Breaking the Silence creates an uproar
Israel’s war on Gaza earlier this year was one of the most gruesome and destructive chapters in the decades-old Palestinian struggle against Israeli occupation and dispossession. For 22 days, the Israeli army, navy and air force pounded the coastal strip, destroying tens of thousands of homes as well as schools, mosques, food depots and hospitals. Over 1,400 Palestinians were killed, of whom only about 250 were combatants.
Palestinians contended that from the very beginning of the assault, Israeli forces were operating under extremely lax rules of engagement and that the lives of Palestinian civilians were completely disregarded. Human rights organizations, investigating the war and its aftermath, concluded that Israeli soldiers were reckless and committed acts of deliberate destruction. Amnesty International found that Israeli troops had used Palestinian civilians as human shields – a war crime and tactic which Israel had continuously accused Hamas of using during the war although Amnesty found no evidence of that.
Today, Israeli human rights group Breaking the Silence, has released testimony from soldiers who served in Gaza that corroborates Amnesty’s claims and vindicate Palestinian accusations of criminal conduct by Israeli soldiers.
Others spoke of the destruction of homes and mosques for no military purpose and the general attitude drummed into the soldiers by their officers that nobody in Gaza was innocent. Still others commented on the permissive use of white phosphorous in populated areas and instructions to fire if the soldiers felt any danger without verifying the threat.
The revelations will not be received with shock in many parts of the world. The total destruction, gruesome civilian death toll and heavy bombardment of the most densely populated area on earth had by themselves elicited the disgust of many around the globe. Such testimonies will simply confirm what many already knew: the Israeli army committed war crimes in Gaza.
As for the impact they will have within Israeli society, it will take a lot for the testimonies to permeate the culture of denial surrounding the war on Gaza. During the assault the war had almost universal support in Israel and across the entire political spectrum. Most Israelis are still convinced that they actually fought a defensive war; but two years after the 2006 Lebanon war, the military leadership was well aware of the Israeli public’s aversion to deaths amongst their own soldiers. At the same time, sure of the public’s indifference to the total destruction of Gaza, the soldiers operated under the guise that they were to minimize the danger to their lives at any cost. As one soldier says in his testimony, “The soldiers were made to understand that their lives were most important. There was no war our soldiers would get killed for leaving civilians the benefit of the doubt.”
