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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.
Kill Zones
Witness:
Staff sergeant, Giv’ati
Place:
Philadelphi route, Gaza
Date:
Middle of 2004
Description:
I
would go around talking to the guys. I would sit a lot with all of
them and talk to them.
Surely, we have been to houses we took over for observation
missions, we went to all the houses, and in each we talked, sat with
the snipers. Sit and talk inside the houses. That’s the way they
were.
Once
we went to *** outpost, on the Philadelphi route. Our
aid-company was placed there. I go up – in *** there are
cameras on top of the outpost, which record; there is video there.
He plays a film for me, and says: “Look. Look what he did today.”
There is a film there of… They discovered a tunnel. Ok. They dug the
tunnel, bulldozers – they [Palestinians] wanted to dig a tunnel that
leads to the outpost. We marked all the ‘extermination-zones’ to
which they [Palestinians] are not allowed to come close. We decided
that every one who comes close we shoot a warning shot, and if he
doesn’t run away, shoot towards the legs. For, after all, this is a
residential area.
Whoever comes close to the route?
To
the tunnel. Because the tunnel was closer to their area. If they got
close to the route they would have been killed. But the tunnel was
close to their houses, so it was decided that no one is to come
close to the tunnel. Perhaps there is ammunition there; they didn’t
want them to come close to the tunnel. So one man came close to the
tunnel. You could see him. An older person – about 30 or 40 years
old.
Unarmed?
No.
He wasn’t armed. Just walking about – I don’t want to say he was
innocent, I don’t want to make any assumptions. He was walking in
the general area of the tunnel. They shot him. He got a bullet here,
and fell down.
In the chest.
Yes.
He fell down, then stood up, made a few steps, and then dropped
dead. I tell them “Why?!” He goes: “No reason, he just got close,
they killed him.” I say, “Why didn’t you shoot his legs? Why the
chest? Chest is good, and legs are no good?” – It wasn’t from a
great distance, and this was a sniper shooting. – “No reason. You
know…” I ask, “No one knows about it, right?” – “Obviously not.”
How
come no one knows?
A
sniper is at his post. Also in operation ‘Rainbow’, when a sniper
shoots, they report shooting.
Does
he report what he sees?
He
reports shooting. First of all, operation ‘Rainbow’ was a jungle.
There were shootings all the time. One does not have to report a
shooting. In operation ‘Rainbow’ there was shooting all the time.
Who ?
Both sides ?
Yes.
They would shoot at you and you would return fire ?
They
shot less. We shot more. You know
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