Israeli soldiers ordered to fire on Palestinians queuing for aid, say whistleblowers

Over the period in question, the Hamas-run health ministry says 549 people have been killed and 4000 have been wounded trying to pick up aid.

‘A killing field’

One soldier told Haaretz: “It’s a killing field. Where I was stationed, between one and five people were killed every day.

“They’re treated like a hostile force – no crowd-control measures, no tear gas – just live fire with everything imaginable: heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, mortars. Then, once the centre opens, the shooting stops, and they know they can approach. Our form of communication is gunfire.”

The soldier added: “We open fire early in the morning if someone tries to get in line from a few hundred metres away, and sometimes we just charge at them from close range. But there’s no danger to the forces.”

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“I’m not aware of a single instance of return fire. There’s no enemy, no weapons,” they said.

The aid distribution points at which the majority of the killings occurred are run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a controversial joint venture set up by Israel and the US to bypass the UN, which Israel has accused of working with Hamas.

It now operates four “rapid distribution” sites in Gaza – three in southern Gaza and one in the centre.

They are staffed by private US and Palestinian workers but secured by the IDF from a distance of several hundred metres and only open for an hour at a time – a tactic that attracts crowds of thousands, sometimes tens of thousands, of people.

An IDF officer told Haaretz that the military’s security perimeters around distribution points included tanks, snipers and mortars, and they were designed to protect those present and ensure aid distribution could take place.

“At night, we open fire to signal to the population that this is a combat zone, and they mustn’t come near,” the officer said.

“Once, the mortars stopped firing, and we saw people starting to approach. So we resumed fire to make it clear they weren’t allowed to. In the end, one of the shells landed on a group of people.”

In other cases, he said, “We fired machine guns from tanks and threw grenades. There was one incident where a group of civilians was hit while advancing under the cover of fog. It wasn’t intentional, but these things happen.”

‘There’s no danger’

According to the officers and soldiers who spoke to Haaretz, the IDF fires at people who arrive before opening hours to prevent them from approaching, or again after the centres close, to disperse them.

One soldier said: “We open fire early in the morning if someone tries to get in line from a few hundred metres away, and sometimes we just charge at them from close range. But there’s no danger to the forces.”

A senior officer whose name “repeatedly comes up in testimonies about the shootings near aid sites” is Brigadier General Yehuda Vach, commander of the IDF’s Division 252, reported Haaretz.

He has previously attracted criticism in the Israeli media and was reported to have once told his troops: “There are no innocents in Gaza”.

Brigadier General Vach is also suspected of ordering the destruction of a hospital in Gaza without authorisation earlier this year, according to Israeli media.

‘These are malicious falsehoods designed to defame the IDF, the most moral military in the world. IDF soldiers receive clear orders to avoid harming civilians’

Statement from Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz

However, Haaretz added: “Vach’s division is not the only one operating in the area, and it’s possible that other officers also gave orders to fire at people seeking aid.”

Nir Hasson, an investigative journalist who researched and wrote the story, with colleagues Yaniv Kubovich and Bar Peleg, said that while the “big majority” of Israelis still supported the war in Gaza, “cracks in the mainstream consensus” were starting to appear.

He said the soldiers and officers the newspaper had interviewed were motivated to speak partly for “humanitarian” reasons but also because they feared that “professionalism” and “ethics” in parts of the IDF were breaking down.

“They say it goes against the values of the IDF and the state of Israel, and they will add that it is unbelievable that we are killing starving people who only want to get to the food,” Hasson said.

‘Falsehoods’

Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel Katz, the Israeli defence minister, said the Haaretz report was “blood libel” designed to discredit the Israeli military.

“The State of Israel absolutely rejects the contemptible blood libels that have been published in the Haaretz newspaper,” they said in a joint statement.

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They added: “These are malicious falsehoods designed to defame the IDF, the most moral military in the world. IDF soldiers receive clear orders to avoid harming innocent civilians, and they act accordingly.”

In a statement, the IDF denied that its soldiers had been ordered to shoot at Palestinians but said it was investigating.

A spokesman said: “The IDF did not instruct the forces to deliberately shoot at civilians, including those approaching the distribution centres. To be clear, IDF directives prohibit deliberate attacks on civilians.”

They added that “systematic learning processes aimed at improving the operational response in the area and minimising, as much as possible, potential friction between the civilian population and IDF forces” were taking place.

The spokesman said the IDF was investigating the allegations further and “any allegation of a deviation from the law or IDF directives will be thoroughly examined, and further action will be taken as necessary”.

The Telegraph, London

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