Israeli Troops Authorized to Shoot Palestinians Virtually at Will, Report Shows

We speak with reporter Oren Ziv of +972 Magazine, whose latest investigation details how Israeli forces in Gaza have been authorized to open fire on Palestinians virtually at will. Six soldiers who fought in Gaza describe a near-total absence of firing regulations, with soldiers shooting as they please, setting homes ablaze, leaving corpses to rot on the streets and more. “It seems soldiers were shooting not from a tactical reason or a real military reason, but just out of being bored, to pass the time or just because they could,” says Ziv. “Soldiers felt they can do whatever they want, that they won’t be accountable. And all this is done also with the awareness of the commanders.” We also hear from Yuval Green, one of the reservists who spoke to Ziv and who now refuses to continue serving in the Israeli military. “I believe that continuing this war and continuing the death of Palestinians and Israeli soldiers is not right. I believe that right now the right thing to do is to sign the ceasefire treaty that is going to release the hostages and end this war,” Green says.

TRANSCRIPT

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

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

In early June, Al Jazeera aired a series of videos showing Israeli soldiers shooting dead several Palestinians walking near a coastal road in Gaza. This is an excerpt of that report.

ROB MATHESON: We’re going to begin this news hour with videos emerging out of Gaza appearing to show summary executions of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers. Al Jazeera has obtained the videos. And let me give you a warning: Some of you might find them disturbing. We’re choosing not to show the moment of death in the videos. They were taken out on al-Rashid Street. That’s the coastal road connecting north and south Gaza. Israel has designated it as a safe zone for Palestinians wanting to move between the areas.

This footage is from June 1st. It shows a person walking along the beach. Israeli soldiers appear to have stopped them, and moments later, the person is shot.

This next video is said to show a group of Palestinians walking north on May 17th. One of them steps out of the group and raises their hands in the air, apparently showing that they’re unarmed. They’re shot within minutes. Then the video appears to show soldiers coming in to take the person’s body away.

And in this footage, another person is standing in the same area with their hands in the air. This is shortly before they are shot by Israeli soldiers. The same then happens to another person later.

AMY GOODMAN: In each incident shown in that Al Jazeera report, the Palestinians shot dead by Israeli soldiers appear to be unarmed and are at a distance from the soldiers. According to a new investigative article by Israeli news outlets +972 Magazine and Local Call, these executions are consistent with the testimonies of six Israeli soldiers following their release from active duty in Gaza in recent months. The six soldiers describe being authorized to open fire on Palestinians virtually at will. The sources describe the near-total absence of firing regulations in Gaza, with Israeli troops shooting as they please, setting homes ablaze, leaving corpses on the streets, all with their commanders’ permission. The article is headlined “’I’m bored, so I shoot’: The Israeli army’s approval of free-for-all violence in Gaza.”

We’re joined now by the journalist who broke the story. Oren Ziv is a reporter and photographer for +972 Magazine. He’s joining us from outside Venice, Italy.

Oren, welcome to Democracy Now! “I’m bored, so I shoot.” First, talk about that Al Jazeera footage that we’re seeing, the footage that was taken on the coastal road in Gaza, and then that quote.

OREN ZIV: Thank you so much for having me.

So, first of all, the footage we’ve just seen from Al Jazeera is aligned with many testimonies we have been hearing from Palestinians over the last months that they are not be able — they’re not — they’re prevented from going back north, Palestinians that had to run away or to flee to the southern part of Gaza, as the Israeli army ordered. And this footage is aligned also what we are hearing during our investigation from the six soldiers. Basically, they’re saying they had a complete — almost a complete freedom to open fire.

So, we’ve been doing researches and investigation on the path from the attacks from the air, using AI and machine learning. And in this investigation, we talked to soldiers who were deployed during the war in different places, in different units on the ground. And what they are saying, basically, is that whenever they had a slight sense of fear or danger, they could shoot. Nobody would limit them. And even sensitive targets — schools, hospitals, public institutions — that officially they had to get approval from higher ranks, this was only a bureaucratical step, and it was almost always approved.

In addition, one of the soldiers described — and, actually, two — that in some areas, when the Israeli soldiers were deployed in a specific neighborhood inside the Gaza Strip, they would have a red line, a specific point, 100 meters from them, that if a Palestinian, even unarmed, even a woman or child, would cross, they were allowed to shoot in order to kill, not to arrest or warn them. And they said that every man between the age of 16 and 50, even in civilian clothes, even unarmed, was considered a fighter or a collaborator with Hamas, and it was allowed to shoot them.

AMY GOODMAN: And the quote, the headline of your piece in +972 Magazine, “I’m bored, so I shoot”?

OREN ZIV: Yes. So, many of the times, from our investigation, it seems soldiers were shooting not from a tactical reason or a real military reason, but just out of being bored, to pass the time, or just because they could. Some of the soldiers spoke to us about the, quote, “regular fire,” meaning that you shoot, and after you shoot, you say on the army radio that it is normal or regular fire, so other units in the area — and there were many soldiers deployed at the beginning of the war inside the Gaza Strip — will know that this is shooting by the Israeli army and not by Hamas fighters. But they said that this term, “regular” or “normal” shooting, was also to kind of state in other words, “I’m just shooting for fun.” One of the soldiers said that in Hanukkah, the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, some of the units in the Gaza Strip talked on the radio to shoot on a certain time to kind of light the sky, and they were just shooting for minutes just for fun.

