‘Kill Zones’: Israeli Soldiers Detail Destruction of Palestinian Property and Shoot-to-Kill Orders in Gaza Buffer Zone

Gaza (Quds News Network)- Israel’s military has turned every bit of Gazan territory within about half a mile of the fence into a wasteland, issuing orders to fire on any Palestinian civilians who approach.

In interviews with CNN and testimonies to Breaking the Silence, an Israeli watchdog group, Israeli soldiers who were deployed to Gaza reveal how the military carried out the destruction of civilian infrastructure to create the buffer area and the loose rules of engagement that have resulted in Israeli forces firing on and killing unarmed Palestinians.

Armored bulldozers have systematically leveled one home after another. Combat engineers have laid explosives and triggered controlled demolitions inside once-bustling factories. Forces have torn up and denied Palestinians any access to the fertile farmland.

The anonymous testimonies, compiled in a publication titled The Perimeter, describe how soldiers were instructed to raze large areas of Gaza and fire upon Palestinians who approached.

These testimonies reveal Israeli military practices that violate international humanitarian law and, in some cases, are war crimes, international law experts told CNN.

“There needs to be a legitimate military objective and operational objective – and the only way to achieve it would be to destroy the civilian property. And so, at that scale, that’s simply not quite plausible,” said Janina Dill, co-director at Oxford University’s Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict.

Beyond potential violations of humanitarian law, the deliberate, widespread destruction of civilian property without a clear military necessity is a war crime, Dill said.

“(From) what I’ve seen so far – there’s no clear evidence of a military necessity, at least for the level of destruction that’s been caused by Israel,” Lawrence Hill-Cawthorne, a professor of public international law at the University of Bristol, said.

"The Perimeter:" a new collection of testimonies from soldiers who fought in Gaza in 2023-2024. It chronicles the systematic annihilation and expropriation of entire villages and agricultural zones while creating the new Gaza buffer zone, which the IDF “completed” last December🧵… pic.twitter.com/Vj9hA86nl7

— Breaking the Silence (@BtSIsrael) April 7, 2025

When Sergeant 1st Class “A” arrived in the industrial zone of Gaza City’s Shujaiya neighborhood in December 2023, many of the warehouses and factories had already been destroyed. But others were still standing.

“Our job was to make more of the first kind,” the sergeant told CNN, speaking on condition of anonymity. “We destroyed them one by one in a very methodical fashion – area by area.”

The Israeli military has established a roughly 1-kilometer-wide buffer zone (about 0.6 miles) from which it has forcibly displaced Palestinians and killed or fired at those who do set foot within its unmarked perimeter.

“Residential buildings, greenhouses, sheds, factories; you name it – it needs to be flat. That’s the order,” said one sergeant major who served near Khan Younis in southern Gaza. “Except for that UNRWA school and that small water facility – for everything else, the directive was ‘nothing left.’”

Another sergeant, stationed in northern Gaza, described how Israeli bulldozers destroyed agricultural fields, including olive groves and crops. “A very large excavator just comes through and takes out all the soil, kind of rolls it up, flattens it,” said the soldier.

Several soldiers described rules of engagement that authorized them to fire on Palestinians in the zone, regardless of whether they were armed or identified as combatants.

“Adult, male – kill. Shoot to kill. For women and children, shoot to drive away,” a Sergeant 1st Class in Israel’s Armored Corps said in an interview with Breaking the Silence.

“The reservists also always raised questions over whether this was communicated to them (the Palestinians): ‘Do they know such a thing exists?’” the Sgt. 1st Class said.

He said commanders never provided a clear answer, but the reality was clear. “It’s not like they were told: The ridge before the border is (the line),” he said.

A captain stationed in southern Gaza explained that areas around the military-designated security zone effectively became “kill zones” for Palestinians.

A Warrant Officer in the Armored Corps described Palestinians being shot for trying to pick khubeiza or mallow, an edible plant.

“People were incriminated for having bags in their hands,” the Warrant Officer told Breaking the Silence. “Guy showed up with a bag? Incriminated, terrorist. I believe they came to pick khubeiza, but (the army says), ‘No, they’re hiding.’ Boom.” He said a tank fired at them from about 800 meters, narrowly missing.