IDF soldiers from various units who fought in last summer’s war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip called a recent report by NGO Breaking the Silence a “total lie.”
The soldiers spoke to Israel’s Channel 2 to tell their side of the story, and to counter the testimonies compiled by Breaking the Silence.
One soldier called the report “a wicked story” and a “stab in the back.”
Another soldier, Lt. Oren (a pseudonym), was a platoon commander in the 7th Brigade during the previous Operation Cast Lead, which began in late 2008. The Breaking the Silence report claimed that one of the tank commanders in Oren’s platoon carried out a “revenge attack” by targeting civilian houses in Gaza.
Oren refuted the claim, saying “this nonsense about ‘fire on the house that you want for revenge’ is simply a total lie.”
He said “it is very hard for me to believe that one of ours said something like that, definitely not someone who was there.”
Oren, who was personally involved in the operation, told a different story.
He said that any “revenge” incident might have occurred after Armored Core Capt. Dmitri Levitas (26) was killed in battle, but that the Breaking the Silence testimony “simply is not true.”
He said despite the fact that he and his fellow soldiers were severely affected by the death of Levitas, “we maintained combat ethics.”
“While it’s true there was heavy [IDF] fire, this fire was directed at positions from which we were being fired upon, or suspicious locations,” he recalled.
IDF tanks only fired “in accordance with procedure, and after a very strict identification process,” he said.
Oren emphasized that despite “losing a great commander and friend … we still abided by shooting procedure.”
He said that field commanders operated according to very accurate and high quality intelligence regarding almost every single home.
Oren said, “They knew where the majority of the tunnels were located and where there were no civilians … Every shell was fired only after going through the proper procedure in which we had been trained long before the Operation.”
He added that, “Before the Operation and also after it, we conveyed to the commanders and we conveyed to the soldiers the importance of precise fire, the importance of identifying the target and not to fire on innocents.”
Oren said that this was not the only instance where his soldiers exercised extreme caution when it came to Palestinian civilian lives. “I can tell you about two instances where we could have fired upon what we suspected was a dispatcher, but we didn’t out of concern for innocent lives.”
Lt. Oren was not the only soldier to speak out, nor was his story unique. Another soldier, who was a battalion commander during Protective Edge and an officer with the rank of Lt. Col., also came forward. He said that before entering Gaza, “we were provided with a large amount of intelligence, and we requested permission after permission, verification after verification.”
The officer said that when he was notified that he and his soldiers would be entering Gaza, “I conveyed to the fighters the importance of precise fire and avoiding harming innocents.” According to him, this is a message that he and many other officers conveyed to their soldiers not just before entry into Gaza, but during ground operations as well.
He said that every round fired received either his approval or that of another responsible officer, and that “every entry we made into an area was done after we told [civilians] to leave the area.”
“Come now, tell me one example in history, one, of an army in the entire world that notified the enemy where it was planning to act or what they are planning to do. This is something entirely irrational,” he said.
Channel 2 said many more soldiers and high ranking officers stepped forward to present a very different story from the one conveyed in the Breaking the Silence report, emphasizing the IDF’s strict adherence to international law — which sometimes goes beyond the requirements of the Law of Armed Conflict – and the caution the army exercised to prevent Palestinian civilian deaths.
Breaking the Silence offered a response to the interviews, saying, “in the book that was published this week, testimonies of dozens of soldiers and officers who served in Protective Edge are presented. We welcome every discussion taking place among the public over the fighting in Gaza and we are proud that the publication of these testimonies encouraged other soldiers to step forward and relate what happened throughout the operation.”
“Among all of the testimonies that have been published in the last few days by those other than us, not a single one of them disproved the central point related to the policy of indiscriminate fire which led to the harm of innocent civilians,” the statement read, even though the Channel 2 testimonies seemed to indicate otherwise.
“Many different soldiers came out with different feelings about the operation, and it is our duty as the public to listen to them, and to ask ourselves if such a policy is acceptable to us, and what our moral limits are as a community,” said Breaking the Silence.
HMMMMM??????
😛 😛 😛
Like I have been saying, the same perennial criminals: the supersessionist churches and the euros…. the plague on the Jews.
The destruction, burning and chaos in europe by the honor killers they foist on the Jews is the just reward for their incitements to murder jewish children.
The supersessionist churches have been swindling, libeling, abusing, torturing and slaughtering Jews for 2000 years so why be surprised that they continue now by contracting out the dirty tasks and despicable deeds to others. These BDS churches also fund the media and pay internet trolls to harass and abuse Jews on Jewish websites. Every day these BDS church trolls arrive to take up their positions like perverts at public toilets. These churches are well aware that their past libels resulted in incitement to pogroms and genocide and therefore they are intentionally attempting to incite the murder of Jewish children and the genocide of the Jewish people. The success of Jews in Israel bankrupts their 2000 year old business model of being the replacement “Jews” as the 2000 year barren land now blooms for the ingathered real Jews and not the supersessionist replacements.
Meanwhile their funded proxies chop off Christian heads in the ME instead of the Jews heads that they had hoped for while the honor Killer termites are eating europe out from within. Ironic justice.
Jews need to wake up to the disgusting evil of the european collective.
I’ve seen the wellsprings of this slander. People who devote their lives to create blood libel for Jews and our country Israel. Truly pathetic, but there’s not much to do about them except to go on and create more Jewish life and a stronger IDF to protect it.
Pure rubbish, another distraction to focus the Jews on the arabs, paid for by BDS churches in europe. the arabs must choose not to fire rockets at jewish children, if not they should die and their children with them. those kapo soldiers should be sent in on foot to houses without first destroying them and then their parents can tell us afterwards if it is worth their dying in order to save some enemy children who will next summer be sent by their mothers to jew killing summer training camps.
Any entity or collective who attack Jewish civilians and children intentionally should be intentionally totally eradicated and no geneva conventions observed.
Libeling Jews has always been the precursor of pogroms and genocide. it is a serious offense and an incitement to the murder and genocide of Jewish children. Libels and lies of the BDS churches should be treated as heinous crimes of attempted murder and genocide against the Jewish people. The same approach should be taken against the paid Jewish kapo libelers who have been funded by the foreign BDS churches and their jew killing arab muslim proxies.
Personally I find it insulting that any consideration is given to these issues as no one has given consderation or resolution to the same issues perpetrated on Jews. It is one more BDS funding designed and created to distract jews from the crimes done to Jews and instead seek to focus on issues of interest to arabs. the fact that they employ kapo and stlckholm syndrome Jews to do their dirty work is no different than their funding of the arab jew killing org.
I care about NOTHING done to arabs until the world and the arabs first resolve what they did, and do, to the Jews.
When I see the filthy bastards engaged in the same discussions and resolve how they can properly repay the damages they did and still do to the Jews I will give consideration to their problems. Until then they can whine and whinge in a pile of rubble and shite of their own creation.