Israel troops admit Gaza abuses

[Tiriol]

Source: BBC News. Helsingin Sanomat has a huge section dedicated to this as well, but it's in Finnish, so unless need arises, I'll refrain from posting it. For those interested, the Finnish article is beyond this link.

Israel troops admit Gaza abuses
Israel frequently claims to possess the most moral army in the world

An Israeli military college has printed damning soldiers' accounts of the killing of civilians and vandalism during recent operations in Gaza.

One account tells of a sniper killing a mother and children at close range whom troops had told to leave their home.

Another speaker at the seminar described what he saw as the "cold blooded murder" of a Palestinian woman.

The army has defended its conduct during the Gaza offensive but said it would investigate the testimonies.

The Israeli army has said it will investigate the soldiers' accounts.

The testimonies were published by the military academy at Oranim College. Graduates of the academy, who had served in Gaza, were speaking to new recruits at a seminar.

The climate in general [was that] lives of Palestinians are much, much less important than the lives of our soldiers
Soldier testimony

"[The testimonies] conveyed an atmosphere in which one feels entitled to use unrestricted force against Palestinians," academy director Dany Zamir told public radio.

Heavy civilian casualties during the three-week operation which ended in the blockaded coastal strip on 18 January provoked an international outcry.

Correspondents say the testimonies undermine Israel's claims that troops took care to protect non-combatants and accusations that Hamas militants were responsible for putting civilians into harm's way.

'Less important'

The Palestinian woman and two of her children were allegedly shot after they misunderstood instructions about which way to walk having been ordered out of their home by troops.

"The climate in general... I don't know how to describe it.... the lives of Palestinians, let's say, are much, much less important than the lives of our soldiers," an infantry squad leader is quoted saying.

In another cited case, a commander ordered troops to kill an elderly woman walking on a road, even though she was easily identifiable and clearly not a threat.

Testimonies, which were given by combat pilots and infantry soldiers, also included allegations of unnecessary destruction of Palestinian property.

"We would throw everything out of the windows to make room and order. Everything... Refrigerators, plates, furniture. The order was to throw all of the house's contents outside," a soldier said.

One non-commissioned officer related at the seminar that an old woman crossing a main road was shot by soldiers.

"I don't know whether she was suspicious, not suspicious, I don't know her story… I do know that my officer sent people to the roof in order to take her out… It was cold-blooded murder," he said.

The transcript of the session for the college's Yitzhak Rabin pre-military course, which was held last month, appeared in a newsletter published by the academy.

Israeli human rights groups have criticised the military for failing to properly investigate violations of the laws of war in Gaza despite plenty of evidence of possible war crimes.

'Moral army'

The soldiers' testimonies also reportedly told of an unusually high intervention by military and non-military rabbis, who circulated pamphlets describing the war in religious terminology.

"All the articles had one clear message," one soldier said. "We are the people of Israel, we arrived in the country almost by miracle, now we need to fight to uproot the gentiles who interfere with re-conquering the Holy Land."

"Many soldiers' feelings were that this was a war of religion," he added.

Defence Minister Ehud Barak told Israel Radio that the findings would be examined seriously.

"I still say we have the most moral army in the world. Of course there may be exceptions but I have absolutely no doubt this will be inspected on a case-by-case basis," he said.

Medical authorities say more than 1,300 Palestinians were killed during Israel's 22-day operation, including some 440 children, 110 women, and dozens of elderly people.

The stated aim was to curb rocket and mortar fire by militants from Gaza. Thirteen Israelis, including three civilians were killed.

I hope that enough outrage generates by this that those military commanders who allowed this to happen on their watch are actually prosecuted, not merely investigated and then let off scott-free. I am, however, surprised positively that some people had the moral fortitude to bring this forth.

[Edi]

Israeli army investigations don't mean shit. Nothing is going to happen. When it was captured on video a few years ago how a tank opened machine gun fire on an unarmed crowd doing its morning shopping in a bazaar, nobody was prosecuted. This is an army where war crimes are institutionalized policy and perpetrators never held accountable.

[Tiriol]

Israeli army investigations don't mean shit. Nothing is going to happen. When it was captured on video a few years ago how a tank opened machine gun fire on an unarmed crowd doing its morning shopping in a bazaar, nobody was prosecuted. This is an army where war crimes are institutionalized policy and perpetrators never held accountable.

That's why I hope that the fellows in charge are not merely "investigated". However, I don't know how much outrage there should be before Israel would be forced to do an actual investigation and prosecution. Maybe if their own citizens would get angry enough; otherwise, I don't really see it happening.

