By John Pickard
It is becoming increasingly difficult for Israeli and world politicians to deny the appalling commission of war crimes by Israel in Gaza. IDF soldiers have openly admitted that parts of the Gaza strip are “killing fields” and that unarmed civilians are being shot at for no other reason than that they are desperate for food.
An article in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, (June 27) revealed interviews with solidiers about their activities in Gaza and for anyone with an ounce of humanity, the stories are appalling. Soldiers told the newspaper that they have “deliberately fired at Palestinians near aid distribution sites”. The article is long – over 3000 words – and is behind a paywall, so it is necessary to quote some parts of it at length here.
The recent spate of killings associated with food aid, revolve around the distribution centres run by the Israeli/US organisation, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which is a private organisation backed, apparently, by an evangelican Christian close to Trump. They have four distribution centres, three of which are in southern Gaza, and although staffed by civilians, they are ‘protected’, from a distance, by the IDF.
Food centres open for an hour a day
As the Haaretz article makes clear, thousands and sometimes tens of thousands of desperate people turn up to get food, yet the centres are typically open for only one hour each morning. Unsurprisingly, the distribution is chaotic and thousands turn up in the early morning, when it is still dark, in the hope of getting food. Young men sometimes hide behind mounds of rubble, to dash out to steal a bag of flour or food as it is being delivered.
It is in these appalling circumstances that starving and desperate people become targets for the IDF. “Conversations with officers and soldiers” the Haaretz article says, “reveal that commanders ordered troops to shoot at crowds to drive them away or disperse them, even though it was clear they posed no threat”. The newspaper has counted no fewer than nineteen shooting incidents – involving mortars, tank shells, heavy machine guns and assault rifles – near the centres, and as a result hundreds have been killed.
The IDF’s idea of ‘crowd control’ is to shoot at those who arrive too early, to prevent them from getting too close, and then, when the distribution of food needs to come to an and, shooting to disperse them.
“Our form of communication is gunfire” – IDF soldier
“It’s a killing field,” one soldier said. “Where I was stationed, between one and five 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 center 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 meters away, and sometimes we just charge at them from close range. But there’s no danger to the forces.” According to him, “I’m not aware of a single instance of return fire. There’s no enemy, no weapons.” He also said the activity in his area of service is referred to as Operation Salted Fish – the name of the Israeli version of the children’s game “Red light, green light”. (Haaretz)
“At night, we open fire to signal to the population that this is a combat zone and they mustn’t come near,” an officer recounted. “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.”
“Firing mortars to keep hungry people away is neither professional nor humane”
Among ordinary soldiers and reservists, it is clear from their comments to Haaretz that there is growing concern about the war crimes they see being perpetrated on a daily basis.
One soldier told the newspaper that “working with a civilian population when your only means of interaction is opening fire – that’s highly problematic, to say the least.” Then he added, “It’s neither ethically nor morally acceptable for people to have to reach, or fail to reach, a [humanitarian zone] under tank fire, snipers and mortar shells.” Another told Haaretz, “Firing mortars to keep hungry people away is neither professional nor humane”.
As much as anything, some soldiers are concerned that the killing has become ‘normalised’. “Gaza doesn’t interest anyone anymore,” one reservist told Haaretz, “It’s become a place with its own set of rules. The loss of human life means nothing. It’s not even an ‘unfortunate incident,’ like they used to say.”
Adding to the chaos of food distribution, the Israeli government have given private contractors work demolishing houses in some parts of Gaza, using heavy equipment. They get 5,000 shekels (about $1,500) for every house they demolish. “They’re making a fortune”, one serving soldier told Haaretz. But their demolition programme often brings them close to the GHF distribution points or along the routes taken by aid trucks.
“In order [for the contractors] to protect themselves, a shooting incident breaks out, and people are killed,” an IDF officer said. “These are areas where Palestinians are allowed to be – we’re the ones who moved closer and decided [they] endangered us. So, for a contractor to make another 5,000 shekels and take down a house, it’s deemed acceptable to kill people who are only looking for food.”
