{"id":290995,"date":"2024-07-10T07:12:35","date_gmt":"2024-07-10T07:12:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=290995"},"modified":"2024-07-12T07:06:56","modified_gmt":"2024-07-12T07:06:56","slug":"israeli-troopers-admit-killing-palestinians-without-restrictions-out-of-boredom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=290995","title":{"rendered":"Israeli troopers admit killing Palestinians without restrictions, out of boredom"},"content":{"rendered":"

Press TV \u2013 July 9, 2024<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Israeli forces have admitted opening fire on Palestinians without restrictions and out of boredom, leaving their bodies on the streets, amid the near-total absence of firing regulations in the regime\u2019s genocidal war on the besieged Gaza Strip.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Citing testimonies of six Israeli troopers, an article published by the Tel-Aviv +972 Magazine on Monday said the soldiers were \u201cauthorized to open fire on Palestinians virtually at will, including civilians.\u201d<\/p>\n

The six sources, who fought in Gaza, recounted how Israeli soldiers routinely killed civilians simply because they entered an area that the military defined as a \u201cno-go zone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was total freedom of action,\u201d said one of the soldiers identified as B. who fought along with the regular forces in Gaza for months, including in his battalion\u2019s command center.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there is [even] a feeling of threat, there is no need to explain \u2014 you just shoot.\u201d<\/p>\n

When soldiers see someone approaching, \u201cit is permissible to shoot at their center of mass [their body], not into the air,\u201d B. said, adding \u201cIt\u2019s permissible to shoot everyone, a young girl, an old woman.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yuval Green, a 26-year-old reservist from al-Quds who fought as part of the 55th Paratroopers Brigade in November and December last year and the only interviewed soldier who was willing to be identified by name, said \u201cThere were no restrictions on ammunition,\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople were shooting just to relieve the boredom,\u201d Green told +972 and Local Call.<\/p>\n

S., a reservist who fought in northern Gaza, also said \u201cPeople want to experience the event [fully],\u201d adding \u201cI personally fired a few bullets for no reason, into the sea or at the sidewalk or an abandoned building. They report it as \u2018normal fire,\u2019 which is a codename for \u2018I\u2019m bored, so I shoot.’\u201d<\/p>\n

M., another reservist who fought in the Gaza Strip, explained when there are no other Israeli forces in the area, \u201cthe shooting is very unrestricted, like crazy. And not just small arms: machine guns, tanks, and mortars.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

The ruined Shifa Hospital in Gaza.<\/p><\/div>\n

While shooting at \u201chospitals, clinics, schools, religious institutions, [and] buildings of international organizations\u201d required higher authorization, A., an interviewed officer, said in practice, \u201cI can count on one hand the cases where we were told not to shoot. Even with sensitive things like schools, [approval] feels like only a formality.\u201d<\/p>\n

In general, A. said \u201cthe spirit in the operations room was \u2018Shoot first, ask questions later.\u2019 That was the consensus \u2026 No one will shed a tear if we flatten a house when there was no need, or if we shoot someone who we didn\u2019t have to.\u201d<\/p>\n

A. noted that when drones would livestream footage of attacks in Gaza, \u201cthere were cheers of joy in the war room.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery once in a while, a building comes down \u2026 and the feeling is, \u2018Wow, how crazy, what fun.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

A. emphasized that Israeli reports about the numbers of Hamas fighters killed could not be trusted.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe feeling in the war room, and this is a softened version, was that every person we killed, we counted him as a terrorist,\u201d he testified, in reference to the resistance fighters.<\/p>\n

\u2018Horrific smell of death\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The testimonies said civilian bodies were left along roads and open ground to decompose or be eaten by stray animals, noting that the Israeli army only hides them ahead of the arrival of international aid convoys.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole area was full of bodies,\u201d said S., a reservist. \u201cThere are also dogs, cows, and horses that survived the bombings and have nowhere to go. We can\u2019t feed them, and we don\u2019t want them to get too close either. So, you occasionally see dogs walking around with rotting body parts. There is a horrific smell of death.\u201d<\/p>\n

But before the humanitarian convoys arrive, S. said, the bodies are removed.<\/p>\n

\u201cA D-9 [Caterpillar bulldozer] goes down, with a tank, and clears the area of corpses, buries them under the rubble, and flips [them] aside so that the convoys don\u2019t see it \u2014 [so that] images of people in advanced stages of decay don\u2019t come out,\u201d he recounted, noting that \u201cThere are more fatalities than are reported.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were in a small area. Every day, at least one or two [civilians] are killed [because] they walked in a no-go area. I don\u2019t know who is a terrorist and who is not, but most of them did not carry weapons.\u201d<\/p>\n

The article said the unrestricted shooting were also partly responsible for the high number of Israeli troops killed by friendly fire in recent months.<\/p>\n

C., another soldier who fought in Gaza, described the friendly fire as \u201cmore dangerous than Hamas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Green also said that such incidents were the \u201cmain issue\u201d endangering soldiers\u2019 lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was quite a bit [of friendly fire]; it drove me crazy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

According to the article, of the 324 Israeli soldier deaths in Gaza, at least 28 were killed by friendly fire.<\/p>\n

\u2018Indifference to Israeli captives\u2019 fate\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Green also testified that the rules of engagement demonstrated a deep indifference to the fate of the Israeli captives held in Gaza.<\/p>\n

According to the testimonies, the open-fire regulations did not change even after Israeli soldiers in Shuja\u2019iyya killed three captives waving white flags in December, thinking they were Palestinians.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs for the hostages, we didn\u2019t have a specific directive,\u201d B. recalled. \u201c[The army\u2019s top brass] said that after the shooting of the hostages, they briefed [soldiers in the field]. [But] they didn\u2019t talk to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve heard statements [from other soldiers] that the hostages are dead, they don\u2019t stand a chance, they have to be abandoned,\u201d Green said, adding \u201c[This] bothered me the most \u2026 that they kept saying, \u2018We\u2019re here for the hostages,\u2019 but it is clear that the war harms the hostages. That was my thought then; today it turned out to be true.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>

Palestinians survey the ruins of a house in southern Gaza. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The article also showed that there is a systematic policy of setting Palestinian homes on fire after occupying them.<\/p>\n

When soldiers occupied homes, Green testified, the policy was \u201cif you move, you have to burn down the house.\u201d<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. also confirmed the report, saying \u201cBefore you leave, you burn down the house \u2014 every house.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \u201cThis is backed up at the battalion commander level. It\u2019s so that [Palestinians] won\u2019t be able to return, and if we left behind any ammunition or food, the terrorists won\u2019t be able to use it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

    Green also said that the destruction the Israeli army has left in Gaza is \u201cunimaginable\u201d, noting that the soldiers were also looting the Palestinian houses.<\/p>\n

    Many soldiers \u201ctreated the houses [like] a souvenir shop,\u201d looting whatever their Palestinian residents hadn\u2019t managed to take with them.<\/p>\n

    Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas waged the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime’s decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation against Palestinians.<\/p>\n

    Since the start of the offensive, the Tel Aviv regime has killed at least 38,243 Palestinians and injured over 88,033. Thousands more are also missing and presumed dead under rubble.<\/p>\n

    Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Israeli soldiers reveal that they were \u201cauthorized to open fire on Palestinians virtually at will, including civilians\u2026 If there is [even] a feeling of threat, there is no need to explain \u2014 you just shoot.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":290997,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[118,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-290995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-7-10-gaza-war","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=290995"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290995\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":291000,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290995\/revisions\/291000"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/290997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=290995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=290995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=290995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}