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<h1 class="title" id="page-title">Israeli officer admits ordering
lethal strike on own soldier during Gaza massacre</h1>
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<span property="dc:date dc:created"
content="2014-09-10T19:12:16+00:00" datatype="xsd:dateTime"
rel="sioc:has_creator">Submitted by <span class="username"
xml:lang="" about="/users/rania-khalek"
typeof="sioc:UserAccount" property="foaf:name" datatype="">Rania
Khalek</span> on Wed, 09/10/2014 - 19:12<br>
<b><small><small><small><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/israeli-officer-admits-ordering-lethal-strike-own-soldier-during-gaza-massacre">http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/israeli-officer-admits-ordering-lethal-strike-own-soldier-during-gaza-massacre</a></small></small></small></b><br>
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<p>The civilian population in Gaza is “a partner of terror” that
“gets what they choose,” the top commander of the Israeli army’s
<a href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/givati-brigade">Givati
Brigade</a> told the Israeli press recently, after
orchestrating some of the deadliest episodes of butchery visited
upon the Gaza Strip this summer.</p>
<p>Colonel Ofer Winter also admitted to ordering the
mass-bombardment of an area where an Israeli soldier was know to
be in order to prevent his capture alive by Palestinian
resistance fighters — an army policy known as the <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/did-israeli-army-deliberately-kill-its-own-captured-soldier-and-destroy-gaza">Hannibal
Directive</a>.</p>
<p>These are just two of the many incriminating comments made by
Winter in a lengthy and candid interview published in a
paper-only edition of the Hebrew-language Israeli newspaper <em>Yediot
Ahronot</em> on 15 August.</p>
<p>The interview took place near the end of Israel’s 51-day
bombing campaign which killed more than 2,100 people in Gaza,
the vast majority of them civilians — including more than 500
children. Israel expert Dena Shunra translated the interview for
The Electronic Intifada.</p>
<p>In addition to justifying the mass killing of civilians in
Gaza, Winter applauded the carpet bombing he ordered in <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/rafah">Rafah</a> as a
necessary punishment and repeatedly invoked religious supremacy
as a leading factor in what he views as a Jewish victory in
Gaza.</p>
<h2>Rafah massacre</h2>
<p>Just as a temporary three-day humanitarian ceasefire negotiated
by Egypt and the United States went into effect on the morning
of Friday 1 August, a unit of soldiers from the Israeli army’s
Givati Brigade conducted a tunnel incursion in Rafah, provoking
fire from Palestinian resistance fighters.</p>
<p>Two Israeli soldiers were killed in the ensuing firefight and
another, Hadar Goldin, went missing. It was later determined
that Goldin died in the battle, but in the immediate aftermath
the Israeli army operated under the assumption that he had been
captured.</p>
<p>Ofer Winter was napping when he woke up to news of Goldin’s
possible capture. He told <em>Yediot Ahronot’s</em> Yossi
Yehoshua:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>At 9 am, half an hour after I put my head down, the Deputy
Brigade Commander woke me up: “come quickly, it’s best you be
here.” We asked for a snapshot, we wanted information. We
didn’t think there was an abduction yet. While inquiring if
everyone was there, I commanded Sagiv, the Armored Forces
Commander operating under my orders, to start moving from
Hirbat Hiza’a, which was where he was, toward Rafah. Just then
I got the message “it’s not green in our eyes” – in other
words, not everyone had been found. We were missing a soldier.
