Viral Reel: "IDF Plays a Game of Target Practice" — What Surgeon Nick Maynard Actually Said

On July 25, 2025, the Instagram account Naz (@corefitnessbynaz4) posted a two-minute clip from a Sky News interview with British surgeon Dr. Nick Maynard, captioned "British surgeon Dr Nick Maynard, who has visited Gaza 15 times, provides MORE evidence of Israel's war crimes." It drew 20,517 likes and 1,038 comments. The poster added three headlines over the video:

• "IDF plays a game of target practice"
• "Young boys targeted in the testicles"
• "Formula is specifically being confiscated"

Maynard had just returned from four weeks at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. In the interview (Sky News, July 25, 2025) he said:

• He operated on boys "as young as 11" who had been "shot at food distribution points" run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, including a 12-year-old who died on the operating table.
• "What was even more distressing was the pattern of injuries that we saw, the clustering of injuries to particular body parts on certain days. One day they'd be coming in predominantly with gunshot wounds to the head or the neck, another day to the chest, another day to the abdomen."
• "Twelve days ago, four young teenage boys came in, all of whom had been shot in the testicles and deliberately so. This is not coincidental."
• "The clustering was far too obvious to be coincidental, and it seemed to us like this was almost like a game of target practice."
• "I met several doctors who had cartons of formula feed in their luggage, and they were all confiscated by the Israeli border guards. Nothing else got confiscated, just the formula feed."
• "There were four premature babies who died during the first two weeks when I was in Nasser Hospital." He said nearly all the children in the pediatric unit were being fed sugar water (10% dextrose).

The IDF's response, given to Sky News and left out of the reel: "The IDF categorically rejects the claims of intentional harm to civilians, particularly in the manner described. For the sake of clarity, the army's binding orders prohibit forces operating in the area from intentionally firing at civilians. We are aware of reports of casualties among those who arrived at the aid distribution sites. These incidents are under examination by the relevant IDF authorities."

Boys shot at aid distribution sites — documented in general; his individual cases are his own testimony. Killings near Gaza aid sites in mid-2025 are documented by many sources: the UN human rights office recorded at least 1,373 Palestinians killed while seeking aid between late May and July 31, 2025, and the IDF acknowledged "reports of casualties" that it said it was examining (see aid-site killings). The specific patients he describes have not been independently documented.

Injuries clustered by body part on certain days — unconfirmed testimony. This is Maynard's own observation from one hospital. Other foreign doctors described similar patterns, for example U.S. pediatrician Ahmad Yousaf (Al Jazeera, August 2025), but no patient records, case series or independent investigation documenting the pattern have been published, and the IDF rejects it.

Four teenage boys shot in the testicles — unconfirmed; "deliberately so" is his inference. The injuries are his eyewitness account. That they were deliberate, and that the pattern was a "game of target practice," are conclusions he draws from the clustering he observed, not something he witnessed. We record those as his interpretation, not as checkable facts.

Formula confiscated from doctors' luggage — several firsthand accounts, no documented policy. Maynard's account is secondhand ("I met several doctors…"), but medical workers have described this firsthand, including an American doctor who told Al Jazeera (July 14, 2025) that Israeli troops took the formula he was carrying. Israel's coordinating body COGAT said in June 2025: "Food for babies is certainly entering (the Gaza Strip), as the organizations are requesting it we are approving it" (AP). His claim that "nothing else got confiscated" has not been verified. See also malnutrition and formula.

Four premature babies died; children fed sugar water — his eyewitness account, not independently verified. Both are plausible given documented shortages at the time, but we found no independent record of either, and the death of a premature baby can have many causes.

Maynard made serious accusations in his own words, including that the shootings were deliberate. The reel goes further: it strips out his hedges ("seemed to us," "almost like"), turns one day's patients into a general pattern, presents his impressions as established fact, and leaves out Israel's response.

Nick Maynard is a consultant gastrointestinal surgeon at Oxford University Hospitals who has volunteered in Gaza for about 15 years, and the chair of the board of trustees of the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP). He has publicly described Israel's conduct in Gaza as genocide (Cherwell, May 2026). His position as an advocate is relevant context for weighing his interpretations; it does not make his eyewitness accounts false, and the same evidence standard applies to everyone. More testimony from surgeons is collected on our surgeons page.

Analysis: Maynard is an experienced surgeon describing what he saw, and the broad picture he describes — civilians, including children, shot near aid sites, and severe shortages — is supported by other evidence. His most serious specific claims, the day-by-day targeting pattern and its deliberateness, rest on his own observations and inferences and remain unverified. The reel presents those claims as proven fact ("IDF plays a game of target practice") and omits the IDF's denial. See our claim checks: target practice and formula.