Portside Date: May 6, 2015

Date of source: May 6, 2015

Democray Now!

A new report based on testimonies of Israeli soldiers concludes the massive civilian death toll from last summer’s Israeli assault on Gaza resulted from a policy of indiscriminate fire. The Israeli veterans group Breaking the Silence released testimonies of more than 60 Israeli officers and soldiers which it says illustrate a "broad ethical failure" that "comes from the top of the chain of command." More than 2,200 Palestinians were killed in the assault, the vast majority civilians. On Israel’s side, 73 people were killed, all but six of them soldiers. During the 50-day operation, more than 20,000 Palestinian homes were destroyed, and hundreds of thousands of people are still displaced. We hear candid video testimonies from the soldiers and speak to former Israeli paratrooper Avner Gvaryahu, director of public outreach at Breaking the Silence.

TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We begin today’s show with a new report based on testimonies of Israeli soldiers that concludes the massive civilian death toll from last summer’s Israeli assault on Gaza resulted from a "policy of indiscriminate fire." The Israeli veterans group Breaking the Silence released testimonies of more than 60 Israeli officers and soldiers, which it says illustrate a, quote, "broad ethical failure" that "comes from the top of the chain of command." More than 2,200 Palestinians were killed in the assault, the vast majority of them civilians. On Israel’s side, 73 people were killed, all but six of them soldiers. During the 50-day operation, more than 20,000 Palestinian homes were destroyed, and hundreds of thousands of people are still displaced.

AMY GOODMAN: In a video made by Breaking the Silence, a first sergeant in the Israeli military, his voice distorted, describes how a commander told him, "There are no innocent civilians," and to assume anyone within 200 or 400 meters of the Israeli Defense Forces was an enemy. ’

IDF FIRST SERGEANT: [translated] The commander announced, "Folks, tomorrow we enter. I want you to be determined, task-oriented and confident. The entire nation is behind you"—the usual speeches. And then he spoke about the rules of engagement. And I quote: "The rules of engagement are: Any person at a distance that could put you at risk, you kill him with no need for clearance." Meaning, anyone at a distance of 200, 300, 400 meters from us, isn’t an ordinary civilian. According to IDF logic, he must be there for a reason, because an ordinary civilian would flee the area, and so, we must kill him with no need for clearance. For me, it was just spine-tingling. I said to him, "Let me get this straight. Any person I see in the neighborhood where we’re headed, I spot him and kill him?" He said, "Yes. Any sane person who sees a tank battalion in his neighborhood will run away. If he sticks around, then he’s up to something. And if he’s up to something, it’s against you. So shoot him." So I tried to dig a little deeper and asked, "What if it’s an innocent civilian?" He said, "There are no innocent civilians. Your presumption should be that anyone within the area of battle, 200, 300, 400 meters from you, is your enemy."

AMY GOODMAN: That was an Israeli Defense Force, IDF, soldier who served during last summer’s Israeli assault on Gaza, known as Operation Protective Edge. His testimony is part of a new report just released by the veterans group Breaking the Silence.

For more, we go to Tel Aviv, Israel, where we’re joined by Avner Gvaryahu, director of public outreach at Breaking the Silence. He’s a former IDF solder who served from 2004 to ’07 as a sergeant in a special operations unit around Nablus and Jenin.

We welcome you, Avner, to Democracy Now! Talk about the number of people who are speaking out and why you have done this now.

AVNER GVARYAHU: So, hi, Amy. We’re a group, Breaking the Silence, as an organization, a group of former IDF soldiers, and actually some of us are still current IDF soldiers. Throughout the years, we’ve met more than a thousand soldiers. And this time around, this summer, when the summer ended, and we realized—we saw the amount of damage, we realized that something went terribly wrong. And we actually started getting phone calls, emails from soldiers who were themselves in this operation. And then we, ourselves, also started reaching out to people. So we’re talking about, as you said, more than 60 soldiers. A third of them are officers, which is a very high number for us. And we’re talking about people that all served during the summer in different positions, in different units. We’re not talking about soldiers from only one specific place, but throughout the entire Strip in different positions. And I think reading these testimonies, it definitely did this to me and to us in the organization, but I think it’s very, very clear that something went terribly, terribly wrong. And the bare minimum we can do is listen to the same soldiers we sent to fight in our name.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Avner, what penalties are the—in all of these clips, the soldiers are anonymous, their identities are not revealed. What penalties do they face for speaking out? And how did you manage to get so many people to get together to testify in one video?

AVNER GVARYAHU: Well, it’s actually—it’s not an easy task. It’s not trivial to speak out in Israel today. It’s definitely something that is difficult. And I have to say that the soldiers, who are anonymous—and all the testimonies that are given are given to us, you know, one on one, so we know each and every one of the testifiers, but for various reasons we have decided to make sure all our testifiers will be anonymous. But they’re not scared of the penalties. They’re not scared of legal repercussions. They’re actually scared of the reaction of their society and the fact that they will be seen as the scapegoat. And I think one of the points that we’ve always tried to make is that the soldiers coming and speaking out are not the problem. The soldiers coming and speaking out, in my eyes, are maybe a way for solution. They’re really managing to pinpoint or to put a spotlight on the orders they got from up high. And that’s where we’re going to try to push the debate, to a larger public debate about the way we fight our wars, the way we fight in Gaza, and maybe try to make sure next time around will—won’t be that close or maybe won’t happen at all.

AMY GOODMAN: In this clip, a first sergeant describes his commander’s order to randomly fire on a neighborhood in the Gaza Strip during the assault last summer.

IDF FIRST SERGEANT: [translated] So he gave an order: "Guys, park the tanks in a row. Assume position facing the neighborhood of Al-Bureij and prepare for contact." Contact means we all shoot at once, after a countdown—three, two, one, shoot. I remember all the tanks stood in a row, and I personally asked my commander, "Where do we shoot?" He said, "Wherever you like." Later on, I also heard from the other guys that everyone just chose a target. And he said on the radio, "Good morning, Al-Bureij. Guys, we’re going to do a 'Good morning, Al-Bureij.'" This meant waking up the neighborhood to show them that the IDF is here and to deter them. I remember how the tanks stood in a row. So did ours. And I, the gunman, looked at some house, a very tall house, in the center of that neighborhood some 2,000 meters away, which is about two kilometers. And I asked my commander, "Where in the house do I aim?" He said, "Aim a little to the right, a little to the left, at that window, at that floor. Three, two, one, shoot." And we all shot shells sporadically, of course. At no point was anyone shooting at us, though.

for the rest of this interview, go to Democracy Now!