[Fresh Ink] Israeli soldiers reveal the brutal truth of Gaza attack

[Richard Menec]

<http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israeli-soldiers-reveal-the-brutal-truth-of-gaza-attack-1746485.html>

Israeli soldiers reveal the brutal truth of Gaza attack

Troops' testimonies disclose loose rules of engagement and use of civilians 
as human shields. Palestinian houses were systematically destroyed by 
'insane artillery firepower'

By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem

Wednesday, 15 July 2009

Israeli troops were repeatedly encouraged by officers to prioritise their 
own safety over that of Palestinian civilians when they embarked on the 
ground invasion of Gaza in January, according to the first direct 
testimonies of soldiers who served in the operation.


The picture that emerges from the testimonies, which have been seen by The 
Independent, is one of massive fire power to cover advances and rules of 
engagement that were calculated to ensure, in the words attributed to one 
battalion commander, that "not a hair will fall of a soldier of mine. I am 
not willing to allow a soldier of mine to risk himself by hesitating. If you 
are not sure, shoot."

The first eye-witness accounts of the war by serving Israeli reservists and 
conscripts describes the Israeli use of Palestinian civilians as "human 
shields". They detail the killing of at least two civilians, the vandalism, 
looting and wholesale destruction of Palestinian houses, the use of deadly 
white phosphorus, bellicose religious advice from army rabbis and what 
another battalion commander described to his troops as "insane firepower 
with artillery and air force". The reports amount to the most formidable 
challenge by Israelis since the Gaza war to the military's own considered 
view that it conducted the operation according to international law and made 
"an enormous effort to focus its fire only against the terrorists whilst 
doing the utmost to avoid harming uninvolved civilians".

They are contained in testimonies from about 30 soldiers that were collected 
by Breaking the Silence, an army veterans organisation that seeks to "expose 
the Israeli public to the routine situations of everyday life in the 
occupied territories". Although the organisation has collected hundreds of 
testimonies from ex-soldiers before, this is the first time that it has done 
so from serving soldiers so soon after the events they describe.

They tell how:

* Unprecedentedly loose rules of engagement were put in place to protect 
Israeli troops. One soldier said his brigade commander and other officers 
made it clear that "any movement must entail gunfire". He added: "I don't 
remember if the brigade commander said this or someone else. I' m not sure. 
No one is supposed to be there. If you see any signs of movement at all, you 
shoot. These, essentially, were the rules of engagement. Shoot if you like 
if you are afraid or you see someone, shoot." Another soldier said his 
battalion commander had said the operation was not "a limited confrontation 
such as in Hebron, and not to hesitate if we suspected someone nor feel bad 
about destruction because it is all done for the safety of our own 
soldiers... if we see something suspect and shoot, better hit an innocent 
than hesitate to target an enemy". One soldier said the "awareness of each 
soldier going in is simply... a light finger on the trigger. You see 
something and you're not quite sure? You shoot".

* Houses were systematically demolished. Despite official accounts that 
homes were only destroyed for strictly "operational" reasons, one reservist, 
a veteran of the conflict in Gaza since before 2005, said "I never knew such 
fire power" used by tanks and helicopters for the "constant destruction" of 
houses. The soldier said that some houses had been destroyed for normal 
operational reasons, such as because they had been booby trapped or used by 
militants to fire from, or had contained tunnel openings. But he said others 
were destroyed for the "day after" - to make a "very large" area "sterile", 
to allow better "firing capacity, good visibility and control" once the 
operation was over. This meant, demolishing houses "not implicated in any 
way, whose single sin is that it is situated on a hill in the Gaza strip" .

* A civilian man between 50 and 60 who was unarmed but carrying a torch was 
shot dead after the unit's commander ordered his soldiers not to fire 
warning shots but to hold their fire until he was 50m away. The soldier said 
the company commander announced over the radio after the incident: "Here's 
an opener for tonight". The soldier said that the commander was challenged 
over why he had not authorised deterrent fire when the man was further away: 
"He didn't agree and couldn't give a damn, and finally the guys felt that 
even if they could take this up with the higher echelons it wouldn't be 
effective." Another soldier said his unit commander shot dead an old man 
hiding with his family under the stairs of a house. While the soldier said 
that the killing of the man was a mistake, it had happened as the unit 
entered the house using live fire.

* Palestinian human shields - or "johnnies" as they were termed by soldiers 
on the ground - were suborned to enter surrounded houses ahead of troops, 
including houses known to contain armed militants. One account corroborates 
the story of one such human shield that was exposed in The Independent, that 
of Majdi Abed Rabbo in Jabalya in northern Gaza, who was ordered three times 
to enter a house to report on the condition of three armed Hamas militants 
inside.

* Military rabbis prepared troops for battle. One soldier said an army rabbi 
had "aimed at inspiring the men with courage, cruelty aggressiveness, 
expressions as 'no pity. God protects you. Everything you do is 
sanctified'... there were specific scenarios discussed... but from the 
context it was pretty obvious he came to tell us how aggressive and 
determined we need to be, that we must win because this is a holy war". 
Leaflets distributed at military synagogues had stated that "the 
Palestinians are like the Philistines of old, newcomers who do not belong in 
the land, aliens planted on the soil which should clearly return to us".

