Hurriyet daily news.com (Turquie) : "Israeli soldiers tell of 'shoot first' policy in Gaza"

Israeli soldiers tell of 'shoot first' policy in Gaza

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

JERUSALEM - Daily News with wires

A recent report by a group of Israeli soldiers points to the hidden face of Israel's war on Gaza, which killed more than 1,400 Palestinians as the report says the Israeli military resorted to reckless use of force ending in massive deaths and damage in the impoverished region. Gaza operation constitutes a ‘black hole’ regarding what Israeli society knows of the attack, says a founder of the group

Palestinians search through the rubble of a destroyed building following an Israeli air strike in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in Gaza City. AFP 

Israeli soldiers in the Gaza war were told to shoot first and worry about the consequences later, and used Palestinian civilians as human shields, an activist group's report said on Wednesday.

The testimony of some 30 soldiers -- all unnamed -- shows that the massive destruction wreaked on the Palestinian territory was "a direct result of Israel Defense Forces policy," the Breaking the Silence group, made up of veteran troops, said in a report.

The troops regularly used civilians as human shields when approaching suspect houses during the December and January conflict, one soldier said, according to an account by Agence France-Presse.

"To every house we close in on, we send the neighbor in, the 'Johnnie'," he said of an incident in which a man was sent into a house several times during breaks in the fighting to check on three militants holed up there.

Another soldier said his commander told him of instances when "the force would enter while placing rifle barrels on a civilian's shoulder, advancing into a house and using him as a human shield."

Many troops said that they were told to shoot first and ask questions later, leading to civilian deaths and massive destruction in the densely populated and impoverished Palestinian enclave.

"The goal was to carry out an operation with the least possible casualties for the army, without it even asking itself what the price would be for the other side. This was the thrust of things that we heard from more than one officer."

"We did not get instructions to shoot at anything that moved, but we were generally instructed: if you feel threatened, shoot," said one soldier.

"No special mention was made of innocents" in briefings on the rules of engagement before the troops went in, another testified.

Massive destruction

Another soldier told of an incident in which the troops were having their morning coffee when suddenly the tank of the battalion commander next to them fired a shell into a building. "It looked groundless to me, more of a 'wakeup call' for the company."

Others spoke of the massive destruction. "Houses were demolished everywhere... We didn't see a single house that was not hit... It looked awful, like in those World War II films where nothing remained. A totally destroyed city."

Another soldier related an incident in which his commander told troops not to fire warning shots at a man they saw approaching a house until he was some dozen meters (yards) away.

"Suddenly a burst of fire is heard from upstairs, making us all jump. The old man gave such a scream as I'll never forget as long as I live... The commander comes downstairs, glowing, 'here's an opener for tonight'."

When they checked on the man the next morning, they saw "the guy was clean, nothing on him. Except for a torch in his hand, a white shirt and a long beard. A 50-60-year-old man lying on the road."

When they asked their commander why he told them not to fire warning shots, he said: "It's night time and this is a terrorist."

Yehuda Saul, a founder of Breaking the Silence, said the Israeli public, which overwhelmingly supported the military operation in Gaza, needed to know what soldiers saw during the fighting.

"In terms of what Israeli society knows, the Gaza operation is a black hole," Saul said, according to an account by The Associated Press. "In order to discuss what we want and what values we stand for as a people, we must have the information about what happened on the ground, and as a group of soldiers we see this as our job."

More than 1,400 Palestinians, including more than 900 civilians, were killed in the Gaza fighting, thousands of homes were destroyed and Gaza's infrastructure suffered heavy damage, according to Gaza health officials and human rights groups. Israel puts the death toll closer to 1,100 and says most were armed fighters. Thirteen Israelis also were killed, including three civilians who died from rocket fire.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military accused the group of "defaming and slandering the Israel Defense Forces and its commanders."

The army said in a statement that "a considerable amount of the testimony in this report is... based on hearsay and word of mouth," and said ..............................

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