Targeting the Children

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.

Targeting the Children

The witness:            1^st Sergeant, Paratroops

The Location:          Jenin

Date:                            February-May 2003

Description:

We took up positions of ‘Straw Widow’ (a disguised ambush). We were told that this ‘Straw Widow’ was against armed people and against people climbing on our armed vehicles. Our APCs (armed personnel carriers) were cruising 24 hours a day close to buildings (in Jenin), waiting for kids to climb on them, trying to dislodge the top -mounted MG (machine gun) and to shoot them. We had fixed positions inside Jenin’s casbah, the APCs were on the streets, below us. They were moving continuously. We were expressly told that we were just waiting for someone to climb on an APC, and ordered to shoot to kill. We quickly understood that we weren’t expected to deal with armed people as no armed Palestinian would roam the streets with so many APCs around. They (our authorities) were looking for children or plain people daring to climb on an APC or on any other armored vehicle. We understood that from the talks with our officers.

After a day or two, a 12-year old kid climbed on one of the APCs. There were lots of guesses about his age. First they said he was 8, later, that he was 12. I don’t know. In any case he climbed on an APC and one of our sharpshooters killed him. I already mentioned, we were looking for kids. The neighboring company also had an incident with a kid or teenager, climbing an APC, who was also killed. Some of us said that this whole operation was unnecessary as its purpose was to kill kids, while others said that it was very good.

Was it known that he was unarmed?

He was surely unarmed and he climbed on this…. No one asked you why you had two Xs     (a mark on the rifle signaling a killed target), and if they were armed, they were legit targets.