The New York Times is defending an opinion essay published last week that claims to show evidence of Palestinian children having been shot in the head by Israel’s Defense Forces after experts cast doubt on the credibility of the analysis. 

“Times Opinion rigorously edited this guest essay before publication, verifying the accounts and imagery through supporting photographic and video evidence and file metadata,” the editor of Times Opinion, Kathleen Kingsbury, stated on Tuesday. “We also vetted the doctors and nurses’ credentials, including that they had traveled to and worked in Gaza as claimed.” 

The Times, Ms. Kingsbury writes, stands “behind this essay and the research underpinning it.” She rebuffs “any implication that its images are fabricated” as “simply false.” 

“65 Doctors, Nurses and Paramedics: What We Saw in Gaza,” written by guest essayist, Feroze Sidhwa, cites numerous health care providers who claim to have seen “multiple cases of preteen children” having been “shot in the head or chest in Gaza.” Along with their testimonies, the article includes several X-rays that allegedly show children who were treated after being shot by the IDF. 

The article became the subject of controversy after various experts questioned the X-ray images — which did not appear to show any exit wounds or skull fractures — that were included as evidence in the article. 

“As a former Law Enforcement Officer, Ret. Special Forces Soldier (Green Beret) and Sniper, I feel confident in saying I know the effects of 5.56 NATO (M855),” Matt Tardio wrote on X. 

The retired Special Forces soldier offered a lengthy analysis of the IDF ammunition’s muzzle velocity — the speed of the bullet in feet per second — and ballistic coefficient — which measures a bullets ability to retain velocity while in the air — to support his conclusion that the X-rays are inconsistent with the accusations provided in the article. 

“The NYT lied or failed to verify the information presented to them,” he said. 

Another examination was offered by a popular X account user, Cheryl E., who came to a similar conclusion. “As someone who is actually a forensic ballistics specialist,” she wrote on X, addressing a pro-Palestinian activist who shared the Times piece, “I wanted to respond to your post, and this article, with some facts that will demonstrate just how deliberately dishonest and inaccurate both your post and the article are.”

In her forensic analysis, she claims that a gunshot wound made by a 5.56 caliber rifle shot at close range would lead to much more bone damage than what is shown in the X-rays. She also argues that such a bullet, shot at close range, would “almost always exit the body or skull causing much larger exit wounds.” The images, however, show the bullets “all magically stopped for the perfect X-ray pose.” 

“At best,” she continues, the images may show “wounds from ricochets which would mean they are not deliberate and completely accidental, and also not from close range, but would account for the much lower velocity.” 

“At worst, and more likely,” she adds, “this entire post of yours, and the article, is complete and utter bullshit.” 

A retired British Army officer, Colonel Richard Kemp, rejected the evidence cited in the article as “proof of war crimes by the IDF” and argued that the X-rays — “which look suspicious anyway” — could be victims of Hamas fire. 

“Who is to say the head shots were not Hamas fire, either deliberately or unintentionally aimed at their own children? Hamas do use 5.56 as well as other calibres and they do murder their own people,” he wrote on X, adding that Hamas could also have recruited children to carry out terrorist attacks, making them “legitimate targets, no matter how tragic that is.” 

Meanwhile, the author has brushed off the criticism and continued to defend his findings. The various statements he made on X in support of his article, however, have since been used as evidence of his own anti-Israel bias. In a comment he left on a thread on X discussing the piece, Mr. Sidhwa said that accusations that Hamas maximizes civilian deaths as a strategy are “absolutely false.” 

Users rebuffed his claim, pointing out that Hamas’s leader, Yahya Sinwar, has claimed that mass Palestinian deaths work to Hamas’s advantage, even calling them “necessary sacrifices.” 

His anti-Israel bias was further raised when communications analyst, Eitan Fischberger, dug up several articles that Mr. Sidhwa wrote in the 2000s for the Electronic Intifada, a news outlet that NGO Monitor has criticized for publishing “viciously anti-Israel and antisemitic” articles. In one of his pieces for the Electronic Intifada, Mr. Sidhwa defends a Columbia professor who praised the October 7 massacre and called it “astonishing” and “awesome.”