, they know. They’re fully aware.  
Dr. Mimi Syed:Everybody knows. I mean it’s the elephant in the room. I think everybody knows. It seems kind of odd to have to convince people that shooting kids in the head is wrong.  
Al Letson:For Mimi and Feroze, meaningful action from policymakers would involve the US cutting back military support to Israel, which is by far the biggest recipient of aid from Washington. There’s a law already in place that’s supposed to do that. It prohibits US aid from going to foreign military units accused of human rights violations. Our partners for this hour, Josh Rushing and the team at Al Jazeera’s Fault Lines spent time looking into that law and how it applies to Israel. Here’s Josh.  
Josh Rushing:Policymakers in the United States have been trying to figure out how to punish countries who were accused of violating human rights for decades. The first legislation dates back to the ’70s. It was supposed to cut off all US security aid when crimes were committed. It was a blunt instrument, so blunt it was never used, even when there were credible allegations against foreign military units.  
 So in the ’90s, policymakers came up with a more surgical approach called the Leahy Law. If a country doesn’t hold its security forces accountable for violations like rape, torture, and murder, then the US is supposed to withhold its security assistance from those specific units.  
Tim Rieser:The Leahy law has utility and is consistent with who we are, what we stand for.  
Josh Rushing:Tim Rieser wrote the Leahy Law when he was a senior advisor to former Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont. He’s known as one of the more influential people on the Hill when it comes to crafting US foreign policy. Under the Leahy Law, instead of a foreign government losing all their support from the US, only the units committing human rights violations are cut off. In a lot of cases, it worked.  
 When the State Department recognized a pattern of human rights violations in countries like Colombia, Guatemala, and Indonesia, it had a mechanism to cut military aid to the units in question. But with Israel, it’s never been enforced.  
 Every year since its founding in 1948, the US has poured billions of dollars into Israel and regularly contributes about 15 to 20% of Israel’s annual defense budget. That’s going to be even higher since Hamas’s attack on October 7th, 2023.  
Tim Rieser:There’s probably not a unit in the Israeli army that either hasn’t been trained and/or received equipment from the United States. That’s just the reality, because we provide far more to Israel than we do to any other country.  
Josh Rushing:But for decades, there has been extensive documentation showing that units in the Israeli security forces have committed human rights violations, often against children. One of the most famous cases was caught on camera in 2000. 12-year-old Muhammad al-Durrah was shot in his father’s arms.  
Newsreel:This weekend, a video that has been shown around the world is the video of a man trying to protect his son. He is pleading with the soldiers, saying, “I have a child. I have a child,” and the next frame is his son shot dead.  
Josh Rushing:Three years later, before Israeli forces withdrew from Gaza and Hamas took over, three children were killed in a four-hour standoff in a refugee camp there. Then between March 2018 and March 2019, during a series of protests at the border with Gaza, Israeli forces killed at least 41 children mostly by live fire according to the UN.  
Newsreel:The commission has found reasonable grounds to believe that Israeli security forces committed serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law.  
Josh Rushing:According to a number of NGOs, the Israeli military has committed gross violations of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories both before and after October 7th. Take this one report from Defense for Children International Palestine. Between October 2023 and July 2024, they documented 141 Palestinian children killed by Israeli security forces and settlers in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. More than three-quarters were shot dead off often to the head or torso. That kind of fatal injury as opposed to an airstrike or a stray bullet can qualify as a gross violation of human rights under the Leahy Law, yet according to Tim Rieser …  
Tim Rieser:No Israeli defense unit has ever been denied US assistance under the law that we’re aware of. It is the only country that we’re aware of that the law has been so consistently not applied to. Had the Leahy Law, from its inception, been applied as it was intended in the West Bank and Gaza, that the Israeli Defense Forces, who we train often and whose equipment we provide, guns, ammunition, bombs, et cetera, knew that the Leahy Law was there and could result in that unit being denied assistance, it would help to prevent those types of crimes from occurring.  
Josh Rushing:Tim, the guy who wrote the law, believes the issue isn’t with how it’s written.  
Tim Rieser:I think the law is fine. It could be applied to Israel just the way it is to other countries. It’s a matter of political will. I think if you talk to people even in the State Department or who were in the State Department, they would tell you the same thing, that there was a conscious decision not to apply the law.  
