Breaking the Silence, an organization of veteran combatants founded in 2004 to document and publicize misconduct in the Occupied Palestinian Territories by Israeli soldiers, has collected more than 60 anonymous testimonials of IDF troops up to the rank of major who were active in service during the Israel’s deadly Operation Protective Edge in the Gaza Strip last summer.
IDF troops during “Operation Protective Edge” in the Gaza Strip last summer. (Photo: Breaking the Silence)
“The IDF took its ethical code and threw it out the window, without telling the soldiers or citizens of Israel,” claimed Avner Gevaryahu, a spokesman for Breaking the Silence, in a report issued by the organization.
The report, published on Monday, May 4, painted a picture on an Israeli army deploying excessive firepower in order to “frighten and deter Palestinians” in the Hamas-controlled territory, as well as blurry rules of engagement in which soldiers are authorized to open fire at will at any moving target in specific areas. The report also highlighted massive use of inaccurate artillery fire at various stages of the 50-day conflict.
“Although specific testimonies exist regarding wrongdoing on the part of soldiers in the field, a more worrying picture concerns the systemic policy guiding the activity of IDF forces across ranks and fields of operation,” read the report which includes 111 individual testimonies.
“The principle guiding the military policy – minimum risk to our forces, even at the price of harming innocent civilians – as well as an attempt to terrify and deter the Palestinians, led to massive, unprecedented harm to Gaza’s population and its civilian infrastructure. Policymakers could have predicted this result prior to the fighting, and were aware of it as it unfolded,” the report said and continued: “The operation was conducted as part of a policy set by the highest commanding authorities, dictating a mode of operation for the forces whose morality is severely questionable.”
The IDF launched a ground incursion into the northeastern town of Beit Hanoun on July 17, 2014 with the stated intention of curbing massive rocket fire at Israeli communities and destroying a network of cross-border tunnels that the army feared would be used to stage attacks against soldiers and Israeli border towns.
During the operation, the army warned Palestinian civilians to vacate entire areas of the Gaza Strip ahead of the entry of Israeli troops. The IDF operated under the assumption that all civilians left the areas after being warned with pamphlets and loudspeakers. But the testimony of a staff sergeant in the infantry showed that was not necessarily the case.
Before soldiers entered homes in the Strip to expose tunnel shafts, a tank would fire a shell or shoot into the structure with a machine gun. But one home, which was somehow overlooked, was subsequently found to harbor dozens of civilians hiding inside.
“The first home we reached had 30–40 guys [Palestinians] inside. We created an opening in the outer wall using a break-in frame — that’s a type of device with explosives — and then went inside,” the soldier told Breaking the Silence. “This specific home we entered was not shelled by a tank. As far as I understand, that was a mistake; it was supposed to be. They’re lucky it wasn’t.”
One major spoke of the frequency with which artillery was used during the operation. “The use of artillery is to allow troops to enter [the area] without being hurt. Every place that is pinpointed by intelligence or is an open space gets fired at. But when you examine how many open spaces there are in Gaza, you find there aren’t many. We talk about artillery, but the air force strikes endlessly… the air force knows how to take down a [specific] house within a row of houses, but that doesn’t mean the houses in the vicinity aren’t damaged,” he said.
In summation, the report argued that “an investigation can only be effective and meaningful if carried out by an external, independent body, with members authorized to examine the upper echelons of the security establishment and political officials. Any other investigation will only lay responsibility on the lower and middle ranks.”
