At least 40 out of 70 people killed in Gaza are children, volunteer American doctors say

At least 40 out of 70 people killed in Gaza are children, say volunteer American doctors, according to a report by Haaretz on Friday.

Dr Feroze Sidhwa and Dr Mark Perlmutter are medics who volunteered in Gaza both this year and last. The two men were volunteering at different hospitals in the Gaza Strip when Israel violated the ceasefire on 18 March. 

Dr Sidhwa, who was stationed at Nasser Hospital, said that there was a special area where children are allowed to die quietly in the presence of their families, which is known as the "dead children's area". It is also for children whose survival would require resources the hospital does not have.

Dr Perlmutter, who volunteered at the Shuhada al-Aqsa Hospital, said that American hospitals would be "paralyzed" by the situation he saw in Gaza. He said that many wounded people needed amputations and he saw people with "an open head wound exposing their brains" or "tourniquets on all four limbs".

Both doctors said that - similar to previous visits to Gaza - many of the dead and wounded are children. "Of 70 people every hour," Perlmutter said, "40 are going to be children."