Charles Blaha:The standard, the Leahy Law standard, is credible information. It’s an intentionally low standard. Why is that? Well, it’s because it’s very difficult to get information about gross violations of human rights.  
Josh Rushing:Charles O. Blaha, who goes by his initials C-O-B, Cob, worked at the State Department for 32 years. He was the director of the Office of Security and Human Rights before retiring in 2023. His office vetted about 200,000 cases a year of allegations against US-backed security forces around the world. In most cases, US military aid is earmarked for specific foreign units, but some countries, including Ukraine, Egypt, Jordan, and Israel, have received money and equipment in a lump sum to distribute as they wish. For three of those countries, the US has given a list of units that shouldn’t receive aid, but not for Israel.  
Charles Blaha:Israel receives assistance that’s untraceable, and that’s a problem under the Leahy Law. We can’t identify all the units or even very many of them that receive the benefits of foreign military financing.  
Josh Rushing:Cob tried to solve this problem. He helped design a new process, the Israel-Leahy Vetting Forum, a forum, a convening of staff from the embassy, the State Department, and the Department of Defense, who would develop a list of ineligible units.  
Charles Blaha:So the Israel-Leahy Vetting Forum was designed to consider credible allegations of gross violations of human rights against Israeli units. The government of Israel, to whom we give billions and billions and billions of dollars, should be responsive to those requests.  
Josh Rushing:It’s extremely rare to get this level of candor from a former State Department official as high up as Cob. He says The Vetting Forum has asked Israel about credible allegations against specific units, and that the US accepts Israel’s investigations without question, if they respond.  
 Both Tim Rieser, who wrote the Leahy Law, and Charles O. Blaha, who helped carry it out at the State Department, have come to a similar question, one that was posed to then Secretary of State Antony Blinken during a press briefing back in 2024.  
Antony Blinken:Do we have a double standard? The answer is no. The Leahy Law report that I think you were referring to at the outset, this is I think a good example of a process that is very deliberate, that seeks to get facts [inaudible 00:12:54].  
Josh Rushing:The State Department under Marco Rubio and the Trump administration has taken a more hardline approach, providing even more aid to Israel.  
Newsreel:Secretary of State Marco Rubio used emergency authority to expedite delivery of about $4 billion of weapons and ammunition.  
Josh Rushing:And just last month, Secretary Rubio released a plan to reorganize the State Department and drastically reduce the size of the teams that typically oversee the Israel-Leahy Vetting Forum. Here he is referring to it during a cabinet meeting.  
Marco Rubio:We’ve also, by the way, Mr. President, under your direction, reorganized the Department of State. We had offices within offices within offices that didn’t even know they existed themselves.  
Josh Rushing:Meanwhile, credible reports of human rights violations continue to stream out of Gaza. While reporting this story, we spoke to 20 American doctors who served there, including Dr. Syed and Sidhwa who you heard from earlier. Altogether, their observations are eerily similar.  
Tammy Abughnaim:I did take care of a child who was brought in dead on arrival, who was shot once in the left side of the chest, went through and through to the heart.  
Yassar Arain:And they took me to a room where a mother was holding her baby. They said this baby was shot, was shot when he was 10 days old. I picked him up and I looked on one side of his head and he had a bullet entry wound on the back of his skull that came out on the other side towards the back of his head.  
Mark Perlmutter:So it’s not just a random sniper. It’s not a rogue soldier that lost their ethics. It’s widespread throughout the entire Gaza Strip.  
Josh Rushing:Those doctors were Tammy Abughnaim, an ER physician from Illinois, Yassar Arain, a neonatologist from Texas, and Mark Perlmutter, a hand surgeon from North Carolina.  
 Both Al Jazeera and Reveal sent detailed lists of questions to the Israeli military’s press office and the State Department. We also asked for an interview. We wanted to speak with them about a number of cases involving children, including Mira, the four-year-old treated by Dr. Mimi Syed, but we never heard back.  
 Cob retired from the State Department in August 2023, a couple of months before the Hamas attack. Now, almost two years later, he still wrestles with his decision to approve a forum that gave the appearance of accountability while actually providing none.  
