The Israeli website Sicha Mekomit published a report on June 8 documenting the testimonies of six Israeli soldiers who participated in the ground war on the Gaza Strip. The soldiers asserted that they would shoot at will, kill civilians for fun, burn houses, leave bodies in the streets, and consider every man between 16 and 50 years old a 'terrorist.'
This report comes as the war waged by Israel on the Gaza Strip enters its tenth month, having left more than 38,000 victims, most of whom are women and children, in addition to thousands of wounded and prisoners.
Israeli Soldiers: We Shoot Everyone, Even Women and Children
The six soldiers (who refused to reveal their identities except for one) said that shooting everyone in Gaza occurs with the approval of their commanders in the army and that they were allowed to shoot Palestinians almost without restrictions, including civilians.
The website pointed out that the testimonies of soldiers who were released from active service in Gaza in recent months are consistent with shocking video clips broadcast by Al Jazeera at the beginning of last June, in which Israeli soldiers appeared shooting at several Palestinians who were walking near the coastal road in the Gaza Strip, describing these as "field executions."
The website explained that this happened on three separate occasions, and it appeared that the Palestinians were unarmed and did not pose an imminent threat to the soldiers. It stressed that this footage is considered rare due to the severe restrictions imposed on journalists in the besieged area that constantly threaten their lives.
The soldiers said in their testimonies that there is no regulated policy for shooting in Gaza, that it is often carried out even without specific targets, including apparently unofficial shooting, and that permission is almost given to fire indiscriminately and randomly, even at buildings.
Another soldier who served regularly in the Gaza Strip for several months said, “There was complete freedom of action. If there was a feeling of threat, there was no need to explain—we shoot,” meaning that the shooting took place without distinguishing between civilians and militants.
Another soldier added, "If someone approaches, it is permissible to shoot him in the center of mass (the body) and not in the air, and it is permissible to shoot at everyone, a girl or an old woman."
He stressed that "every man between the ages of 16 and 50 is a suspect terrorist and is not allowed to roam around, and that anyone outside is considered a suspect, and if a man is standing at the window, he will be shot."
The soldier pointed out that even after soldiers shot and killed three Israeli hostages in Shujaiya last December, even though they were raising the white flag and did not pose a threat to the forces, the instructions for opening fire did not change.
This soldier witnessed a crime that occurred in November 2023, when soldiers from the occupation army killed dozens of civilians at the entrance to a school in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood in Gaza City, which was being used as a shelter for displaced Palestinians. The army then ordered the displaced people to leave the school and head to the left, but when the battle began, some of them fled to the right, including children. The soldier said: "Everyone who went to the right was killed. There was a pile of corpses."
The Israeli Army Shoots Civilians in Gaza for Fun
Yuval Green, a 26-year-old Israeli soldier who served in the reserves in the 55th Paratroopers Brigade in Gaza during November and December, said there were no restrictions on ammunition and that soldiers were shooting freely to reduce their boredom.
Another reserve soldier, who entered the northern Gaza Strip dozens of times since the beginning of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, stated that soldiers were shooting a lot, even without reason. Anyone who wanted to shoot for any reason would do so and then report it as normal. He added in his testimony that the shooting aimed to awaken the area, force people out of hiding, or show presence. Indiscriminate shooting came from ships, tanks, planes, and mainly from small weapons.
The soldier narrated in his testimony that the random shooting was a symbolic expression of “I'm bored, so I shoot.” He noted that soldiers arriving at the "defenders"—temporary compounds where the army resides in Gaza—were asking to go up to the positions to shoot.
The soldier also revealed that a family consisting of an adult man, his wife, and two children had been shot, stressing in his speech that he felt disgusted with himself.
Palestinian Corpses Are Being Eaten by Dogs and Cats
According to the same report, soldiers testified that many bodies of Palestinians in civilian clothes remained scattered in open areas and on the roads, and that the entire area was filled with corpses.
One of the soldiers said in his testimony that he often saw dogs walking around with parts of rotting bodies. In the same context, he pointed out that Israeli soldiers hide the bodies before humanitarian convoys arrive.
He noted that the number of Palestinian deaths was greater than reported, stressing that he was serving in a small area and was killing at least two civilians every day, most of whom did not carry weapons.
Soldier Yuval Green said in his testimony that when he arrived in Khan Yunis, he saw an indistinct mass outside a house and realized it was a corpse being eaten by cats. A civilian official who visited the northern Gaza Strip also reported the presence of scattered bodies in the area. He said, "Near the army compound between the northern and southern Gaza Strip, we saw about ten bodies with bullet wounds to the head, perhaps by a sniper. They were trying to return to the northern Gaza Strip." He added, "The bodies were in a state of decay, and there were dogs and cats around them."
