‘I’m bored, so I shoot’: Israeli army’s near-total absence of firing regulations in Gaza war
Gaza Strip (QNN)- A new probe by Israeli outlets +972 Magazine and Local Call has found that Israeli occupation soldiers have been shooting Palestinians, including civilians “virtually at will” during their operations in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli soldiers told the outlets of near-total absence of firing regulations, “with troops shooting as they please, setting homes ablaze, and leaving corpses on the streets” all with their commanders’ blessings.
The investigation was based on the testimonies of six Israeli soldiers who spoke to +972 Magazine and Local Call following their release from active duty in Gaza in recent months.
The six sources — all except one of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity — recounted how Israeli soldiers routinely executed Palestinian civilians simply because they entered an area that the military defined as a “no-go zone.” The testimonies paint a picture of a landscape littered with civilian corpses, which are left to rot or be eaten by stray animals; the army only hides them from view ahead of the arrival of international aid convoys, so that “images of people in advanced stages of decay don’t come out.” Two of the soldiers also testified to a systematic policy of setting Palestinian homes on fire after occupying them.
Here are some of the testimonies of the six Israeli soldiers:
“I personally fired a few bullets for no reason, into the sea or at the sidewalk or an abandoned building. They report it as ‘normal fire,’ which is a codename for ‘I’m bored, so I shoot.’”
S., a reservist who served in northern Gaza
“There was total freedom of action. If there is [even] a feeling of threat, there is no need to explain — you just shoot.” When soldiers see someone approaching, “it is permissible to shoot at their center of mass [their body], not into the air,” B. continued. “It’s permissible to shoot everyone, a young girl, an old woman.”
B., another soldier who served in the regular forces in Gaza for months
“When there are no [other] IDF forces [in the area] … the shooting is very unrestricted, like crazy. And not just small arms: machine guns, tanks, and mortars.”
M., another reservist who served in the Gaza Strip
“There were no restrictions on ammunition. People were shooting just to relieve the boredom.”
Yuval Green, a 26-year-old reservist who served in the 55th Paratroopers Brigade in November and December last year
“The whole battalion opened fire together like fireworks, including tracer ammunition [which generates a bright light]. It made a crazy color, illuminating the sky, and because [Hannukah] is the ‘festival of lights,’ it became symbolic.”
Yuval Green
“People shot as they pleased, with all their might.”
C., another soldier who served in Gaza
“‘Shoot first, ask questions later.’ That was the consensus … No one will shed a tear if we flatten a house when there was no need, or if we shoot someone who we didn’t have to.”
A., an officer who served in the army’s Operations Directorate
“The aim was to count how many we killed today. Every [soldier] wants to show that he’s the big guy. The perception was that all the men were terrorists. Sometimes a commander would suddenly ask for numbers, and then the officer of the division would run from brigade to brigade going through the list in the military’s computer system and count.”
A.
“There were cheers of joy in the war room. Every once in a while, a building comes down … and the feeling is, ‘Wow, how crazy, what fun.’”
A.
“The whole area was full of bodies. There are also dogs, cows, and horses that survived the bombings and have nowhere to go. We can’t feed them, and we don’t want them to get too close either. So, you occasionally see dogs walking around with rotting body parts. There is a horrific smell of death.”
S.
“A D-9 [Caterpillar bulldozer] goes down, with a tank, and clears the area of corpses, buries them under the rubble, and flips [them] aside so that the convoys [humanitarian aid convoys] don’t see it — [so that] images of people in advanced stages of decay don’t come out.”
S.
“I saw a lot of [Palestinian] civilians – families, women, children. There are more fatalities than are reported. We were in a small area. Every day, at least one or two [civilians] are killed [because] they walked in a no-go area. I don’t know who is a terrorist and who is not, but most of them did not carry weapons.”
S.
“Before you leave, you burn down the house — every house. This is backed up at the battalion commander level. It’s so that [Palestinians] won’t be able to return, and if we left behind any ammunition or food, the terrorists won’t be able to use it.”
B.
“We destroyed everything we wanted to. This is not out of a desire to destroy, but out of total indifference to everything that belongs to [Palestinians]. Every day, a D-9 demolishes houses. I haven’t taken before-and-after photos, but I’ll never forget how a neighborhood that was really beautiful … is reduced to sand.”
Yuval Green