[Ace Pace]

This pretty much all arised from this event at a Mechina.

Some choice excerpts.

"At first the specified action was to go into a house. We were supposed to go in with an armored personnel carrier called an Achzarit [literally, Cruel] to burst through the lower door, to start shooting inside and then ... I call this murder ... in effect, we were supposed to go up floor by floor, and any person we identified - we were supposed to shoot. I initially asked myself: Where is the logic in this?

"From above they said it was permissible, because anyone who remained in the sector and inside Gaza City was in effect condemned, a terrorist, because they hadn't fled. I didn't really understand: On the one hand they don't really have anywhere to flee to, but on the other hand they're telling us they hadn't fled so it's their fault ... This also scared me a bit. I tried to exert some influence, insofar as is possible from within my subordinate position, to change this. In the end the specification involved going into a house, operating megaphones and telling [the tenants]: 'Come on, everyone get out, you have five minutes, leave the house, anyone who doesn't get out gets killed.'

"I went to our soldiers and said, 'The order has changed. We go into the house, they have five minutes to escape, we check each person who goes out individually to see that he has no weapons, and then we start going into the house floor by floor to clean it out ... This means going into the house, opening fire at everything that moves , throwing a grenade, all those things. And then there was a very annoying moment. One of my soldiers came to me and asked, 'Why?' I said, 'What isn't clear? We don't want to kill innocent civilians.' He goes, 'Yeah? Anyone who's in there is a terrorist, that's a known fact.' I said, 'Do you think the people there will really run away? No one will run away.' He says, 'That's clear,' and then his buddies join in: 'We need to murder any person who's in there. Yeah, any person who's in Gaza is a terrorist,' and all the other things that they stuff our heads with, in the media.

"And then I try to explain to the guy that not everyone who is in there is a terrorist, and that after he kills, say, three children and four mothers, we'll go upstairs and kill another 20 or so people. And in the end it turns out that [there are] eight floors times five apartments on a floor - something like a minimum of 40 or 50 families that you murder. I tried to explain why we had to let them leave, and only then go into the houses. It didn't really help. This is really frustrating, to see that they understand that inside Gaza you are allowed to do anything you want, to break down doors of houses for no reason other than it's cool.

Zamir: "I don't understand. Why did he shoot her?"

Aviv: "That's what is so nice, supposedly, about Gaza: You see a person on a road, walking along a path. He doesn't have to be with a weapon, you don't have to identify him with anything and you can just shoot him. With us it was an old woman, on whom I didn't see any weapon. The order was to take the person out, that woman, the moment you see her."

Zvi: "Aviv's descriptions are accurate, but it's possible to understand where this is coming from. And that woman, you don't know whether she's ... She wasn't supposed to be there, because there were announcements and there were bombings. Logic says she shouldn't be there. The way you describe it, as murder in cold blood, that isn't right. It's known that they have lookouts and that sort of thing."

Ram: "They haven't come from the Military Police's investigative unit yet. There hasn't been any ... For all incidents, there are individual investigations and general examinations, of all of the conduct of the war. But they haven't focused on this specifically."

Moshe: "The attitude is very simple: It isn't pleasant to say so, but no one cares at all. We aren't investigating this. This is what happens during fighting and this is what happens during routine security."

"There was a huge gap between what the Education Corps sent out and what the IDF rabbinate sent out. The Education Corps published a pamphlet for commanders - something about the history of Israel's fighting in Gaza from 1948 to the present. The rabbinate brought in a lot of booklets and articles, and ... their message was very clear: We are the Jewish people, we came to this land by a miracle, God brought us back to this land and now we need to fight to expel the gentiles who are interfering with our conquest of this holy land. This was the main message, and the whole sense many soldiers had in this operation was of a religious war. From my position as a commander and 'explainer,' I attempted to talk about the politics - the streams in Palestinian society, about how not everyone who is in Gaza is Hamas, and not every inhabitant wants to vanquish us. I wanted to explain to the soldiers that this war is not a war for the sanctification of the holy name, but rather one to stop the Qassams."

Yossi: "I am a platoon sergeant in an operations company of the Paratroops Brigade. We were in a house and discovered a family inside that wasn't supposed to be there. We assembled them all in the basement, posted two guards at all times and made sure they didn't make any trouble. Gradually, the emotional distance between us broke down - we had cigarettes with them, we drank coffee with them, we talked about the meaning of life and the fighting in Gaza. After very many conversations the owner of the house, a man of 70-plus, was saying it's good we are in Gaza and it's good that the IDF is doing what it is doing.