So, I think this is one aspect, but it also teaches us that this was a very wide policy. It wasn’t just a sporadic problem here and there, but a very wide policy that soldiers felt they can do whatever they want, that they won’t be accountable. And all this is done also with the awareness of the commanders.

I must add also that because from — from day one of the war, we heard very horrific statements from Netanyahu, from the Prime Minister Netanyahu, from senior ministers in the Israeli government, talking about revenge, talking about there’s no innocent civilians in Gaza. And this went down to the commanders and down to the simple soldiers. And the soldiers that spoke to us in our investigation said that these kind of phrases — “There’s no innocent people in Gaza,” “Everybody is involved in Hamas,” “On October 7, they were all celebrating; this is why they need to be punished” — was very widely common. And this is why, the soldiers who talked to us explained, that the acts of vandalism, of looting, of a general sense of revenge were very common.

AMY GOODMAN: Oren Ziv, all but one of the six Israeli soldiers you interviewed spoke on the condition of anonymity. A 26-year-old reservist from Jerusalem named Yuval Green, in November and December, Yuval served in the 55th Paratroopers Brigade. He recently signed a letter by 41 reservists declaring their refusal to fight in Gaza after the Israeli army’s invasion of Rafah. Green said, quote, “There were no restrictions on ammunition. People were shooting just to relieve the boredom.” Well, on Thursday evening, Democracy Now! reached Yuval Green in Jerusalem and asked him what he’s calling for now.

YUVAL GREEN: I believe that continuing this war and continuing the death of Palestinians and Israeli soldiers is not right. I believe that right now the right thing to do is to sign the ceasefire treaty that is going to release the hostages and end this war. I know that the Israeli government is not yet willing to sign it.

AMY GOODMAN: Again, that’s Yuval Green, a reservist who is now refusing to fight in Gaza. All of the six that you interviewed were reservists there. You also write, “The testimonies paint … a landscape littered with civilian corpses, which are left to rot or be eaten by stray animals; the army only hides them from view ahead of the arrival of international aid convoys, so that ‘images of people in advanced stages of decay don’t come out.’” Go from Yuval to this picture of Gaza.

OREN ZIV: I think what several soldiers told us, that the army was not dealing with dead people, dead Palestinians, and it was very common to see them on the side of the road when they’re moving to one place to another. And also, Yuval himself and other soldiers told us that when the army was moving from — so, Israeli soldiers were deployed inside Palestinian homes and houses, and when they had to move to a new position, the official policy, as we understand, was to burn the house down. The soldiers would gather the mattresses and the furniture and light the house on fire and move on. The official explanation by the commanders to Yuval, but also to other soldiers, was the fact that they don’t want anything sensitive to be left there, military equipment or maps or anything like that, but also that Hamas will not use the houses. But between the lines, you can understand that this was also an act of revenge to punish Palestinian civilians and also to make sure they cannot go back to those areas, areas that at least some people in the army believed would stay in Israeli control.

AMY GOODMAN: Yuval also told you, Yuval Green, who was the only one to be named in your piece, about the army’s deep indifference to the fate of the hostages. Can you elaborate further? Indeed, of course, as we know, in December, the Israeli soldiers shot and killed three Israeli hostages as they approached the troops for help, speaking in Hebrew, with their arms up, stripped down, so that they could — the Israeli military would clearly see they weren’t armed. These were hostages.

OREN ZIV: Yes. So, yes. Thank you for the question. The official line of the Israeli government and the Israeli army, the force commanders, is that the operation in Gaza, the war in Gaza, is also in order to bring back the hostages alive. Now, in nine months of war, this didn’t really happen, and they managed to rescue a very small number of hostages alive by military force. Most of the hostages were released in a deal in November. And the soldiers we spoke to, not only Yuval Green, said that, in general, there were not many instructions regarding hostages, and in the way the army was using shooting on the ground, was using force, for them it was clear that hostages might get hurt or even killed.

I think, in addition to Yuval, there was another soldier that was on the regular army service that said they didn’t have any cellphone, they didn’t get any news. And he heard about the three hostages being killed on December only when he got back home for a short vacation. Now, after the killing of the three hostages by the Israeli army, the army said in statements that they would make it more clear for soldiers. But at least according to the soldier we spoke to that was on the frontline, they didn’t hear even about the incident, not to speak about new orders or guidelines.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you so much for being with us, Oren Ziv, reporter and photographer for +972 Magazine. We’re going to link to your piece “’I’m bored, so I shoot’: The Israeli army’s approval of free-for-all violence in Gaza.”

That does it for our show. Next week, Democracy Now! will be in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, at the Republican National Convention, bringing you an extended daily two-hour broadcast, “Breaking with Convention: War, Peace and the Presidency.” I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks so much for joining us.