Doctor tells Cork rally 70 children are being killed each day in Gaza

A doctor who regularly volunteers in Gaza has told a Cork rally that an average of 70 children have been killed there every day since the current conflict began nine months ago.

Professor Nick Maynard, whose wife Fionnuala is from Kinsale, is a consultant gastrointestinal surgeon working at Oxford University Hospital and specialising in cancer surgery.

He has visited Gaza many times since 2010 as part of Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP), a UK-based charity, performing and teaching cancer surgery in the enclave.

Dr Maynard spoke in Cork last Saturday afternoon to a crowd of about 750 people attending the 41st weekly Palestine solidarity march to take place in Cork since October 2023.

Wounded

He told the crowd that he had made two trips to Gaza this year, most recently in May, and had operated on countless people wounded in Israeli air strikes and ground attacks.

“There have been more children murdered in Gaza in the last nine months than in all the conflicts all over the world in the last five years,” Dr Maynard said.

“There has been an average of 70 children killed by Israel per day since October 2023.”

Burns

He said that he had seen things in Gaza which he never could have imagined he would see in a civilised world. Dr Maynard spoke of treating a young girl, mortally wounded in an Israeli strike.

“The burns on her face were so bad that we could see her facial bones,” he said.

“We knew there was no chance of her surviving, even in Cork or Oxford she wouldn’t have survived. So all we could do is try to let her die in comfort and peace.

“But we couldn’t even do that because we had no pain relief, no morphine, to give her.”

Also speaking at the Cork rally, People Before Profit-Solidarity TD for Cork North Central, Mick Barry, criticised the newly reappointed president of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, for what he called her uncritical support for Israel’s war in Gaza.

“It’s a disgrace that four Irish MEPs voted this week to keep Ursula Von der Leyen in her job as President of the European Commission,” the northside TD added.