"The next day we sent the owner of the house and his son, a man of 40 or 50, for questioning. The day after that, we received an answer: We found out that both are political activists in Hamas. That was a little annoying - that they tell you how fine it is that you're here and good for you and blah-blah-blah, and then you find out that they were lying to your face the whole time.

"What annoyed me was that in the end, after we understood that the members of this family weren't exactly our good friends and they pretty much deserved to be forcibly ejected from there, my platoon commander suggested that when we left the house, we should clean up all the stuff, pick up and collect all the garbage in bags, sweep and wash the floor, fold up the blankets we used, make a pile of the mattresses and put them back on the beds."

"As reservists we don't take relate seriously to the orders of the regional brigades. We let the old people go through and we let families go through. Why kill people when it's clear to you that they are civilians? Which aspect of Israel's security will be harmed, who will be harmed? Exercise judgment, be human."

More stuff has come to light, but I'm having trouble finding english sources.

[ray245]

One of the many reason why so many people in Palestinian is willingly to support to the Hamas, I would think. Whenever military actions is conducted in Gaza, in the long run, it will only serve to make Israel more vulnerable to additional threats from Palestine.

[havocfett]

That actually made me a bit sick reading that, how is this supposed to help stop attacks on Israel? Wouldn't this be the sort of thing that brings people to Hamas? And the sort of thing that gives countries like Iran legitimacy in supporting and arming them?

[Ekiqa]

In the article in the Toronto Star, they describe kicking the occupants of a house out, while neglecting to tell the sniper on the roof, who then proceeded to kill the family.

The Israeli Defence Minister claims that the IDF is the most 'moral' army in the world. How can an army be moral?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

The Israeli military essentially prides itself on doing nothing by the book of everyone else, being the descendant of paramilitary organizations. Or, more bluntly, as the Liberty Incident well shows, it prides itself on being a collection of gung-ho wazoos with guns and no real sense of discipline. The only reason they haven't been completely demolished is that all their Arab enemies are an order of magnitude worse... Maybe two orders of magnitude. It's no surprise that the Iranian trained (and possibly led) Hezbollah troops in Lebanon kicked them around, since the Iranians still have a semblence of military discipline which the Arabs entirely lack. A Russian or US force might well overrun Israel before the Israelis could even get their nukes into the air.

[Elfdart]

The Israeli Defence Minister claims that the IDF is the most 'moral' army in the world. How can an army be moral?

An army so moral, it allows its troops to wear this kind of thing:



Haaretz

Dead Palestinian babies and bombed mosques - IDF fashion 2009
By Uri Blau
Tags: Israel News, IDF, Gaza

The office at the Adiv fabric-printing shop in south Tel Aviv handles a constant stream of customers, many of them soldiers in uniform, who come to order custom clothing featuring their unit's insignia, usually accompanied by a slogan and drawing of their choosing. Elsewhere on the premises, the sketches are turned into plates used for imprinting the ordered items, mainly T-shirts and baseball caps, but also hoodies, fleece jackets and pants. A young Arab man from Jaffa supervises the workers who imprint the words and pictures, and afterward hands over the finished product.

Dead babies, mothers weeping on their children's graves, a gun aimed at a child and bombed-out mosques - these are a few examples of the images Israel Defense Forces soldiers design these days to print on shirts they order to mark the end of training, or of field duty. The slogans accompanying the drawings are not exactly anemic either: A T-shirt for infantry snipers bears the inscription "Better use Durex," next to a picture of a dead Palestinian baby, with his weeping mother and a teddy bear beside him. A sharpshooter's T-shirt from the Givati Brigade's Shaked battalion shows a pregnant Palestinian woman with a bull's-eye superimposed on her belly, with the slogan, in English, "1 shot, 2 kills." A "graduation" shirt for those who have completed another snipers course depicts a Palestinian baby, who grows into a combative boy and then an armed adult, with the inscription, "No matter how it begins, we'll put an end to it."

There are also plenty of shirts with blatant sexual messages. For example, the Lavi battalion produced a shirt featuring a drawing of a soldier next to a young woman with bruises, and the slogan, "Bet you got raped!" A few of the images underscore actions whose existence the army officially denies - such as "confirming the kill" (shooting a bullet into an enemy victim's head from close range, to ensure he is dead), or harming religious sites, or female or child non-combatants.