Charles Blaha:I signed off for two reasons. I believed at the time that the State Department would implement that process in good faith, and I believed at the time in the Israeli military justice system. Both of those beliefs turned out to be incorrect.  
Josh Rushing:What do you believe now?  
Charles Blaha:Well, I believe that the highest levels of the State Department and Embassy Jerusalem had no intention of ever finding an Israeli unit had committed gross violations of human rights.  
Josh Rushing:So you’ve gone 180 degrees on two major beliefs that are consequential in a lot of people’s lives. How does that sit with you?  
Charles Blaha:I don’t really know what to say. If I’d objected at the time, I certainly would’ve been overridden. But my name wouldn’t be on the approval line.  
Josh Rushing:It is.  
Charles Blaha:That’s right.  
Josh Rushing:So how do you reconcile that?  
Charles Blaha:I was mistaken. I was wrong.  
Josh Rushing:Would you accept it as credible if dozens of US doctors said there was a pattern of children being targeted by the Israeli military?  
Charles Blaha:Yes, and I’d find it credible enough to warrant diplomatic action. But remember the lack of political will at the highest levels of the State Department to impose any consequences on Israel.  
Josh Rushing:So it doesn’t really matter if kids are being targeted by the IDF. There’s no reason to expect that would change US support for Israel.  
Charles Blaha:In the current environment, I doubt that anyone in a position of authority in the United States government would accept the premise that the IDF is targeting children even in the face of credible evidence.  
Al Letson:That report was from Al Jazeera Fault Lines senior correspondent Josh Rushing and producer Amel Guettatfi. You can watch their film Kids Under Fire online.  
 Up next, after getting little traction with policymakers on Capitol Hill, Doctors Mimi Syed and Feroze Sidhwa take what they learned in Gaza to the world stage.  
Najib Aminy:So just yesterday you were meeting with aides and now you’re meeting the secretary general. How do you feel about that?  
Dr. Mimi Syed:Yeah, it’s a privilege.  
Al Letson:The doctors head to the UN. That’s next on Reveal.  
Al Letson:From the Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, this is Reveal. I’m Al Letson. Dr. Syed and Sidhwa’s efforts on Capitol Hill came to an end without any assurance that US Congress members would act. Next, the doctors head to New York where Reveal’s Najib Aminy joins them for another round of meetings, this time with a more global audience. Here’s Najib.  
Najib Aminy:Okay, if that wasn’t obvious, we’re in New York now. All right. We’re walking into the Chrysler Building for what is a prep meeting for the rest of the day. Mimi and Feroze are already inside, along with two other American doctors. Thaer Ahmad and Ayesha Khan, who also worked in Gaza. There’s coffee and pastries, but it’s mostly untouched as the prep meeting gets underway. Later that day, they have a series of meetings at the United Nations, including one with the Secretary General Antonio Guterres.  
Dr. Mimi Syed:What I want to know is, how do I relate the Meera story in terms of the UN? Is it medical evacuation?  
Dr. Thaer Ahmad:Maybe you start with that case and then medical evacuation. I see you’ll go next. You’ll cover the malnutrition part, and as well as the…  
Najib Aminy:The four doctors know what’s at stake. This is a rare opportunity to bring attention to the most immediate needs in Gaza before the institution that is perhaps best positioned to bring about change.  
 So just yesterday you were meeting with aids, and now you’re meeting the Secretary General. How do you feel about that?  
Dr. Mimi Syed:Yeah, it’s a privilege.  
Dr. Feroze Sidhwa:Again, if it’s one more kid out, one more sack of flour in, that’s good, and it’s worthwhile.  
Najib Aminy:They make their way up to the 38th floor of the UN building where they’ll meet the Secretary General. They’re led to a conference room with a long, glossy wooden table. Before the meeting starts, there’s a quick photo op.  
Antonio Guterres:Okay. If you look this way. Okay. Okay. Thank you very much.  
Najib Aminy:Then the press gets shooed away.  
Aide:Okay, guys, we have to go. The meeting is already started.  
Najib Aminy:After the meeting with the Secretary General, there’s a press conference, and it’s packed.  
