JERUSALEM // The Israeli military deliberately targeted Palestinian civilians and their homes during the Gaza war last year, according to a damning report detailing the actions of dozens of soldiers and officers.
The graphic, first-hand accounts by more than 60 combatants describe how soldiers in certain areas were told to assume anyone left was a target.
Israel has repeatedly denied that its forces deliberately targeted civilians during the 50-day conflict which killed more than 2,100 Palestinians.
The soldiers' testimonies focus heavily on ground forces but included air force personnel. Their names have been withheld in the 240-page report compiled by Breaking the Silence, an organisation of veteran Israeli combatants which documents alleged misconduct by the military.
The report catalogues a series of statements where soldiers said they were told areas in which they were deployed were clear of civilians after leaflets were dropped telling people to leave. This assumption led to firing at anyone they saw.
“If there’s someone there, he isn’t supposed to be,” said one soldier. Any Palestinians they saw were classified as “terrorists” and they could “shoot any person positively identified as not belonging to the IDF [Israeli Defence Forces]”.
One soldier based in Deir Al Balah, in central Gaza, said a commander told him: “Anything there is as good as dead. Anything you see moving in the neighbourhoods you’re in is not supposed to be there. The civilians know they are not supposed to be there. Therefore whoever you see there, you kill.”
In another account, a lieutenant who was deployed in Shujaieh, one of the worst-hit neighbourhoods in Gaza, said soldiers were given a list of targets that could not be fired at unless authorisation had been given from the assistive fire commander. These included schools, nurseries, the Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, hospitals, petrol and power stations and community centres.
“They were marked in green, very clearly.”
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When asked if some of these were bombed the lieutenant replied: “Yes, take the neighbourhood of Shujaieh – almost all locations on the forbidden list there were bombed. Each one had its own particular story, but ultimately they were bombed”.
A soldier in northern Gaza recounted how another combatant killed an elderly Palestinian man. According to the testimony, Israeli forces were told about an elderly Palestinian who had been armed with grenades in a previous operation.
“I remember telling myself that right now, the citizens of Gaza, I don’t really give a **** about them. They don’t deserve anything – and if they deserve something it’s either to be badly wounded or killed.
“So this old man came over, and the guy manning the post – I don’t know what was going through his head – he saw this civilian, and he fired at him, and he didn’t get a good hit. The civilian was laying there, writhing in pain.
“Either we let him die slowly, or we put him out of his misery. Eventually we put him out of his misery and a D9 [armoured bulldozer] came over and dropped a mound of rubble on him and that was the end of it,” the soldier said.
The report also contains testimonies of how Palestinian houses were entered in what was referred to as a “house sweep” and used by the military as bases.
“When we entered this house everything inside was already a mess. Anything that could shatter had been shattered, because everything had been shot at. Anything made of glass – windows, a glass table, picture frames – it was all wrecked. All the beds turned over, the rugs, the mattresses.”
According to the report, once the military left Gaza the houses they had occupied were blown up.
Throughout the report soldiers outlined mass destruction of civilian infrastructure and homes, often without clear operational justification.
When asked what strategic points were being destroyed, one combatant based in Deir Al Balah said: “Houses at strategic points in which we didn’t want to position ourselves, dangerous things. Houses on hilltops, all sorts of things like that. They levelled it all.”
Another revealed that whole areas were flattened by an armoured bulldozer.
“One of the high-ranking commanders, he really liked the D9s. He was a real proponent of flattening things. He put them to good use. Let’s just say that after every time he was somewhere, all the infrastructure around the buildings was totally destroyed. Almost every house had gotten a shell through it. He was very much in favour of that.”
When asked by The National about the specific examples provided in the report on the targeting of civilians in Gaza, IDF spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner said he could not comment on anonymous information.
He said he stood by previous statements that the military did not target civilians in Gaza during the last war.
“We have 20 criminal investigations under way specific to Protective Edge,” he said, using the name given to last summer’s operation.
Breaking the Silence have called for the establishment of a committee separate from the military to investigate Israeli conduct during the operation.
Most of the 2,100 Palestinians killed were civilians. The conflict also killed 67 Israeli soldiers, and six civilians were killed by rocket fire and attacks by Hamas and other militant groups.
foreign.desk@thenational.ae