| Follow us on Twitter |
The BBC reports that:
An Israeli military college has printed damning soldiers' accounts of the killing of civilians and vandalism during recent operations in Gaza.
One account tells of a sniper killing a mother and children at close range whom troops had told to leave their home.
Another speaker at the seminar described what he saw as the "cold blooded murder" of a Palestinian woman.
This is highly important testimony. Critics of Israel are often damned as antisemitic or simply naive to the reality of the conflict, neither charge can be brought against Israeli soldiers so easily. The BBC continues:
[a] Palestinian woman and two of her children were allegedly shot after they misunderstood instructions about which way to walk having been ordered out of their home by troops.
"The climate in general... I don't know how to describe it.... the lives of Palestinians, let's say, are much, much less important than the lives of our soldiers," an infantry squad leader is quoted saying.
In another cited case, a commander ordered troops to kill an elderly woman walking on a road, even though she was easily identifiable and clearly not a threat.
Testimonies, which were given by combat pilots and infantry soldiers, also included allegations of unnecessary destruction of Palestinian property.
"We would throw everything out of the windows to make room and order. Everything... Refrigerators, plates, furniture. The order was to throw all of the house's contents outside," a soldier said.
One non-commissioned officer related at the seminar that an old woman crossing a main road was shot by soldiers.
"I don't know whether she was suspicious, not suspicious, I don't know her story… I do know that my officer sent people to the roof in order to take her out… It was cold-blooded murder," he said.
When their own soldiers serving at the very heart of the conflict are saying this, how can the Israeli government claim it has the moral high ground? Or deny the obvious injustices of its forty year occupation?
Posted March 19th, 2009 by mattwion
