{"id":307331,"date":"2025-11-17T12:00:19","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T12:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=307331"},"modified":"2025-11-11T07:23:26","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T07:23:26","slug":"israeli-soldiers-speak-out-on-killings-of-gaza-civilians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2025\/11\/israeli-soldiers-speak-out-on-killings-of-gaza-civilians\/","title":{"rendered":"Israeli Soldiers Speak Out on Killings of Gaza Civilians"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Israeli security forces drive past the ruins of buildings in Gaza City. The documentary shows the mental strain on at least some soldiers in Gaza.\u00a0 Photograph: Ohad Zwigenberg\/AP<\/p><\/div>\n

IDF soldiers tell documentary of opening fire unprovoked, and arbitrary designations of who was an enemy.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

5 Nov 2025\u00a0<\/em>–\u00a0Israeli soldiers have described a free-for-all in Gaza and a breakdown in norms and legal constraints, with civilians killed at the whim of individual officers, according to testimony in a TV documentary.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want to shoot without restraint, you can,\u201d Daniel, the commander of an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) tank unit, says in Breaking Ranks: Inside Israel\u2019s War, due to be broadcast in the UK on ITV on Monday evening.<\/p>\n

Some of the IDF soldiers who talked to the programme requested anonymity while others spoke on the record. All pointed to the evaporation of the official code of conduct concerning civilians.<\/p>\n

The soldiers who agreed to talk confirmed the IDF\u2019s routine use of human shields, contradicting official denials, and gave details of Israeli troops opening fire unprovoked on civilians racing to reach food handouts at the militarised distribution points set up by the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza<\/a> Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).<\/p>\n

\u201cIn basic training for the army, we all chanted \u2018means, intent and ability\u2019,\u201d Capt Yotam Vilk, an armoured corps officer, says in reference to the official IDF training guidelines stipulating that a soldier can fire only if the target has the means, shows intent and has the ability to cause harm.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no such thing as \u2018means, intent and ability\u2019 in Gaza,\u201d Vilk says. \u201cNo soldier ever mentions \u2018means, intent, and ability\u2019. It\u2019s just: a suspicion of walking where it\u2019s not allowed. A man aged between 20 and 40.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another soldier, identified in the programme only as Eli, says: \u201cLife and death isn\u2019t determined by procedures or opening fire regulations. It\u2019s the conscience of the commander on the ground that decides.\u201d<\/p>\n

In those circumstances, the designation of who is an enemy or terrorist becomes arbitrary, Eli says in the documentary. \u201cIf they\u2019re walking too fast, they\u2019re suspicious. If they\u2019re walking too slow, they\u2019re suspicious. They\u2019re plotting something. If three men are walking and one of them lags behind, it\u2019s a two-to-one infantry formation \u2013 it\u2019s a military formation,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Eli describes an incident in which a senior officer ordered a tank to demolish a building in an area designated as safe for civilians. \u201cA man was standing on the roof, hanging laundry, and the officer decided that he was a spotter. He\u2019s not a spotter. He\u2019s hanging his laundry. You can see that he\u2019s hanging laundry,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, it\u2019s not as if this man had binoculars or weapons. The closest military force was 600-700 metres away. So unless he had eagle eyes, how could he possibly be a spotter? And the tank fired a shell. The building half collapsed. And the result was many dead and wounded.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\"Palestinians<\/picture><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n
Palestinians carry supplies from a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation site in the central Gaza Strip.<\/span> Photograph: Reuters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Guardian analysis in August<\/a> of the IDF\u2019s intelligence data showed that by the reckoning of Israeli military officials, 83% of those killed in Gaza were civilians, a historic high for modern conflicts, though the IDF disputed the analysis. More than 69,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war started and more continue to die despite a ceasefire that began a month ago.<\/p>\n

In a written statement, the IDF said: \u201cThe IDF remains committed to the rule of law and continues to operate in accordance with its legal and ethical obligations, despite the unprecedented operational complexity posed by Hamas\u2019s systematic embedding within civilian infrastructure and its use of civilian sites for military purposes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of the soldiers interviewed in the Breaking Ranks programme said they were influenced by the language of Israeli politicians and religious leaders suggesting that after the Hamas attack of 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals were killed, every Palestinian was a legitimate target.<\/p>\n

A UN commission concluded in September<\/a> that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza. On the question of intent, it pointed to incitement from Israeli leaders such as the president, Isaac Herzog, who shortly after the 7 October attack said: \u201cIt is an entire nation out there that is responsible. It is not true, this rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved, it\u2019s absolutely not true.\u201d<\/p>\n