Dr. Feroze Sidhwa:The day’s going really well. The press conference we just had was great. People are interested. They had good questions. They had good follow-ups.  
Najib Aminy:The meeting with the Secretary General?  
Dr. Feroze Sidhwa:The meeting with the Secretary General was great and to see his reaction to the stories we told him about treating children, about really actually just treating humans in general. It wasn’t just kids. It was very heartening.  
Najib Aminy:The Secretary General shared a post on X thanking the doctors for their work, but perhaps more important, he called for the medical evacuations of 2,500 children out of Gaza.  
Dr. Mimi Syed:Secretary General just tweeted a positive note that he was receptive that he will see to change. I feel a lot better than I did yesterday when I came from DC.  
Najib Aminy:But a post on X, a tweet, really can only go so far. About a month and a half later, Israel launched a surprise military offensive, effectively ending a two-month ceasefire. Since then, some of Gaza’s largest remaining hospitals have come under attack. Israel also cut off all food and supplies. The heads of UN agencies, like the World Health Organization, UNICEF, and the World Food Program, responded in a joint statement saying, “We are witnessing acts of war in Gaza that show an utter disregard for human life.”  
 The international community has responded in several ways to Israel’s military offensive in Gaza. The UN Security Council, which was set up after World War II to help prevent atrocities, has passed two resolutions since October 7th, calling for a ceasefire. But the political gridlock and veto power of countries like the United States has significantly weakened the council’s impact. There’s also the International Criminal Court or the ICC, which focuses on individuals accused of war crimes.  
Newsreel:A story now developing in the last few minutes, the International Criminal Court at The Hague has issued arrest warrants for the-  
Najib Aminy:The ICC issued arrest warrants for leaders of both Hamas as well as Israel, notably its Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.  
Newsreel:It’s alleged that Netanyahu used starvation as a tool of war. Just reading some copy-  
Najib Aminy:The US under President Trump responded by placing sanctions on the court and the court’s chief prosecutor. And then there’s the International Court of Justice, the world’s court.  
Newsreel:That’s where the United Nations highest court is hearing allegations that Israel is committing genocide with its military campaign in Gaza.  
Najib Aminy:Two months after October 7th, South Africa filed an application in the International Court of Justice, or ICJ, alleging that Israel violated the Genocide Convention that it had agreed to follow when it joined the United Nations.  
Katie Gallagher:The fact that the International Court of Justice is looking at a genocide case against Israel is a very big deal.  
Najib Aminy:Katie Gallagher is a senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights. She spent 25 years specializing in war crimes and crimes against humanity.  
Katie Gallagher:There have been ICJ cases that have resulted in countries being sanctioned. It’s also a pretty egregious stamp to have on you as a country to be a genocide committing country.  
Najib Aminy:South Africa’s case against Israel marks only the fifth time that a country has been formally accused of violating the Genocide Convention at the ICJ. Their case centers around the premise that Israeli leaders intended to, “Create conditions of death for Palestinians and Gaza.” In their opening testimony, the South African legal team tried to establish the intent of top Israeli officials making dehumanizing comments.  
South African lawyer:The defense minister, Yoav Gallant, gave a situation update to the Army where he said that as Israel was imposing a complete siege on Gaza, there would be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything would be closed because Israel is fighting human animals.  
Najib Aminy:They also shared a video of Israeli troops echoing that sentiment. [inaudible 00:06:43]  
South African lawyer:Israeli soldiers in Gaza were filmed dancing, chanting, and singing In November, “May their village burn, may Gaza be erased.”  
Najib Aminy:Establishing intent is one thing, but how do you go about collecting evidence of genocide when a access on the ground is so limited, like in Gaza? A big part of the answer, doctors.  
Katie Gallagher:At the time, we collected statements from doctors, we knew that one of the venues that we would be asking them to put the statements into was the ICJ.  
Najib Aminy:Katie is one of a handful of people who have collected testimony from American doctors who worked in Gaza, and she had firsthand experience of how invaluable the medical community’s point of view was. Weeks after October 7th, she filed a lawsuit accusing the Biden administration of violating the Genocide Convention through its support of Israel. A medical resident from Gaza was one of the plaintiffs, and he testified in a hearing from a hospital in Rafah. The judge found the claims of genocide were plausible, but ultimately dismissed the case because of a jurisdiction issue. Despite the outcome for Katie, the details and testimony included in the healthcare worker’s perspective was one worth following.  
