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<h1 class="title" id="page-title">Israeli soldiers ordered to kill
civilians in Gaza, says Breaking the Silence </h1>
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<span property="dc:date dc:created"
content="2015-05-04T13:49:33+00:00" datatype="xsd:dateTime"
rel="sioc:has_creator">Submitted by <span class="username"
xml:lang="" about="/users/patrick-strickland"
typeof="sioc:UserAccount" property="foaf:name" datatype="">Patrick
Strickland</span> on Mon, 05/04/2015<br>
<b><small><small><small><small><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/patrick-strickland/israeli-soldiers-ordered-kill-civilians-gaza-says-breaking-silence">http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/patrick-strickland/israeli-soldiers-ordered-kill-civilians-gaza-says-breaking-silence</a></small></small></small></small></b><br>
</span> </div>
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<p>Israeli soldiers were under orders to shoot civilians dead
while attacking Gaza last summer, according to <a
href="http://www.breakingthesilence.org.il/testimonies/database/64572">testimonies</a>
published today by the group Breaking the Silence.</p>
<p>The testimonies, which include several interviews with
mid-ranking Israeli military figures, highlight the extreme
cruelty demonstrated during the 51-day offensive.</p>
<p>Some testimonies claim that Israeli soldiers were told that
everything in Gaza was a “threat” and that they may use as
much ammunition as they wished. </p>
<p>More than 2,200 Palestinians – mostly civilians – were killed
in the offensive, <a
href="http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/ocha_opt_protection_of_civilians_weekly_report_2014_11_28_english.pdf">according</a>
to the United Nations monitoring group <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/un-ocha">OCHA</a>.</p>
<p>While Israeli leaders regularly claim that the military takes
precautions against striking civilians, the Breaking the
Silence testimonies suggest otherwise.</p>
<h2><strong>“Sterilized”</strong></h2>
<p>“Anything inside [Gaza] is a threat,” one sergeant, who
served in the central Gaza area of Deir al-Balah, told
Breaking the Silence. “The area has to be ‘sterilized,’ empty
of people – and if we don’t see someone waving a white flag,
screaming: ‘I give up’ or something — then he’s a threat and
there’s authorization to open fire.”</p>
<p>“The saying was: ‘There’s no such thing there as a person who
is uninvolved,’” the sergeant added. “In that situation,
anyone there is involved.”</p>
<p><a href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/deir-al-balah">Deir
al-Balah</a> was one of several areas that sustained heavy
casualties during Israel’s attack on Gaza. On 24 July, several
Palestinians <a
href="http://www.ibtimes.com/un-school-gaza-hit-israeli-fire-5-injured-1637736">were
injured when Israeli forces shelled a United Nations school</a>
serving as a refuge for Palestinians displaced by the
fighting.</p>
<p>As <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/content/how-israels-smart-weapons-killed-disabled-gaza-teen/14249">reported</a>
by The Electronic Intifada, Amal Abu Jayab, a disabled
Palestinian teen, was hit by an Israeli drone strike in Deir
al-Balah on 13 July. She died four days later.</p>
<p>Another sergeant recalled instructions delivered to soldiers
by a commander during training ahead of the ground invasion of
Gaza, which began on 17 July. “We don’t take risks. We do not
spare ammo. We unload, we use as much as possible,” he
remembered his commander saying.</p>
<h2><strong>“Writhing in pain”</strong></h2>
<p>One staff sergeant stationed in northern Gaza during the war
said soldiers were told to “shoot right away.”</p>
<p>“The instructions are to shoot right away,” <a
href="http://www.breakingthesilence.org.il/testimonies/database/64572">he
told</a> Breaking the Silence, an organization formed by
Israeli soldiers opposed to the occupation of the West Bank
and Gaza. “Whoever you spot – be they armed or unarmed, no
matter what. The instructions are very clear. Any person you
run into, that you see with your eyes – shoot to kill. It’s an
explicit instruction.”</p>
<p>Another staff sergeant, who was in an infantry unit in
northern Gaza, <a
href="http://www.breakingthesilence.org.il/testimonies/database/375047">recalled
watching a civilian</a> while he was “writhing in pain.”</p>
<p>“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 staff sergeant remarked. “The civilian was laying there,
writhing in pain.”</p>
<p>He said: “It was clear to everyone that one of two things was
going to happen: 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 [armored bulldozer] came over and dropped a mound of
rubble on him and that was the end of it.”</p>
<p>That same sergeant told Breaking the Silence that when they
informed the battalion’s commander, he was uninterested. </p>
<h2>Looting</h2>
<p>The soldiers also spoke openly about looting, <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/home-demolitions">intentional
destruction</a> and taking over Palestinian homes in Gaza
during the offensive.</p>
<p>One staff sergeant from the Israeli armored corps <a
href="http://www.breakingthesilence.org.il/testimonies/database/351204">remembered
tank operators running over cars</a> several times. Tank
operators “had this sort of crazy urge to run over a car,” he
said.</p>
<p>“And there was one time that my [tank’s] driver, a slightly
hyperactive guy, managed to convince the tank’s officer to run
over a car, and it was really not that exciting,” he said.