Daniel, the tank unit commander, says in the documentary that the rhetoric declaring there was no such thing as an innocent in Gaza seeped down into army ranks. \u201cYou hear that all the time, so you start to believe it,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Herzog said the Israeli president had been an outspoken voice for humanitarian causes and the protection of innocents.<\/p>\n

The programme also provides evidence that such views have been propagated by some rabbis in the ranks. \u201cOne time, the brigade rabbi sat down next to me and spent half an hour explaining why we must be just like they were on October 7. That we must take revenge on all of them, including civilians. That we shouldn\u2019t discriminate, and that this is the only way,\u201d says Maj Neta Caspin.<\/p>\n

Rabbi Avraham Zarbiv, an extremist Jewish cleric who served more than 500 days in Gaza, says in the programme: \u201cEverything there is one big terrorist infrastructure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zarbiv has not only given religious legitimacy to the mass demolition of Palestinian neighbourhoods but drove military bulldozers himself and claims credit for pioneering a tactic that had been adopted by the IDF as a whole, pointing to the mass purchase of armoured bulldozers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe IDF invests hundreds of thousands of shekels to destroy the Gaza Strip. We changed the conduct of an entire army,\u201d Zarbiv says in the programme.<\/p>\n

The soldiers giving their accounts in Breaking Ranks also confirm consistent reports throughout the two-year conflict of the use of Palestinian civilians as human shields, a practice informally known as the \u201cmosquito protocol\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou send the human shield underground. As he walks down the tunnel, he maps it all for you. He has an iPhone in his vest and as he walks it sends back GPS information,\u201d says Daniel, the tank commander, says in the documentary. \u201cThe commanders saw how it works. And the practice spread like wildfire. After about a week, every company was operating its own mosquito.\u201d<\/p>\n

The IDF said in a statement that \u201cthe IDF prohibits the use of civilians as human shields or coercing them in any way to participate in military operations. These orders have been routinely emphasized to forces throughout the war.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAllegations of misconduct are thoroughly examined, and when identifying details are provided, the matter is investigated in depth,\u201d the IDF said. \u201cIn several cases, investigations have been opened by the Military Police Criminal Investigation Division (MPCID) following suspicions involving Palestinians in military missions. These investigations remain ongoing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The makers of Breaking Ranks spoke to a contractor identified only as Sam who worked at food distribution sites run by the GHF, who says he witnessed the IDF killing unarmed civilians.<\/p>\n

He describes an incident at one distribution site where two young men were running in the general rush to get aid. \u201cYou could just see two soldiers run after them. They drop on to their knees and they just take two shots, and you could just see \u2026 two heads snap backwards and just drop,\u201d Sam says. He recounts another incident in which an IDF tank in the vicinity of one of the distribution sites destroys \u201ca normal car \u2026 just four normal people sat inside it\u201d.<\/p>\n

According to UN figures, at least 944 Palestinian civilians were killed while seeking aid in the vicinity of GHF aid sites. GHF and the IDF have denied targeting civilians seeking food at aid distribution sites, and the IDF has denied the allegations of systematic war crimes, insisting it operates in accordance with international law and takes measures to minimise civilian harm in its operations against Hamas. Internal investigations of incidents involving the killing of civilians have led to virtually no disciplinary or legal accountability.<\/p>\n

Breaking Ranks shows the mental strain on at least some of the soldiers in Gaza.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like they\u2019ve destroyed all my pride in being an Israeli \u2013 in being an IDF officer,\u201d Daniel says in the programme. \u201cAll that\u2019s left is shame.\u201d<\/p>\n

______________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Julian Borger is the <\/em>Guardian‘s senior international correspondent based in London. He was previously a correspondent in the US, the Middle East, eastern Europe and the Balkans. He is the author of two books: <\/em>I Seek a Kind Person and<\/em> The Butcher’s Trail.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Go to Original – theguardian.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

5 Nov 2025\u00a0–\u00a0IDF soldiers tell documentary of opening fire unprovoked, and arbitrary designations of who was an enemy. \u201cI feel like they\u2019ve destroyed all my pride in being an Israeli \u2013 in being an IDF officer,\u201d Daniel says. \u201cAll that\u2019s left is shame.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":307332,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[87,865,3264,88,427],"class_list":["post-307331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-palestine-israel-gaza-genocide","tag-gaza","tag-genocide","tag-idf","tag-israel","tag-palestine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307331"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":307335,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307331\/revisions\/307335"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}