Katie Gallagher:They are very good at capturing detail, relevant detail. Maybe they don’t know whether the shirt was green or blue, but what is the age of the victim? Where did the entry wound happen? Did it happen from the front or from the back? Was it at close range?  
Najib Aminy:South Africa’s case against Israel is sealed per ICJ rules, so it’s hard to get a lot of detail about the case.  
Katie Gallagher:What I can say is that we have shared the statements that we took from some of the US professionals with the legal team for South Africa, and what I can confirm is that the legal team found every statement that we shared with them to be credible enough to use in preparing the memorial. So every single medical professional statement went into their memorial.  
Najib Aminy:The memorial is South Africa’s legal filing. It contains more than 750 pages of evidence and more than 4,000 pages of supplemental material, making it one of the most extensive cases in decades. We did reach out to the South African legal team about the importance of the doctor’s testimony. They declined to comment because they’re not allowed to speak about ongoing cases. I also asked for Rose and Mimi, if they gave a statement to legal organizations, like the Center for Constitutional Rights. They both said they spoke to a number of organizations but couldn’t say more. When it comes to the doctor statements included in the South African legal briefing, it’s now in the hands of the International Court of Justice.  
Katie Gallagher:Now, what we can’t say yet is whether the International Court of Justice itself will find them as compelling as I did or as we did, and as the South African team did.  
Najib Aminy:The court has already made a few provisional rulings, notably ordering Israel to prevent its military from committing genocidal acts, to lift its blockade of humanitarian aid and halt its offensive in the southern part of Gaza. Israel’s military has continued its operations in Southern Gaza. Top leaders say its military offensive is in line with international law, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called the ICJ proceedings a disgrace.  
Benjamin Netany…:The charge of genocide leveled against Israel is not only false, it’s outrageous and decent people everywhere should reject it.  
Najib Aminy:Israel was given a deadline of this summer to submit its defense to the overall claims of breaking the Genocide Convention, but they asked for a six-month extension, which the ICJ has granted. The next court date is set for January of 2026.  
Katie Gallagher:Look, international justice doesn’t happen on its own. It needs to be pushed. And in this case, the doctors unintentionally maybe have become important witnesses to what the victims have suffered.  
Najib Aminy:As Israel’s spring offensive continues, there is growing concern from humanitarian groups as well as some Israeli military officials. That widespread starvation in Gaza is imminent. President Trump has expressed concern too.  
Donald Trump:We’re looking at Gaza and we got to get that taken care of. A lot of people are starving, a lot of people are. There’s a lot of bad things going on.  
Najib Aminy:The Trump administration has plans to deputize a new international aid organization meant to replace the efforts of the UN, that would deliver food and goods to specific parts of Gaza. Top UN officials have called the plan a fig leaf for further violence and displacement, while other humanitarian groups called the idea a weaponization of aid.  
 We invited the IDF and the Israeli Foreign Ministry of Affairs for an interview or to comment on the story. One question we asked was whether they would still allow American doctors to treat patients in Gaza. Neither agency responded. For doctors like Feroze and Mimi, the work has not stopped. Feroze recently came back from Gaza and is already planning to return.  
Dr. Feroze Sidhwa:There’s an element of professional solidarity, but also again, of just general solidarity. I’m an American and I’m destroying your country, so this is the only way that I know to provide reparations. I don’t think in my lifetime my government will ever do it, and so I can try this way.  
Najib Aminy:Mimi also plans to return for what would be her third trip. I ask her, given all that she’s been through how she feels about her journey.  
Dr. Mimi Syed:Like an idiot.  
Najib Aminy:Like what?  
Dr. Mimi Syed:Like an idiot.  
Najib Aminy:Why is that?  
Dr. Mimi Syed:I keep failing and nothing… I just keep going back at it. I don’t know.  
Najib Aminy:Failing in what sense?  