Aside from a “scolding,” he said the tank operator was not
punished.</p>
<p>Another sergeant who was stationed in northern Gaza reflected
on the destruction his army had inflicted on the northern part
of the strip. “The houses were already in ruins by the time we
got there,” he noted, explaining that armored bulldozers
proceeded to roll through chicken coops.</p>
<p>Commenting on the extent of the destruction, he added: “I
never saw anything like it, not even in Lebanon. There was
destruction there, too – but never in my life did I see
anything like this.”</p>
<h2><strong>“Reduced to a pile of sand”</strong></h2>
<p>Yet another infantry staff sergeant told Breaking the Silence
<a
href="http://www.breakingthesilence.org.il/testimonies/database/868128">that
soldiers threw grenades</a> into the homes before entering
them. He remembered how an orchard was intentionally destroyed
by tanks and armored bulldozers.</p>
<p>“It was one of the most beautiful orchards I’d ever seen… and
within a few hours it was totally erased – reduced to piles of
powdered sand,” he said.</p>
<p>Razing the orchard was by no means an isolated incident. <a
href="http://www.breakingthesilence.org.il/testimonies/database/?ci=152&tzuk=1">Several
testimonies</a> describe in detail how soldiers were ordered
to destroy Palestinian homes and raze other infrastructure.</p>
<p>Homes were often targeted with entire families still inside
them, according to other organizations. Earlier this year, <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/content/israels-open-fire-policy-wiped-out-entire-families-gaza-says-new-study/14240">a
report published</a> by the Israeli human rights group <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/btselem">B’Tselem</a>
found that Israel’s “open-fire policy” during the Gaza attack
resulted in “dozens of instances in which residential
buildings were attacked from the air or ground, causing them
to collapse on entire families.”</p>
<p>Explaining that the policy of bombing homes was implemented
throughout Gaza, the B’Tselem report noted: “These attacks
were not carried out on the whim of individual soldiers,
pilots or commanders in the field. They are the result of a
policy formulated by government officials and the senior
military command.”</p>
<h2><strong>Impunity </strong></h2>
<p>Despite calls for investigations into Israeli war crimes in
Gaza, no Israeli soldiers or commanders have faced any
meaningful consequences.</p>
<p>Speaking to <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/guardian"><em>The
Guardian</em></a>, the <a
href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/04/israeli-soldiers-cast-doubt-on-legality-of-gaza-military-operation">Israeli
military claimed</a> to “investigate all credible claims” of
war crimes and misconduct.</p>
<p>Yet, both during the attack and in its wake, Israel
repeatedly denied independent human rights investigators
access to Gaza. Among those prevented from entering the strip
were <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/amnesty-international">Amnesty
International</a> and <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/human-rights-watch">Human
Rights Watch</a>, as well as UN investigators.</p>
<p>To make matters worse, much of Gaza remains in ruins some
nine months after the attack concluded. As of late February, <a
href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/02/gaza-donations-fall-short-pledges-150218060136423.html">only
five percent</a> of the international aid promised by donor
countries in order to rebuild Gaza had been delivered.</p>
<p>Though limited housing repairs have been made, none of the
more than 12,000 Palestinian homes destroyed by Israel have
been rebuilt, <a
href="http://news.yahoo.com/hamas-consolidates-grip-gaza-reconstruction-stalls-151059394.html">according</a>
to the Association of International Development Agencies.</p>
<p>With the perpetrators of massacres enjoying impunity and
international donors failing to make good on its promises,
Palestinians in Gaza are unlikely to expect justice in the
near future. </p>
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