Ariel David : Israeli soldiers' group welcomes furor over Gaza war testimonies
Breaking
the Silence calls for public debate over the way the Gaza war was
fought, after the controversial publication of a booklet of soldiers'
testimonies.
HAARETZ.COM
A group of army veterans that published a collection of soldiers' testimonials critical of the Israel Defense Forces' conduct in the Gaza war is welcoming the furor that has been following the report's publication.
Members of Breaking the Silence said Tuesday that even though many of the reactions to the report had been critical, the group felt it was succeeding in its goal of opening a public debate on what it claims was the army's reckless disregard for the lives of Palestinian civilians during last summer's conflict.
"People do want to listen, even if there were angry reactions - we want to initiate a discussion on our morality and on the way we fought in Gaza," said Avner Gvaryahu, a spokesman for the group.
"We want Israeli society to take responsibility," he said at a presentation of the report held in a Tel Aviv conference hall. "We placed a mirror to the face of Israeli society, and the reflection is not a pretty one."
The report released last week includes the testimonies of over 60 IDF soldiers and officers who fought in or provided combat support for Operation Protective Edge last July and August. Breaking the Silence says the testimonies indicate that to reduce risks for its soldiers, the IDF operated according to lax engagement rules, opening fire on Palestinian civilians and property even when they posed no evident or immediate threat.
The testimonies show that soldiers were told that any Palestinians remaining in the Gaza Strip neighborhoods that the IDF entered should be considered enemy combatants, said Avihai Stollar, the group's chief researcher.
The army used fliers, phone calls and other techniques to warn civilians that it was about to enter certain areas of the coastal strip, and "the instructions the soldiers received were: 'we warned the civilians beforehand and anyone who remained in these neighborhoods is an enemy,'" Stollar said.
During Tuesday's presentation, some of the anonymous testimonies were read out or shown on video, including one by an infantry soldier who recounts how two Palestinian women were killed after being spotted nearly a kilometer away from an IDF force talking on their cell phones in an orchard.
"The bodies were checked and they were unarmed," the soldier recalls. "They were still listed as terrorists: they were shot at, so of course they must have been terrorists."
The army has said it is committed to investigate all claims against it but that Breaking the Silence has not provided evidence of its allegations. The group says it sent a letter to IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot a month before publishing the report asking for a meeting and never received a response.
The report, titled "This is how we fought in Gaza," has generated furious debate in the media and amongst politicians, with critics saying it lacks credibility due to the anonymous nature of the testimonies.
Earlier Tuesday, members of parliament from the left-wing Meretz party read out parts of the report in the Knesset, raising howls of dissent from their opponents to the right. MK Sharon Gal of Yisrael Beiteinu was expelled from the session after calling his Meretz colleagues "criminals" and "a bunch of collaborators."
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