The Israeli Army Steals and Burns Palestinians’ Homes
Two of the soldiers who gave their testimony to the Sicha Mekomit website considered that burning Palestinian homes after stealing their contents had become a policy among Israeli soldiers since the beginning of the war in the Gaza Strip.
Yuval Green said that the burning of houses in the city of Khan Yunis was organized, stressing that as the soldiers moved from one place to another, they had to burn the house in which they were holed up.
He added, "We are in the houses not because they belong to Hamas, but because they practically serve us. This is a house for two or three families, and destroying it means that they all will become homeless."
Another soldier revealed that burning houses was routine. After the soldiers left the house in which they found a hideout, they burned it. He described this by saying, “Before they left, they burned the whole house.”
He explained that before the soldiers leave, they take all the mattresses, furniture, and blankets along with some gasoline or gas cylinders and set fire to the house, which burns easily, noting that "the burning of houses is supported by the army leadership so that the Palestinians cannot return."
Israeli Soldier: The Destruction Caused by the Army in Gaza Is Unimaginable
Yuval Green says that the devastation caused by the army in Gaza is 'unimaginable,' and that at the beginning of the fighting, they were moving from house to house 50 meters away from each other.
He added, 'Every day, houses are destroyed. I will never forget how the neighborhood was beautiful and then it turned into sand. We destroyed everything we wanted to. This was not out of a desire to destroy, but out of complete indifference toward everything that belongs to the Palestinians.'
Green confirmed that the soldiers were stealing the contents of the homes and treating them like souvenir shops, adding, 'In the end, you die of boredom and wait there for several days, drawing obscene things on the walls, playing with clothes, using everything we find—mattresses, food. Someone found a hundred shekels, so he took it.'
The Soldiers’ Testimony Belies the Israeli Narrative About Protecting Civilians in Gaza
The testimonies of the six soldiers starkly contradict the Israeli narrative presented by army leaders and government officials, who consistently claim efforts to protect civilians in Gaza and ensure safe passages during displacement.
Israel defended itself before the International Court of Justice, asserting it did everything possible to safeguard Gaza civilians and denying accusations of genocide. However, these claims are at odds with the soldiers' testimonies.
Israel justified its Gaza operations as self-defense against Al-Qassam fighters, vehemently rejecting accusations of war crimes and crimes against humanity during the ongoing military operation.
Yet, soldiers' admissions of premeditated killings, property looting, home destruction, and street bulldozing undermine Israel's efforts to absolve itself of these allegations.
Article 6 of the Charter of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg in 1945 defines "war crimes" as violations of laws and customs of war, including killings, ill-treatment or deportation of civilian populations in occupied territories, mistreatment of prisoners of war or individuals at sea, hostage killings, plundering public or private property, and destruction not justified by military necessity.
Human Rights Reports: Israel Commits Violations Against Children in Palestine and Deliberately Kills Civilians
Although the testimonies of the six soldiers clearly contradict Israel's narrative, they corroborate reports from international human rights organizations accusing the Israeli occupation army of committing violations and war crimes against civilians and children in Gaza.
In a June 23 report, Human Rights Watch stated that the Secretary-General of the United Nations, for the first time, added the Israeli armed forces to the "List of Shame," which lists warring parties committing grave violations against children in armed conflicts.
According to the same report, the United Nations attributed over 8,700 child victims to Israeli forces between 2015 and 2022. In 2023, the scale of violations was deemed too significant for the Secretary-General to ignore.
On June 12, 2023, a United Nations investigation held Israeli authorities accountable for war crimes and serious violations of international law committed on a large scale during military operations and attacks in Gaza since October 7, 2023.
The report confirmed Israeli authorities' responsibility for war crimes including starvation as a method of warfare, premeditated killings, intentional attacks on civilians and civilian objects, forced transfers, sexual violence, torture, arbitrary detention, and attacks on human dignity.
The supervisory committee overseeing the investigation concluded that Palestinian men and boys were targeted through crimes against humanity such as genocide and sexual persecution, alongside murders, forced transfers, torture, and inhuman treatment.
The committee highlighted the high civilian casualties and extensive destruction of essential infrastructure in Gaza as inevitable consequences of a strategy aimed at maximum destruction, disregarding principles of distinction, precaution, and proportionality.
It further condemned the deliberate use of heavy weapons with high destructive capabilities in densely populated residential areas as direct attacks on the civilian population.
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