Israel military razed Gaza perimeter land to create ‘kill zone’, soldiers say- Combatants’ testimonies describe how areas were destroyed to create ‘a death zone of enormous proportions’

"One of the soldiers who provided testimony to Breaking the Silence on condition of anonymity said their unit was told to shoot anyone in the perimeter area on sight. The mentality in their unit, they said, was that there was no such thing as a “civilian” and everyone who walked into the perimeter would be considered a “terrorist”..."

Smoke rises over a ruined building in the Gaza Strip after an Israeli bombardment last week, as seen from a position on the Israeli side of the border. Photograph: Amir Levy/Getty Images

Israel’s military razed huge swathes of land inside the perimeter of Gaza and ordered troops to turn the area into a “kill zone” where anybody who entered was a target, according to testimony by soldiers who carried out the plan.

Israeli combatants said they were ordered to destroy homes, factories and farmland roughly 1km (0.6 miles) inside the perimeter of Gaza to make a “buffer zone”, with one describing the area as looking like Hiroshima.

The testimonies are some of the first accounts by Israeli soldiers to be published since the latest war started in October 2023 after Hamas’s attack on Israel. They were collected by Breaking the Silence, a group founded in 2004 by Israeli veterans who aim to expose the reality of the military’s grip over Palestinians. The Guardian interviewed four of the soldiers who corroborated the accounts.

Titled “The Perimeter” and published on Monday, the report said the stated purpose of the plan was to create a thick strip of land that provided a clear line of sight for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to identify and kill... READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/07/israel-military-gaza-perimeter-land-testimony-report

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NPR: Israeli settlers step up attacks on Palestinian farms, expanding West Bank outposts: "Think if you got into a fight with your neighbor, and your neighbor was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, and then all of a sudden, you discover that he's been made chief of police."

 by

Eleanor Beardsley

"....Those soldiers have been sent to the front in Gaza and the embattled northern border with Lebanon.

The reservists now manning the increasing number of checkpoints are the settlers who actually live here.

He [Nadav Weiman*] illustrates the problem with a comparison to America's notorious white supremacist group.

"Think if you got into a fight with your neighbor, and your neighbor was a member of the Ku Klux Klan," he says, "and then all of a sudden, you discover that he's been made chief of police."

The Israeli military has tightened restrictions on Palestinians' movement across the West Bank in the wake of the Oct. 7 attack. Many additional roads have been closed with iron barriers or simply blocked with massive mounds of dirt and gravel. Weiman says Palestinians are now forced to take long, circuitous routes just to go between home and work...." READ MORE https://www.npr.org/2024/03/23/1236628495/israel-settlers-attack-west-bank-palestinians-settlement-outposts

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*Weiman was an Israeli special forces soldier between 2005 and 2008 and served all over the West Bank. Today he's deputy director of Breaking the Silence, an organization of Israeli army veterans that advocates to end Israel's military occupation of the territory.

Nuha Musleh contributed reporting from Ramallah, West Bank; Eve Guterman contributed reporting from South Hebron Hills in the West Bank and Tel Aviv, Israel.

Abdullah Odeh says all his dreams went up in flames when his business was torched by settlers from the settlement of Yizhar in the occupied West Bank. photo by Ayman Oghanna for NPR.

Breaking the Silence: More than 30 former Israeli soldiers have disclosed their experiences of the treatment of Palestinian children during military operations and arrests, pointing to a pattern of abuse.

"For years credible reports of human rights abuses against children living under Israeli military occupation have emerged," he said. "These latest testimonies from young soldiers given the task of enforcing the occupation provide further evidence of its deeply corrosive effects on all. The testimonies lay bare the day-to-day reality of the occupation. These are not isolated incidents or a question of 'a few bad apples'. This is the natural and foreseeable consequence of government policy."

Former Israeli soldiers disclose routine mistreatment of Palestinian children

26 Aug 2012: Booklet of testimonies of former Israeli soldiers describes beatings, intimidation and humiliation of children  

 

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