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Notes -
The Israelis use 5.56 NATO, mostly. Hamas uses 7.62. There's not enough information in the X-rays to distinguish (because they don't tell you the size of the head), though I think some (including the one I linked) probably are bigger than 5.56 -- I suspect that one was a round from an AK-47 or similar either at long range or (more likely) fired not quite straight up.
The 7.62x39 round used in an AK is different than the 7.62x51 NATO. Or the Mosin’s 7.62x54R, for that matter. They’ve all got the same bullet diameter, but different bullet lengths/weights and cases.
Maybe @NelsonRushton was thinking of the IMI Galil, which had a 7.62x51 version. But as you noted, Israel used and uses 5.56x45 for its infantrymen.
He also could have been referring to rifles like the SR-25 or M24. Those would fit the “sniper” narrative. But news outlets can’t decide if the Israelis are shooting children crossing the street, or executing them point blank, so who knows?
I did a hasty google search and I was just mistaken. It appears that the IDF uses a 5.56x45mm NATO. Still, that round will go in one shoulder of a 200-pound wild boar and out the left shoulder, leaving a golf ball sized exit wound. In Marshall & Sanow's study of terminal ballistics, they give penetration averages for pistol rounds in real world shootings (of humans), but for the 5.56 NATO they simply say "routinely exits the human body".
So while I was mistaken about the caliber of the round, I stand by the claim that it is not plausible for an IDF rifle round to stop inside a human skull.
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Doesn't really matter, though. Any of those rounds fired from point blank range or really any range at which you can see the target without optics, or indeed any reasonable sniper range even with optics, is going to do a lot more damage to the head than shown in those X-rays. Nobody's sniping children from a mile away.
I concur. I think that photo, at least, is obviously fake.
Ed: or the bullet only killed a child after expending its energy in four or five Hamas bodies. That could also explain how they were so close to a hospital!
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they use 7.62 NATO for snipers and machine guns, IIRC, and .50 for HMGs. that bullet looks like a .50.
A 7.62x51 or .50 BMG at close range doing that little damage is even LESS likely than a 7.62x39 or 5.56 NATO doing it, of course. But if I'm doing my measuring correctly, if that bullet is a .50BMG with 13mm diameter, the head has a front-to-back size of 266mm, which is too big (99th percentile for men is is 217mm) If it's 7.8mm (7.62mm nominal), it's 159mm; too small for an adult, and we don't know the age of the victim. But of course this is an X-ray and sizes can be distorted.
your measurement definitely beats my eyeballing. and yeah, I'd be mystified at how either one could end up in that position in a kid's head, on purpose. Like, you need the bullet to have lost 80-90% of its velocity before it's going to stop like that, so we're probably talking high-angle fire at long ranges.
Could be an old CT scan from a casualty of one of those Arab weddings where they fire guns in the air indiscriminately.
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