RAMALLAH: Israel’s military was rocked yesterday by soldiers’ horrific accounts of the killing of Palestinian civilians during the recent war on Gaza.
The soldiers, alumni of a military academy, gathered last month to discuss their experiences during the 22-day war, a brutal campaign that Palestinians and human rights groups have said warranted war crimes probes.
Disclosing details of the session, the institution’s director said the soldiers pointed to an atmosphere within the military of “unbridled contempt for, and forcefulness against, the Palestinians.”
“They talked about unwarranted fire on Palestinian civilians. There was also talk of vandalism to property,” Danny Zamir, head of the Yitzhak Rabin pre-military program, told Israel Radio. Defense Minister Ehud Barak responded to the accusations by repeating Israel’s description of its armed forces as the most moral in the world. The military said its judge advocate-general ordered an investigation of the alleged incidents.
Excerpts from the veterans’ discussion appeared on the front page of the Haaretz newspaper yesterday. It said the airing of the “dirty secrets” would make it more difficult for Israelis to dismiss such allegations as Palestinian propaganda.
One of the soldiers, an infantry squad leader, recalled an incident in which he said an army sharpshooter killed a Palestinian mother and her two children who turned the wrong way after troops ordered them out of their house.
“We had taken over the house ... and the family was released and told to go right. The woman and her two children got confused and went left ... The sniper on the roof wasn’t told that this was OK and that he shouldn’t shoot ... You can say he just did what he was told ... He was told not to let anyone approach the left flank and he shot them dead.”
The squad leader said most of the men under his command felt “the lives of Palestinians ... are something very, very less important than the lives of our soldiers, so as far as they are concerned, they can justify it that way.”
Another squad leader who attended the academy said at the gathering that a company commander had ordered an elderly Palestinian woman shot as she walked on a road about 100 yards from a house that troops had taken over.
“I don’t know whether she was suspicious, not suspicious, I don’t know her story ... I do know that my officer sent people to the roof in order to take her out ... It was cold-blooded murder.”
Describing vandalism carried out by soldiers, the squad leader said: “To write ‘Death to the Arabs’ on the walls, to take family pictures and spit on them, just because you can — I think this is the main thing, to understand how much the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) has fallen in the realm of ethics.”
Another soldier narrated his experiences that he said bothered him a lot. “When we entered a house, we were supposed to bust down the door and start shooting inside and just go up story by story ... I call that murder. Each story, if we identify a person, we shoot them. I asked myself — how is this reasonable?”
Ahmed Tibi, an Arab member of the Israeli Knesset, said the soldiers’ testimonials were proof of war crimes.
“These are shocking testimonials. A state commission of inquiry must be formed and criminal proceedings must follow against those responsible for the murders,” he said.
— With input from agencies
