The night before the entrance the commander took us all and started briefing us about
where we're going to go, what we're going to do, what the risks are, what are the dangers,
what we need to avoid and the rules of engagement too.
The rules were: if we see civilians, if we can see something 200 metres or closer to
us, it's not a civilian at all. It's maybe a watcher for Hamas forces or a suicide bomber
or just a terrorist. So, we had no brief about civilians because it's too close to us, we
can shoot and kill it.
On the 17th of July 2014, Israel launched a major ground offensive into the Gaza Strip
in a bid to stop rockets being fired by Palestinian militants and to destroy a network of tunnels
used by Hamas and other factions.
By the time they left, some 2,200 Palestinians would be dead, including a significant number
of civilians.
Now, for the first time, Israeli soldiers have described the orders they received for
fighting in civilian areas.
Orders that treated any Palestinian as a threat.
Among those who have spoken out is a 22-year-old sergeant who served in a tank battalion during
the 50 day war.
One morning, the commander took six tanks. We stood in a row, in front of al-Baraj and
he told us over the radio: "Good morning al-Baraj. Three, two one, fire."
And then all tanks just fired on random buildings or random targets. Most of our shooting was
random, we didn't think about civilian casualties and morals and some people thought it's like
a shooting range, some people thought it's fun, some people didn't think about it at all.
I just thought it's really, really bad to shoot on random targets without knowing the
effect on the civilian population.
The high amount of civilian casualties in Operation Protective Edge, the huge amount
of destruction we left behind in Gaza, by no way was out of the blue. This is a direct
result of new doctrines the IDF has developed.
You basically cause disproportionate, significant amount of damage to infrastructure, civilian
property in the area you fight in order to create deterrents.
Juhor ad-Dik had between 12-20 houses to my memory and when I went out I looked to Juhor
ad-Dik again and saw between 1-3 houses.
And then I asked my commander what happened, why, why we need to do it, why there is nothing
left there. So, he told me that the necessity was to destroy the neighbourhood.
Did you face any real danger from the houses?
No, when... while we were entering there was no shooting, no explosion at us. Nothing.
We just entered in the night and in the morning nothing happened and, when I think about it,
nothing really happened from Juhor ad-Dik to our forces.
The zero-risk doctrine basically argues that there is four levels of value of life.
Right at the top: Israeli civilians. Then come Israeli soldiers, then come Palestinian
civilians and then Palestinian militants and terrorists.
So we, as an army, have to do everything possible to bring the risk to our troops to zero even
if it will cost a massive damage to the other side, which is exactly the opposite of what
international humanitarian law is about: protecting civilians during time of conflict.
I think there is a good chance of civilian casualties in this random shooting because
most of the time we shot to places further than the combat zones - like one kilometre
to three kilometres further in to the Gaza Strip - and those places had never been warned
by the IDF about shooting and fighting there. So a lot of people stayed in their houses.
The IDF is very proud of the precautionary measures it took in Protective Edge. The leaflets
that it disseminated warning the civilians of an attack that is due, telephone calls
et cetera.
Indeed, international law demands, obliges, combatants to take precautionary measures
prior to attack in order to reduce the damage to civilians.
However, it seems from the testimonies that the IDF took a position or a stand that precautionary
measures can replace the principle of distinction, when in fact, international law is very clear
that precautionary measures is an obligation that comes in addition to the obligation to
always make a distinction between civilians and combatants and civilian objects and military objects.
After a soldier in my unit died, the commander told us to take our tanks and go to a combat
position. Some commanders told (us) it was a revenge shoot - in order to avenge his death
and others say it's for his honour.
So we took our tanks, we went into a combat position and we just - each and every gunner
chose his building and shot on this building.
I just saw a building. It was an orange building. It was really high and I thought: "OK, I'm
just going to shoot it." This was the process of picking up targets the whole conflict - for
our unit, I know. It was: "OK, let's shoot this, let's shoot that. Let's do this, let's do that."
Basically, what happened there is that the IDF took its own ethical code and threw it
out of the window.
Part of the doctrine basically argues that in an asymmetrical war you cannot really win
it. It's not something you fight, you win and it's over. It will come again and again,
so the strategic objective is not to eliminate the enemy, but to buy more time between rounds
of conflict and the way you do it is by not playing according to the rules.