There are particular army units – Division 252 is named by Haaretz, with its commanding officer, General Vach – which are notoriously responsible for shooting incidents, as well as ‘unauthorised’ actions like demolition of a hospital. But despite suggestions of official inquiries at the top of the IDF, most senior officers and many ordinary soldiers feel themselves completely immune from any consequences for their war crimes.
Questioning an order to kill just annoys the commander
One reserve tank soldier who recently served with Division 252 in northern Gaza confirmed the IDF’s “deterrence procedure” for dispersing civilians who gather in violation of military orders. “Teenagers waiting for the trucks hide behind dirt mounds and rush them as they pass or stop at distribution points,” he said. “We usually see them from hundreds of meters away; it’s not a situation where they pose a threat to us.”
In one incident, he was instructed to fire a shell toward a crowd gathered near the coastline. “Technically, it’s supposed to be warning fire – either to push people back or stop them from advancing,” he said. “But lately, firing shells has just become standard practice. Every time we fire, there are casualties and deaths, and when someone asks why a shell is necessary, there’s never a good answer. Sometimes, merely asking the question annoys the commanders.”
The official line is that those who are shot at are posing some kind of threat to the IDF hundreds of metres away. But as one soldier explained, people are shot, even while they are running away. “…we see them running back to Gaza, why shoot at them?” a soldier asked. “Sometimes we’re told they’re still hiding, and we need to fire in their direction because they haven’t left. But it’s obvious they can’t leave if the moment they get up and run, we open fire.”
Palestinians running away are shot in the back
“This thing called killing innocent people” an IDF soldier told Haaretz, “it’s been normalized”. As another soldier put it, it has become ‘routine’. “You know it’s not right. You feel it’s not right – that the commanders here are taking the law into their own hands. But Gaza is a parallel universe. You move on quickly. The truth is, most people don’t even stop to think about it.”
The article in Haaretz describes discussions among senior officers about the food distribution and huge upsurge in killings in Gaza. But there is no soul-searching or attacks of conscience. “They talk about using artillery on a junction full of civilians as if it’s normal,” said one military source who attended meetings. “An entire conversation about whether it’s right or wrong to use artillery, without even asking why that weapon was needed in the first place. What concerns everyone is whether it’ll hurt our legitimacy to keep operating in Gaza. The moral aspect is practically nonexistent”
These officers busy killing innocent and unarmed civilians are right about one thing – as the Haaretz article says, “global criticism over the killing of civilians is mounting”. As it should be, with approaching six hundred killed near the food distribution centres and over four thousand wounded. It is, as the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres describes it, “slaughter masquerading as humanitarian aid.“
Politicians cannot claim “they do not know”
Haaretz is Israel’s third most popular newspaper, according to a 2022 poll, with 100,000 digital subscriptions. Because it is giving to the truth to at least a part of the Israeli population, it has incurred the wrath of the Israeli far right. Netanyahu has described the revelations in this article, typically, as a “blood libel” and accuses any soldier of talking to Haaretz about their experiences in Gaza as being “antisemitic”. The full truth of what is happening in Gaza cannot be hidden indefinitely from Israeli workers.
Neither can western politicians continue to plead ignorance. Reports like this in Haaretz will circulate in the west, even if the mainstream media like the BBC, ignors them entirely because of a blatant pro-Israel bias. Via other outlets like Al Jazeera – which often quotes Haaretz – these reports will also be common knowledge in the Arab world.
It remains a monumental disgrace that most western political leaders keep silent over war crimes being committed in plain sight. It is unforgiveable that so-called ‘Labour’ figures like Keir Starmer and Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, cannot find an ounce of humanity to condemn these atrocities. Labour movement activists should raise these issues urgently in meetings – quoting Haaretz – to highlight what is going on in Gaza.
Those who, by their silence, are complicit in such crimes have no place at the head of a Labour Party.
I’ve said for some time that Starmer should cross the house and join his right wing friends in the tory party. You only have to look at the way he agreed with tory policies when rishi sunak was PM. It could be argued that Starmer is a puppet of the right in both parties and whose aim is to get rid of left labour members.