Israeli veterans admit Gaza massacre

Israeli army veterans’ organization, 'Breaking the Silence' has harshly criticized the army for its operational policy during last summer’s war in Gaza, admitting it led to “immense and unprecedented harm to the civilian population and infrastructures in the Gaza Strip.”

The organization has released a report containing testimonies of 60 troops and officers who fought during the war that turned genocidal when the Israeli army resorted to the mass killings of the Palestinian civilians in a bungled bid to crush the resolve of the resistance fighters.

The group said the testimonies are indicative of a general principle that governed the entire military operation: minimum risk to the Israeli forces, even if it meant civilian casualties.

One of the soldiers stated that the rules of engagement basically established that anyone found in an army area, which the Israeli army had occupied, was not a civilian.

An armored infantry soldier admitted that, at some point, it was understood that any home which Israeli forces entered and used would be destroyed afterward by large D9 bulldozers.

“At no point until the end of the operation … did anyone tell us what the operational usefulness was in exposing [razing] the houses,” he said.

“During a conversation, the unit commanders explained that it wasn’t an act of revenge. At a certain point we realized this was a trend. You leave a house and there’s no longer a house. The D9 comes and exposes [it].”

Another soldier added, “There was one senior commander who really loved the D9 and was really in favor of flattening; he worked a lot with them. Let’s just say that anytime he was in a certain place, all the infrastructures around the building were totally destroyed – nearly every house had a shell in it.”

The detailed testimonies in the report include other practices that some units adopted during the war.