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Over
the last year ‘Breaking the Silence’ has collected testimonies given
by hundreds of IOF (Israeli Defense Forces) soldiers who served in
the territories during the last conflict. These testimonies reveal
the impossible reality those soldiers have to face, and the terrible
moral price this reality demands. Selected collections from those
testimonies have been published in testimonial collections produced
by ‘Breaking the Silence’.
The
present collection is not just one more testimonial-collection,
revealing the brutal routine of the territories’ reality, or the
constant moral degradation and erosion of soldiers’ values. The
collection focuses on IOF orders, rules of engagement and
operational procedures. It presents a grave picture of evidently
illegal orders given frequently, and in different times and places:
firing at civilians who pose no risk, revenge operations,
intentionally shooting at rescue-forces, and more. This collection
reveals the depth of the military administration’s moral corruption,
and the dimness of moral sense, which has spread to the highest
ranks. The testimonies in this collection concerns various units
that were operative in the territories in different times and at
different places, and is thus an evidence for the magnitude of the
moral decay, and for the depths to which flawed norms have diffused.
It
is also apparent that the IOF’s self-inspection system has failed to
fulfill its duty. This also applies to the civilian and
parliamentary inspection mechanisms, which, during the last
confrontations, have consistently refrained from criticizing the
army’s mode of conduct in general, and its rules of engagement in
particular. This brings out sharply an urgent need to create a
platform on which the information we have gathered here can be
presented, in order to examine what this information teaches, as
well as the IOF’s mode of conduct during the last confrontations. A
civilized and decent society cannot survive without a continuous
inspection and criticism of the most powerful organization operating
within it. ‘Breaking the Silence’ is therefore calling for the
establishment of an independent public inspection committee, which
will enable a responsible disclosure and examination of the facts.
Listening and taking responsibility is the very least that is
required of society and its representatives in a civilized and
decent society founded on basic moral values.
Take Six of Theirs
The witness:
‘Yael’
Reconnaissance Troup
The Location:
A Palestinian checkpoint in the West Bank
Date:
February 2002, one night after the attack at
Ein Arik
Description:
There was an attack on 6 people here at ‘443’ (designation of our
position, or our-held hilltop), 6 soldiers from the Corps of
Engineers. Some terrorist arrived at a (our) checkpoint and killed
6. That evening we were rushed off to a room. Suddenly our squad
commander came from some two-minute long briefing saying ‘Listen….we
are doing…our action is a revenge. We are going to kill 6
Palestinian policemen somewhere, revenging our six they took down’.
There were about 4 positions beyond our ‘443’ under the control of
Palestinian policemen, and we were sent to each of these positions
to ‘liquidate’ the Palestinian policemen there.
Our
briefing was also about 2 minutes long, defining our action as a
revenge, while I was still deliberating, asking ‘what had they
done?’ ‘Who are they?’ The answer was: Palestinian policemen. On my
question ‘what did they do?’ the answer was ‘(that) there was a
suspicion that the terrorist who killed our 6 came through that
(Palestinian) checkpoint. A suspicion, but no concrete evidence. But
I was told: it doesn’t matter; they took six of ours, and we are
going to take six of theirs.
That’s the expression used?
That’s the expression: ‘revenge’. Also a day later the press
reported a ‘revenge action’. It was not hidden (from the public).
The announcement clearly read ’revenge action’. It was a crazy
‘blood revenge’ rush. We had a long hike ahead of us to get there
and we arrived on foot at around 4AM. There was no one there during
the night and the check point was locked for the night. There was
some sort of building where they slept, coming down during the day
to the checkpoint and staying there.
And you hid in an ambush?
We
waited for them in an ambush. The idea was simply to kill them all.
Whenever they arrived, we would kill them, regardless whether (they
were) armed or not. If they were Palestinian policemen, they were to
be shot. The order was given and our six opened fire. The first
firing was ineffective and missed. They (our, other shooters) were
also supposed to hit the street lighting, but missed that too. We
got up and fired, hitting two of theirs (the Palestinian policemen),
killing the two. But they weren’t killed after all. Pardon me, they
were injured: I think we hit one in the shoulder and one in the leg,
or something like it, and they escaped. So we continued (shooting).
I should add: I shot one in the head as he was running while another
one was crawling behind. We got up and started chasing them. It was…
really… I really enjoyed it. It was the first time (in my
experience) that we were in an ‘advance….storm….’ situation, like in
our training exercises. And we acted flawlessly. We performed
superbly. And then he (one of the policemen?) ran and we continued
to advance. He entered one of the corrugated sheet metal sheds and
the four of us sprayed the shed with bullets. A gas cylinder there
exploded and everything around caught fire.. fire.. fire….
Meanwhile we had a killed policeman, another one in this burning
inferno, and a third one, escaping. We ran after him into a
graveyard, or something like a graveyard, stood on the surrounding
wall and shot at him. We killed him too ……
Were they armed?
Wait
a minute. Meanwhile they didn’t shoot at us. Didn’t return fire.
Except when it all started?
No!
The initial were ours.
Uh! OK.
We
didn’t run into them and they never fired at us during any phase of
the operation. Initially we opened fire from a distance, hitting
nothing. Then we got up to storm the position, hitting one of theirs
and he escaped. I hit him with another bullet. The second ran into
the shed (that caught fire) while we chased the third to the
graveyard. The fourth one escaped.
The guy in the cemetery was killed?
No
(above he was quoted as saying yes, he was killed!). We stood on the
wall, shot, and he fell. That was the end. Now the first one who
fell lay on the ground and we saw only the lower part of his body.
Some boulder hid him. There were three or four (of our guys) who
kept shooting at the body, punching holes into it.
To ‘confirm a kill’?
No.
From the excitement of the battle they punched holes, punching him
completely. At the retreat from the cemetery I went to check, to
‘confirm kill’ and also to take his rifle away. I reached him and he
was smashed…. a completely smashed body. I turned the body around.
It was a guy in his mid-fiftieths or sixtieths, very old. No arms.
Later we understood, that, including the one at the cemetery, no one
of them was armed.
Were they uniformed?
They
wore the uniforms of Palestinian policemen but were unarmed. And we
went and threw another grenade into this thing that was burning…
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