At 9:36, after inquiries with the battalion commander on site,
I announced on the communication system the word that no one
wants to say – “Hannibal.” In other words, there had been an
abduction. I instructed all the forces to move forward, to
occupy space, so the abductors would not be able to move.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/hannibal-directive">Hannibal
Directive</a> is an unwritten Israeli military protocol for
executing captured Israeli soldiers to avoid politically painful
prisoner swaps. Although its existence has been reported in the
Israeli press since the 1980s, this interview with Winter
appears to be the most frank acknowledgement of its use.</p>
<p>The idea is to prevent the captors from taking the soldier
alive, effectively denying Palestinian or other Arab resistance
groups a bargaining chip down the line and relieving Israeli
leaders of the political fallout from having to make concessions
(such as prisoner swaps) to secure the soldier’s release.</p>
<h2><strong>Executing their own</strong></h2>
<p><a
href="http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2014/08/30/idf-killed-three-of-its-own-soldiers-after-declaring-hannibal-directive/">According
to blogger Richard Silverstein</a>, the Israeli army has
implemented the Hannibal Directive on at least three occasions
during this latest war on Gaza, deploying massive firepower with
the intention of executing three of their own.</p>
<p>For the following several hours, residents of Rafah, many
having just returned to their homes for what they were told
would be a three-day ceasefire, were <a
href="http://www.alternet.org/hannibal-directive-how-israels-secret-military-doctrine-deliberately-killed-soldiers-and-massacred">subjected
to a carpet bombing campaign that left the town in ruins</a> and
190 people dead. </p>
<p>An Israeli army officer <a
href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/israeli-fire-gaza-town-raises-war-crimes-claim">told
the Associated Press</a> that soldiers pounded Rafah with 500
artillery shells in just eight hours and launched an estimated
100 airstrikes within two days.</p>
<p>Acting on Winter’s “Hannibal” order, the Israeli army sealed
off Rafah to prevent the alleged captors from escaping with
Goldin alive. Homes were flattened on top of families sheltering
inside. Civilians who attempted to flee the inferno were torn to
shreds by artillery. Vehicles trying desperately to evacuate the
wounded were fired upon.</p>
<p>By 2 August, the Israeli army had killed 190 Palestinians in
Rafah, including 55 children. With the morgues full to capacity,
medical workers were forced to store corpses in <a
href="http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/gazans-forced-keep-dead-bodies-vegetable-refrigerators-1006544969">vegetable
refrigerators</a> to accommodate the high volume of dead
bodies.</p>
<p>As Israel laid waste to Rafah, the Obama administration called
the alleged capture of Goldin, an invading Israeli soldier
engaged in armed hostilities against Gaza, a <a
href="http://http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/world/2014/08/01/apparent-capture-israeli-soldier-hamas-outrageous-says/JPIErNgrszMhIJGhQRb10L/story.html">“barbaric”
and “outrageous” act</a>.</p>
<h2>“They messed with the wrong brigade”</h2>
<p>“A lot of criticism was heard about the force you employed in
Rafah, directly after the abduction,” said interviewer Yossi
Yehoshua to Winter.</p>
<p>“Everything we did was from the understanding that we could
return Hadar Goldin alive,” responded Winter. “Stop the
abduction event. Come from above to the places he could come out
of. That’s what we employed all the force for,” he insisted.</p>
<p>These claims are totally inconsistent with the reality on the
ground, where the only possible intended outcome of bombing
everything was to kill Goldin and his captors while collectively
punishing the surrounding population in the process.</p>
<p>Winter continued with an even more contradictory remark,
hinting that the response in Rafah was partly an act of
retribution. “Anyone who abducts should know that he will pay a
price. This was not revenge. They simply messed with the wrong
brigade,” he said.</p>
<p>Then, in a stunning display of hypocrisy, Winter (who relies on
airstrikes and indiscriminate artillery fire to avoid face to
face confrontations with the supposed enemy and who had to be
woken up from a nap to be informed that his soldiers were killed
in Rafah) tried to portray Palestinian resistance fighters as
cowards.</p>
<p>“We fought against two Hamas brigades. Where were their brigade
commanders?” he asked indignantly. “I hoped they would come face
to face with us, but they chickened out. They sent their men
forward, causing more evil and killing. That’s not combat. There
were very few places where there were fighting retreats. They
left everything and escaped.”</p>
<h2>Divine intervention</h2>
<p>As an orthodox Jew firmly in Israel’s religious nationalist
camp, Winter is making a career of mixing his brand of messianic
Zionism with military aggression.</p>
<p>As a <a
href="http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/08/israel-idf-army-religious-zionism-ofer-winter-ethos-god.html#">graduate
of Bnei David</a>, a religious pre-military academy located in
Eli, an illegal Jewish-only settlement in the occupied West
Bank, Winter epitomizes the mainstreaming of <a
href="http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/fighting-gods-name-1347044003%20messianic%20brutality.">religiously
motivated brutality</a>in the Israeli army. Bnei David’s goal
is to replace Israel’s largely secular military elite with
religious Zionists, like Winter.</p>
<p>On the eve of Israel’s ground invasion, Winter declared in a
letter to his troops that they were <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israeli-commander-declares-holy-war-palestinians">fighting
a Jewish holy war</a> to punish the blasphemous Palestinians
of Gaza.</p>
<p>Responding to criticism of the letter, Winter doubled down,
telling <em>Yediot Ahronot</em>, “if I had to do so, I would
write the same letter again, without batting an eyelid.”</p>
