|
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.
An Eighty Year Old With A Bullet in his Gut
Witness: Staff sergeant
Place of Incident:
Nablus
Description:
There were operations titled ‘Looking For Trouble’. What does
‘Looking For Trouble’ mean? It means going on a patrol, touring the
Kasbah, hope someone will shoot at us, and that we get into combat.
“Looking For Troubles” is the name the guys gave it. What were the
orders?
Night patrol in the Kasba in Nablus. Usually the reason for those
patrols was to try to get into some combat, and to show our
presence. On this specific patrol we had to search a house It was
suspected that there was a hidden bomb-belt there – this was the
intelligence. We began patrolling. In the middle of this patrol, in
one of the streets of the Kasba we were being shot at.
Now,
when one says that ‘fire was exchanged’, it does not mean… people do
not understand that ‘exchange of fire’ [usually] means that the
Palestinians shot a bullet, one or two bullets from a Kalashnikov or
a gun or I don’t know what, and that this is usually followed by the
soldiers shooting back, spraying, quite freely on all… So fire
exchange is not really fire exchange. It is one initial shot of
theirs, and spraying in all directions of ours. Almost never is
there an identification of the source of the fire. This concept of
fire sources is something nonexistent, you know. Sources of fire are
not identified. Rarely does one identify a source of fire… Sources
of fire – this is very relevant to this story – sources of fire
means 360 degrees of shooting. This is what ‘sources of fire’ means.
You don’t know from where you are being shot at… It must be on us,
because we are the only force in the Kasba… So we were being shot
at; for sure. The reaction to this shooting was… Usually when one
shoots, the procedure is to get inside a house as quickly as
possible, to get out of the alleys, to enter as quickly as possible
into a house, and shoot. Look for fire sources. Now, while searching
these sources of fire, the open-fire orders are nonexistent. I
wanted to say they were “free”, but actually they do not exist,
because everyone is saying: “I identify” – and how can you tell if
that person identified something or only imagined it, or I don’t
know – and shoots. On this incident the *** identified
someone in a window of some bridge-house – there are houses over the
allies in the Kasba. He identified an image in a window. We shot at
it. His squad shot at it; there was a mess. In this type of cases,
whenever there is fire, it becomes a complete mess. You don’t know
what’s right and what’s left. Everyone is shooting… It goes a bit
like this: [someone shouts] “Identify” – Boom Boom Boom. “Asking
permission to open fire”. Something like that.
It
is a complete mess. People shoot at water tanks, identify 20
different images in the vicinity, and shoot with out too much… I was
the commander [of that operation]. Someone tells me “I identify an
image”. – What am I supposed to tell him? “Put an eye on it”? I‘ve
got nothing to say to him. What should I tell him? “Shoot it down”?
– It’s an image – how can I tell what he identifies? I tell him “Put
an eye on it”. The soldier, maybe because he was under pressure, or
perhaps… I think… Listen – all this business about people saying, “I
was under pressure, I was scared”, I think it is all bullshit.
Because I don’t remember… There is adrenaline, on action there is
adrenaline, there is tension, but I don’t remember ever being
scared, or others being scared. To be sure, it is a fact we were
very cynical about this fear business and all.
I
think – and I can only speak here for myself – most of the shots
I’ve taken, and I believe most of the shots of most IOF soldiers,
and most of the things they identify, and all this pressure – you
shoot not because you’re scared, and not because you’re a coward. It
is because they want to mark that X on their rifles. One wants to go
back and say – ‘Hey, I put an X. I killed this, I killed that.’ –
‘Hey you came out a man, you killed a person.’ So the finger is very
easy on the trigger. In short: exchange of fire, end of the night,
an eighty-year-old person, a bullet in his gut.
Where? Who found him?
The
Red Cross. We didn’t… we saw the Red Cross people taking his body
out. We never came in contact with bodies. The Red Cross would
always come. The family probably calls, alerts the Red Cross; that
is it. Another fire exchange casualty.
Weren’t there talk, later, about why this old person died?
No.
None. First of all, not every one feels... I told you, my opinion is
that this was a stupid shooting that resulted in someone’s death …
some people think: “Look, what is he expecting? There are fire
exchanges. Why is he at the window anyway? What does he expect would
happen? – If in your Kibbutz there were fire exchanges, would you
stand at the window?” Some people couldn’t care less about killing a
person.
|