Dr. Mimi Syed:I have not been able to accomplish any change for the people of Gaza. It feels like everything I do is moot. I mean, it is literally started over again and our government is right behind it, proudly and smugly, saying, yes, we stand by Israel. And it is absolutely discouraging and I don’t know how else to describe that.  
Najib Aminy:And yet you have plans to go back?  
Dr. Mimi Syed:That’s all I can do. I can go back. I can be there in solidarity, and that’s the least I can do.  
Al Letson:It’s been reported that more than 53,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s military offensive since October 7th. In response to mounting international pressure, Israel has recently announced it will allow minimal aid back into Gaza. For the first time since March. Israel has also launched a new military operation intended to take full control of Gaza. Countries like Britain, France, and Canada have issued a rare public reprimand in response to the military escalation. The US publicly has continued its support.  
 Our lead producer for this week’s is Najib Aminy. Lu Olkowski edited the show. Our partners from Al Jazeera Fault Lines include Laila Al-Arian, Josh Rushing, Amel Guettatfi, Singeli Agnew, Adrienne Haspel, Yousif Al Saifi, and Mehr Sher. You can find a link to their documentary Kids Under Fire on our website. Also, special thanks to Sophie Hurwitz and Jacob Rosenberg for their help on this story. Serena Lin, Nikki Frick and Kim Freda are our fact checkers. Legal review by Victoria Baranetsky. Our production manager, Zulema Cobb. Score and sound design by Jim Briggs and Fernando Arruda. They had help this week from Claire Mullen. Our interim executive producers are Taki Telonidis and Brett Myers. Our theme music is by Kamarado, Lightning. Support for Reveal is provided by the Riva and David Logan Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Park Foundation, the Schmidt Family Foundation, and the Hellman Foundation. Support for Reveal is also provided by you, our listeners. We are a co-production of the Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX. I’m Al Letson, and remember, there is always more to the story.  

Najib Aminy joined Reveal in 2018 and has worked as a production manager, associate producer, reporter, and producer. His reporting has landed him on Democracy Now, The Brian Lehrer Show, and Slate’s What Next podcast. His work at Reveal has earned him the George Polk Award, two Edward R. Murrow awards, two Gerald Loeb awards, multiple Investigative Reporters and Editors awards, and recognition as a DuPont-Columbia finalist. In a previous life, he was the first news editor at Flipboard, a news aggregation startup, and he helped build the company’s editorial and curation practices and policies. Before that, he reported for newspapers such as Newsday and the Indianapolis Star. Najib also created and hosted the independent podcast Some Noise, featured by Apple, the Guardian, and the Paris Review. He is a lifelong New York Knicks fan and is a product of Stony Brook University’s School of Journalism, and mainly works so he can feed his cat.

Nikki Frick is a copy editor for Reveal. She previously worked as a copy editor at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and held internships at the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, and WashingtonPost.com. She has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and was an American Copy Editors Society Aubespin scholar. Frick is based in Milwaukee.

Victoria Baranetsky is general counsel at the Center for Investigative Reporting (d/b/a Foundation for National Progress), where she advises the organization on its full range of legal activities, including counseling reporters on newsroom matters (newsgathering, libel, privacy, subpoenas), advising the C-level on business matters, and providing legal support to the board. She has litigated on various issues on behalf of the organization, including arguing before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Prior to CIR, Victoria worked at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the Wikimedia Foundation, and the New York Times. She also clerked on the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals. She holds degrees from Columbia University, Columbia Journalism School, Harvard Law School, and Oxford University. She teaches at Berkeley Law School as an adjunct professor and is a fellow at Columbia’s Tow Center. She is barred in California, New York, and New Jersey.

Zulema Cobb is an operations and audio production associate for the Center for Investigative Reporting. She is originally from Los Angeles County, where she was raised until moving to Oregon. Her interest in the wellbeing of families and children inspired her to pursue family services at the University of Oregon. Her diverse background includes banking, affordable housing, health care, and education, where she helped develop a mentoring program for students. Cobb is passionate about animals and has fostered and rescued numerous dogs and cats. She frequently volunteers at animal shelters and overseas rescue missions. In her spare time, she channels her creative energy into photography, capturing memories for friends and family. Cobb is based in Tennessee, where she lives with her husband, three kids, three dogs, and cat.