* Mortars - rarely if ever used in Gaza before - were widely deployed. They 
included 120mm mortars of the sort that killed up to 40 civilians outside 
the UN el-Fakhoura school in Jabalya which was being used as a shelter, and 
in a nearby house. One soldier explained that while "with light arms you've 
got an 80 per cent chance of hitting the target with your first shot, with 
mortars it is much less". Another said: "I finally understood. We were 
firing at launcher crews in open spaces. But it didn't take much to aim at 
schools, hospitals and such. So I see I'm firing literally into a built-up 
area. I don't know to what degree it was still inhabited because the army 
made considerable attempts to get people to leave. But I understand that... 
[tails off]."

The testimonies appear to reinforce evidence from Human Rights Watch, 
Amnesty International and journalists who visited battle zones just after 
the war in January that white phosphorus was used for purposes other than 
"marking", "range-finding" and "smoke screening". Those purposes included to 
ignite homes suspected of being booby trapped.

Houses that troops occupied were vandalised. One testimony stated: "One of 
the soldiers... opened the child's bag... he took out notebooks and ripped 
them. One guy smashed cupboards for kicks out of boredom. There were guys 
arguing with the platoon commander before we left the house why he wouldn't 
let them smash the picture hanging there..." A reservist soldier said that 
there was a "big difference between the way we treated the contents of the 
house and the way the regulars did. The regulars wouldn't take care even of 
the most basic sanitary stuff like going to the toilet, basic hygiene. I 
mean you could see that they had defecated anywhere and left the stuff lying 
round".

A spokeswoman for the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), Lieutenant-Colonel 
Avital Leibovitz, sought to challenge the motives and credibility of the 
report. She said "more than a dozen" military police investigations were 
under way into incidents that took place during Operation Cast Lead. While 
the IDF continued to operate according to "uncompromising ethical values", 
it was ready to investigate allegations of misconduct but not on the basis 
of anonymous testimonies which she could not be sure were from soldiers.

The Israeli human rights lawyer Michael Sfard said the report showed that 
the Gaza operation violated the "number one principle in international laws 
of war": that of distinguishing between the civilian population and 
combatants.

Yehuda Shaul, a founder of Breaking the Silence, said the group had names 
and details for all the testimonies - all of which had been taped - and that 
anonymity was to protect the testifiers from any disciplinary or criminal 
proceedings. The army already knew the name of at least one, he said.

Gaza invasion: Witnesses on the front line

On military briefings ahead of the invasion

"We talked about practical matters... but the basic approach to war was very 
brutal, that was my impression... He said something along the lines of 
'don't let morality become an issue. That will come up later'. He had this 
strange language: 'Leave the nightmares and horrors that will come up for 
later, now just shoot'... The basic approach was that there were no chances 
taken. If you face an area that is hidden by a building, you take down the 
building. Questions such as 'who lives in the building?' are not asked."

On problems with identifying targets for bombing

"It got to the point where we would try to report to field intelligence 
about a figure sticking out its head or a rocket being launched, and the 
girl [at field intelligence] would ask, 'Is it near this or that house?' 
We'd look at the aerial photo and say, 'Yes, but the house is no longer 
there'. 'Wait, is it facing a square?' 'No more square.'... Later I went in 
to the look-out war-room and asked how things worked, and the girl-soldiers 
there, the look-outs, resented the fact that they had no way to direct the 
planes, because all their reference points were razed... It's highly 
possible that now the pilot will bomb the wrong house."

On the rules of engagement

"[The Brigade commander] went so far as to say this was war and in war, no 
consideration of civilians was to be taken. You shoot anyone you see. I'm 
paraphrasing here, not literally quoting, but the gist of the matter was 
very clear."

On the rabbinate's role in the conflict

"The rabbi said we are actually conducting the war of 'the sons of light' 
against 'the sons of darkness'. This is in fact a statement with highly 
messianic language... It turns the other side as a generality into 'sons of 
darkness' while we become 'sons of light'. There is no differentiation which 
we would expect to find between civilians and others. Here is one people 
fighting another people, with all the messianic implications. But that's the 
point: this is also religious propaganda. In other words, the army is not a 
revival meeting. They do not put on a uniform in order to be Judaized."

On soldiers' responsibility

"Anything we did there, we'd answer ourselves: there's no other choice, but 
this is how we shirk our responsibility. You bring yourself to this kind of 
deterministic situation, a moment that I have not chosen, where I no longer 
have any responsibility for my own actions. Even if your choice is the right 
one, you must admit you chose it. You have to admit you chose to go into 
Gaza. As soon as you did, you've brought people into a moral twilight zone, 
you've forced them to handle dilemmas and part of that confrontation failed. 
As soon as you say 'there is no other choice', you're shirking your 
responsibility. Then you don't need to investigate, to look into things."


* Breaking The Silence

Related articles .
Breaking the Silence: Full report
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/breaking-the-silence-full-report-1745552.html

.Britain punishes Israel for Gaza naval bombardment
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/britain-punishes-israel-for-gaza-naval-bombardment-1744969.html