Middle East Monitor
Israeli soldiers have revealed that Palestinian civilians were killed inside Gaza in a free-for-all at the wish of army officers amid a collapse of legal and military norms during Tel Aviv’s two-year brutal war on the besieged enclave, reports Anadolu Ajensi.
“If you want to shoot without restraint, you can,” Daniel, the commander of an Israeli tank unit, said in a documentary, Breaking Ranks: Inside Israel’s War, set to be aired in the UK on ITV on Monday.
The Israeli army has killed more than 69,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and wounded over 170,000 in Gaza and left the enclave uninhabitable since October 2023.
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Israeli soldiers, some of whom spoke on condition of anonymity, said Palestinian civilians were used as human shields during the conflict, The Guardian reported.
Captain Yotam Vilk, an armored corps officer, said soldiers did not apply the long-standing army standard of firing only when a target had the “means, intent and ability” to cause harm.
“There’s no such thing as ‘means, intent and ability’ in Gaza,” he said. “It’s just suspicion – someone walking where it’s not allowed.”
Another soldier, identified only as Eli, said: “Life and death isn’t determined by procedures or opening fire regulations. It’s the conscience of the commander on the ground that decides.”
‘Hanging laundry’
Eli recounted an officer ordering a tank to demolish a building where a man was just “hanging laundry,” resulting in multiple deaths and injuries.
The documentary also presents detailed accounts of Israeli soldiers opening fire unprovoked on civilians running toward food handouts at militarized aid distribution points operated by the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
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A contractor identified only as Sam, who worked at GHF sites, said he saw Israeli soldiers shooting two unarmed men running to get aid.
“You could just see two soldiers run after them,” he recalled. “They drop onto their knees and they just take two shots, and you could just see . . . two heads snap backwards and just drop.”
Sam also described a tank destroying “a normal car . . . just four normal people sat inside it.”
According to UN figures, at least 944 Palestinian civilians have been killed by Israeli fire near such aid points.
Extremist rhetoric
The film also highlights the spread of extremist rhetoric inside Israel, including statements from rabbis and politicians depicting all Palestinians as legitimate targets after the October 7 events.
“You hear that all the time, so you start to believe it,” Daniel said.
Rabbi Avraham Zarbiv, who served more than 500 days in Gaza, defended large-scale home demolitions by the Israeli army in Gaza.
“Everything there is one big terrorist infrastructure . . . We changed the conduct of an entire army.”
In September, a UN commission concluded that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza, where a ceasefire came into force on October 10 after two years of Israeli bombardment.
Since the ceasefire, Israeli attacks have killed at least 242 Palestinians and injured 622. One Israeli soldier has been killed.
“I feel like they’ve destroyed all my pride in being an Israeli — in being an IDF (army) officer,” Daniel says in the programme. “All that’s left is shame.”