The article is long, so I'm not going to post the whole thing. These first few paragraphs by themselves are some of the sickest shit I've seen since The Nation. published excerpts from the 77th Tactical Fighter Squadron Songbook twenty years ago, in which USAF fucktards brag about their desire to fuck rotting corpses and burn all those Arabs in Iran with "snake and nape".

[bobalot]

"All the articles had one clear message," one soldier said. "We are the people of Israel, we arrived in the country almost by miracle, now we need to fight to uproot the gentiles who interfere with re-conquering the Holy Land."

"Many soldiers' feelings were that this was a war of religion," he added.

Great. Now, we have two groups of religious nut jobs. I'm no fan of Israel but I always thought that the army was more or less free of the nutty religious Jews.

I'm waiting the the Israeli apologists to come in here and claim that it's all propaganda and the Israelis in the article are actually traitors badmouthing the army.

[eyl]

That actually made me a bit sick reading that, how is this supposed to help stop attacks on Israel? Wouldn't this be the sort of thing that brings people to Hamas? And the sort of thing that gives countries like Iran legitimacy in supporting and arming them?

Unfortunately, that cuts both ways - do you think it's a conincidence that the soldiers involved grew up during the second intifada? Couple that with a military that doesn't sufficiently investigate these incidents* and the increase of the proportion of relligious (who on average tend to be more right-wing) soldiers and junior commanders, and while I'm shocked I can't say I'm too surprised (and frankly, were the IDF truely as unprofessional as some present it to be I'd expect the situation to be much worse).

*Investigations and even punishments do happen, but with neither the frequency nor the publicity required

[CJvR]

...and burn all those Arabs in Iran...

LOL! They won't find many arabs in Iran!

[Elfdart]

...and burn all those Arabs in Iran...

LOL! They won't find many arabs in Iran!

Exactly. You can read the Nation. article by pre-war whore Christopher Hitchens here.

[Kanastrous]

I'm having a Colonel Kurtz moment, I guess.

This is just from a civilian's perspective, but it doesn't surprise me that people whose duties include killing people and blowing things up sing songs about killing people and blowing things up.

True that Persian Pukes is insulting and Arabs is plain wrong, but then again the Revolutionary Guards have been known to refer to the US as The Great Satan, which isn't particularly complimentary either.

*edit*

^ on the other hand, yeah, those last couple of gems are definitely pretty sick. So much more so the actual reality it's about, though, that somehow the song still doesn't seem to raise the same disgust as the act.

[Ziggy Stardust]

These abuses are awful, but, to be honest, expected from an organization like the Israeli military. These are people who grow up being told that the Arabs and Muslims are out to kill them and their families, and whose job description is essentially "Kill them before they kill you." They are paramilitary nutjobs given professional logistics and training.

[ray245]

Which is why I find it funny that people cannot understand why did the Palestinians in Gaza wants to support a terrorist organisation and have the desire to wipe out Israel.

If your only interaction with Israeli is when they are committing abuse against you and your family, it makes it easier for you to lump every Israeli as evil baby-killers.

Not that I supported their cause to wipe out all the jews of course.

[Tiriol]

Which is why I find it funny that people cannot understand why did the Palestinians in Gaza wants to support a terrorist organisation and have the desire to wipe out Israel.

If your only interaction with Israeli is when they are committing abuse against you and your family, it makes it easier for you to lump every Israeli as evil baby-killers.

Not that I supported their cause to wipe out all the jews of course.

I'm pretty sure that I've heard on this very board that the Palestinians themselves would just want the whole thing to END so that they wouldn't live in absolute squalor, constantly fearing that Israel or some terrorist group does something and strengthens the circle of suffering.

It's usually outsiders and the leadership in groups such as Hamas that want to wipe out Israel; and I don't remember anyone actually saying that they want to wipe out all the Jews.

[ray245]

Which is why I find it funny that people cannot understand why did the Palestinians in Gaza wants to support a terrorist organisation and have the desire to wipe out Israel.

If your only interaction with Israeli is when they are committing abuse against you and your family, it makes it easier for you to lump every Israeli as evil baby-killers.

Not that I supported their cause to wipe out all the jews of course.

I'm pretty sure that I've heard on this very board that the Palestinians themselves would just want the whole thing to END so that they wouldn't live in absolute squalor, constantly fearing that Israel or some terrorist group does something and strengthens the circle of suffering.

It's usually outsiders and the leadership in groups such as Hamas that want to wipe out Israel; and I don't remember anyone actually saying that they want to wipe out all the Jews.

