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of their injuries or were either minor or children, a close relative accompanying thepatient was interviewed at the patient’s bedside and is described as a ‘witness’ inthe report. Where the patients could speak and gave their own testimony, they arereferred to as ‘patient’. Most of the interviews were held in Arabic with the assistanceof an interpreter if the interviewer was not an Arabic-speaker. The interviewersthen made English notes of the interview and recorded notes from their medicalobservations of the patients. For reasons of consistency and clarity these have beenparaphrased in the third person. Where additional persons were present during theinterview, this is noted. Where patients or witnesses have sought anonymity thename is redacted and the face is obscured; where the patient is a minor, the name isredacted. In all other cases oral and/or written consent for publication of the namesand photographs was obtained. The FFM teams wish to note that the photographsof minors are published with parental consent solely for the purposes of this reportand their use for other purposes is not permitted. The completed questionnaires,medical documents and imaging, additional photographs and contact details of thepatients are retained in the offices of PHR-Israel.Transcripts of all 68 interviews are presented in Appendix 1 of this report, togetherwith photographs wherever available. They are sorted according to the location ofthe reported incident and classified by governorate. Throughout this report, theseinterviews are referred to as ‘patient interviews’, and referenced in the footnoteswith a unique sortcode. There is a listing by sortcode at the beginning of Appendix 1.2.3 Forensic pathologyThe FFM teams included 4 forensic experts: two forensic pathologists, one forensicphysician and one forensic anthropologist. There were two of these experts on eachof the two teams that visited Gaza. 23In the course of both teams’ visits, several meetings were held with the Palestiniandoctors and officials in charge of forensic matters in Gaza. 20 The aim was to obtaintheir general clinical impressions regarding the patterns of deaths and injuriesduring the war, and to gain access to any relevant evidence including recordinginjuries and possible cause of death on the bodies of the deceased, photographs,documentation and images of the dead, projectiles, shrapnel and tissue samples,where such samples had been retained.Due to religious and traditional customs prohibiting the practice, autopsies are notperformed in Gaza. According to doctors at Gaza’s forensic department, during thearmed conflict, the dead were brought to Shifa Hospital in Gaza City or to one oftwo other hospitals where forensic doctors work, for purposes of identification. No23Meetings were held with the following persons: 20 Aug 2014 and 11 Sep 2014, Shifa Hospital, Gaza City: Hamdy El Kahlawi,Forensic Pathologist; 20 August 2014: Ihab Kaheel, Director General of Ministry of Justice, in charge of access to forensicevidence; 20 Aug 2014, 9 and 14 Sep 2014: Nasser Abu Sha’aban, Shifa Hospital, Gaza City; 11 Sep 2014: Himayah Center forHuman Rights23

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