<p>The impact of Winter’s fanaticism on Palestinians in Gaza was
nothing short of catastrophic.</p>
<p>Soldiers from the Givati Brigade under Winter’s command <a
href="http://www.jewishjournal.com/israel/article/what_really_happened_in_the_battle_of_khuzaa_gaza">made
up the majority of ground troops</a> that thundered into
Khuzaa, a farming community near the Israeli boundary line. With
massive artillery shelling accompanied by airstrikes, the
Israeli army reduced all of Khuzaa to rubble to secure a path
for columns of invading tanks, jeeps and soldiers.</p>
<p>Cut off from the outside world for days, the residents of
Khuzaa were at the mercy of Winter’s religiously-guided soldiers
who carried out summary executions of both <a
href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/09/07/did-israel-execute-jihadists-in-gaza.html">fighters</a>
and <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/content/community-leader-beloved-grandfather-shot-dead-israelis-he-carried-white-flag/13712">civilians</a>
and mowed down anyone trying to flee, including a <a
href="http://www.jewishjournal.com/israel/article/what_really_happened_in_the_battle_of_khuzaa_gaza">wheelchair-using
16-year-old girl</a> with epilepsy and a wounded elderly women
crawling on the ground desperate for help. </p>
<p>Speaking about his brigade’s reign of terror in Khuzaa, Winter
is cited by <em>Yediot Ahronot</em> as telling the
ultra-Orthodox weekly newspaper <em>Mishpacha</em> that as the
sun rose during the ground invasion, the movement of his troops
remained hidden by “clouds of divine honor.” </p>
<p>“It was only when the homes that were supposed to be exploded
were exploded and there was no longer any danger to our lives,
the fog suddenly dispersed,” said Winter, insisting that the
clouds were a direct intervention from God to protect the Jewish
people. </p>
<p>Winter offered further religious explanations for his “victory”
in Gaza to <em>Yediot Ahronot</em>.</p>
<p>Noting that the ground invasion coincided with “The Between the
Straits Days” — a three-week mourning period observed by
orthodox Jews to commemorate the ancient siege on Jerusalem and
the loss of Jewish statehood — Winter opined that the overlap
“was not just a coincidence.”</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The Between the Straits Days end on the 9th of Av, also known
as Tisha B’Av [observed on 5 August of this year], the very
day that the fighting ended. It was especially on this day, a
day of national mourning, that the decision was made: the IDF
[Israeli military], the Nation of Israel – they won. We proved
that we are a unified, determined nation and that we will not
be beaten. Unitedness won. No ill words were spoken. Even the
ultra-orthodox public – which cannot be taken for granted –
fought with all its might from the place where it stands
[meaning they prayed very hard]. I received lots of messages
during the war. This is a tikun - repair - for what our
ancestors have hurt. It enhanced the victory. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>“The terrorists are the children” of Gaza</h2>
<p>Despite the Palestinian blood on his hands, or more likely
because of it, Winter has emerged as a hero in Israel,
completely revered within the military and adored by the public.</p>
<p>Asked about his earlier complaints that the political and
military establishment was holding him back from finishing the
job in Gaza, Winter told <em>Yediot Ahronot</em> that he is
ultimately satisfied with the outcome of the onslaught and then
proceeded to brag about the carnage.</p>
<p>“There are hundreds of terrorists who were killed,” he boasted.
“That is the message – no matter what we do, we’ll go in
wherever we want to go. It is important that the enemy know
this.”</p>
<p>“We shredded them. We can do it much worse, and it’s best for
them that we not do it,” added Winter. “We gave them a much
stronger beating than in Cast Lead.”</p>
<p>“When the Palestinians return to their home they will
understand the scope of the damage Hamas has inflicted on them.
Hamas used them,” he said.</p>
<p>Winter clarified that the enemy is not just Hamas but all of
Gaza. </p>
<p>“This population is a hostage, but I think it is also a
partner. I don’t exonerate them of responsibility so quickly,”
said Winter of the 1.8 million Palestinians who inhabit the
besieged coastal enclave, half of whom are children.</p>
<p>“True, there are some pitiable people there, but in many cases
the terrorists are the children or relatives of the people who
live there. In almost every home there is a son or other
relative that is a partner in terror. How do you raise children
in a home with explosives? In the end, everyone gets what they
choose.”</p>
<h2>“Forces of darkness”</h2>
<p>He went on to call the Israeli assault “A just war against a
cruel enemy. We, who sanctify life, fought against an enemy who
sanctifies death. The forces of light against the forces of
darkness.”</p>
<p>“This is an important statement due to the absolutism of it,”
explains Israel expert Dena Shunra, who translated the article
for The Electronic Intifada. “If Hamas (or Gaza as a whole) are
the forces of darkness, any action is absolved. It is a
Manichean sentiment similar to what we hear from the US
military, and does not leave any room for ending hostilities – a
war to the death.”</p>
<p>Winter’s warped vision of a civilian population in Gaza
complicit in the “forces of darkness” essentially justifies
killing them en masse, which is exactly what he did in Rafah and
Khuzaa. </p>
<p>As a result, “[Winter] cannot walk around today without being
halted, hugged, asked for a photo opportunity,” according to <em>Yediot</em>. </p>
<p>In a final address to his troops following the Gaza slaughter,
Winter alluded to the next round of massacres.</p>
<p>“I am proud of you for everything that you have done. It is all
thanks to you,” he told the soldiers. “I cannot promise you,
like the song does, that this will be the last war, but I
promise that this war, which is so just, will push the next war
a good few years away.”</p>
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