Ah, sorry about that mistake. Although it does seem impossible for the conflict to end, if the Hamas is bend on attacking Israel again and again, and Israel responding in kind.

[Big Phil]

The Israeli Defence Minister claims that the IDF is the most 'moral' army in the world. How can an army be moral?

An army so moral, it allows its troops to wear this kind of thing:

I'm not sure I understand your outrage at clothing... particularly when there potentially were real atrocities that were committed. It's sort of like getting pissed at Charlie Manson for carving the swastika into his forehead, while ignoring the murders he organized.

[MKSheppard]

I like this one:

"At first the specified action was to go into a house. We were supposed to go in with an armored personnel carrier called an Achzarit [literally, Cruel] to burst through the lower door, to start shooting inside and then ... I call this murder ... in effect, we were supposed to go up floor by floor, and any person we identified - we were supposed to shoot. I initially asked myself: Where is the logic in this?

Because you know, avoiding the main entrance of a house; and making your own with the APC; to avoid walking right through the no doubt rigged to explode main entrance; where all the bad guys are pointing their guns; and then clearing the place in accordance with well established techniques for dealing with terrorists -- here's a hint -- the SAS does the same thing; anyone suspicious in a building clearance is simply shot twice in the head and the room declared clear, to avoid them popping up later, or moving to activicate a bomb vest or trigger for a large IED in the house.

[Eleas]

The Israeli Defence Minister claims that the IDF is the most 'moral' army in the world. How can an army be moral?

An army so moral, it allows its troops to wear this kind of thing:

I'm not sure I understand your outrage at clothing... particularly when there potentially were real atrocities that were committed. It's sort of like getting pissed at Charlie Manson for carving the swastika into his forehead, while ignoring the murders he organized.

You do not understand why a tacit approval of killing Palestinian civilians would be objectionable? Particularly when that approval is held and promoted by those who are suppose to Police said civilians?

Your problem seems to be that you look on these things as isolated phenomena. They are not. Those shirts are a symptom of what's really the problem with the IDF, meaning the evident notion that "Arab" is short for "needs a-killin'."

[Kanastrous]

How do you figure that the t-shirts represent tacit approval? They represent open approval.

[Eleas]

How do you figure that the t-shirts represent tacit approval? They represent open approval.

Lacking knowledge on the particulars of the T-Shirt incident as I was, I didn't know if the IDF tried to brush the incident aside or whether it was an "in your face" move; in other words I wasn't sure how far the rot had spread. Erring on the side of caution was the safest course of action, especially given that even a generous interpretation would be damning enough.

[Pablo Sanchez]

Because you know, avoiding the main entrance of a house; and making your own with the APC; to avoid walking right through the no doubt rigged to explode main entrance; where all the bad guys are pointing their guns; and then clearing the place in accordance with well established techniques for dealing with terrorists -- here's a hint -- the SAS does the same thing; anyone suspicious in a building clearance is simply shot twice in the head and the room declared clear, to avoid them popping up later, or moving to activicate a bomb vest or trigger for a large IED in the house.

O wait the next paragraph after the one you quoted was

"I went to our soldiers and said, 'The order has changed. We go into the house, they have five minutes to escape, we check each person who goes out individually to see that he has no weapons, and then we start going into the house floor by floor to clean it out ... This means going into the house, opening fire at everything that moves , throwing a grenade, all those things.

So they in fact did exactly what you're talking about, only they clear the area of civilians first. So what's your point? That they shouldn't give a fuck about limiting civilian casualties?

[ray245]

Because you know, avoiding the main entrance of a house; and making your own with the APC; to avoid walking right through the no doubt rigged to explode main entrance; where all the bad guys are pointing their guns; and then clearing the place in accordance with well established techniques for dealing with terrorists -- here's a hint -- the SAS does the same thing; anyone suspicious in a building clearance is simply shot twice in the head and the room declared clear, to avoid them popping up later, or moving to activicate a bomb vest or trigger for a large IED in the house.

O wait the next paragraph after the one you quoted was

"I went to our soldiers and said, 'The order has changed. We go into the house, they have five minutes to escape, we check each person who goes out individually to see that he has no weapons, and then we start going into the house floor by floor to clean it out ... This means going into the house, opening fire at everything that moves , throwing a grenade, all those things.

So they in fact did exactly what you're talking about, only they clear the area of civilians first. So what's your point? That they shouldn't give a fuck about limiting civilian casualties?

What's the point of arguing against MKSheppard anyway? You know he doesn't listen to people that are 'scared of not being a warmonger'.