Jim Briggs III is a senior sound designer, engineer, and composer for Reveal. He joined the Center for Investigative Reporting in 2014. Jim and his team shape the sound of the weekly public radio show and podcast through original music, mixing, and editing. In a career devoted to elevating high-impact journalism, Jim’s work in radio, podcasting, and television has been recognized with Peabody, George Polk, duPont-Columbia, IRE, Gerald Loeb, and Third Coast awards, as well as a News and Documentary Emmy and the Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Sound. He has lent his ears to a range of podcasts and radio programs including Marketplace, Selected Shorts, Death, Sex & Money, The Longest Shortest Time, NPR’s Ask Me Another, Radiolab, Freakonomics Radio, WNYC’s live music performance show Soundcheck, and The 7 and Field Trip from the Washington Post. His film credits include PBS’s American Experience: Walt Whitman, the 2012 Tea Party documentary Town Hall, and The Supreme Court miniseries. Before that, he worked on albums with artists such as R.E.M., Paul Simon, and Kelly Clarkson at NYC’s legendary Hit Factory Recording Studios. Jim is based in western Massachusetts with his family, cats, and just enough musical instruments to do some damage.

Fernando Arruda is a sound designer, engineer, and composer for Reveal. As a multi-instrumentalist, he contributes to the music, editing, and mixing of the weekly public radio show and podcast. He has held four O-1 visas for individuals with extraordinary abilities. His work has been recognized with Peabody, George Polk, duPont-Columbia, Edward R. Murrow, Gerald Loeb, Third Coast, and Association of Music Producers awards, as well as Emmy and Pulitzer nominations. Prior to joining Reveal, Arruda toured internationally as a DJ and taught music technology at Dubspot and ESRA International Film School. He also worked at Antfood, a creative audio studio for media and TV ads, as well as for clients such as Marvel, MasterClass, and Samsung. His credits also include NPR’s 51 Percent; WNYC’s Bad Feminist Happy Hour and its live broadcast of Orson Welles’ The Hitchhiker; Wondery’s Detective Trapp; and MSNBC’s Why Is This Happening?. Arruda releases experimental music under the alias FJAZZ and has performed with jazz, classical, and pop ensembles such as SFJazz Monday Night Band, Art&Sax quartet, Krychek, Dark Inc., and the New York Arabic Orchestra. He holds a master’s degree in film scoring and composition from NYU Steinhardt. Learn more about his work at FernandoArruda.info.

Claire Mullen worked at The Center for Investigative Reporting until September 2017. is an associate sound designer and audio engineer for Reveal. Before joining Reveal, she was an assistant producer at Radio Ambulante and worked with KALW, KQED, the Association of Independents in Radio and the San Francisco Bay Guardian. She studied humanities and media studies at Scripps College.

Al Letson is the Peabody Award-winning host of Reveal. Born in New Jersey, he moved to Jacksonville, Florida, at age 11 and as a teenager began rapping and producing hip-hop records. By the early 1990s, he had fallen in love with the theater, becoming a local actor and playwright, and soon discovered slam poetry. His day job as a flight attendant allowed him to travel to cities around the country, where he competed in slam poetry contests while sleeping on friends’ couches. In 2000, Letson placed third in the National Poetry Slam and performed on Russell Simmons’ Def Poetry Jam, which led him to write and perform one-man shows and even introduce the 2006 NCAA Final Four on CBS.

In Letson’s travels around the country, he realized that the America he was seeing on the news was far different from the one he was experiencing up close. In 2007, he competed in the Public Radio Talent Quest, where he pitched a show called State of the Re:Union that reflected the conversations he was having throughout the US. The show ran for five seasons and won a Peabody Award in 2014. In 2015, Letson helped create and launch Reveal, the nation’s first weekly investigative radio show, which has won two duPont Awards and three Peabody Awards and been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize twice. He has also hosted the podcast Errthang; written and developed several TV shows with major networks, including AMC+’s Moonhaven and Apple TV+’s Monarch; and is currently writing a comic for DC Comics. (He loves comics.) When he’s not working, Letson’s often looking for an impossibly difficult meal to prepare or challenging anyone to name a better album than Mos Def’s Black on Both Sides.