Operation Protective Edge, which took place in the summer of 2014, was the deadliest Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip since 1967 until the current war. More than 2,200 Palestinians were killed, 1,391 of them civilians, according to Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem. Many soldiers who participated in the operation told Breaking the Silence that there was little need for commanders to refer to people as enemy combatants. Two women who were walking unarmed through an orchard and talking on a cell phone were killed on suspicion of being an Israeli spy, one of the soldiers said. After the commander ordered their bodies to be examined, the conclusion was that “they had been shot at, so of course they must be terrorists,” the soldier said. His identity, like that of many witnesses, has been kept anonymous to protect his identity. safety.
Israel’s actions in the current war further illustrate this view. “Effectively, anyone killed by the military in a combat zone is a terrorist,” one reserve officer recently told a journalist. This reckless interpretation of the rules of war has resulted in senseless losses for Palestinians and Israelis alike. In December, Israeli forces accidentally killed three Israeli hostages in the Gaza Strip who were shirtless and unarmed and holding makeshift white flags.
The military said the shooting of the three men violated rules of engagement. But soldiers from past wars in Gaza, once in an area where civilians have been warned to evacuate, shoot down anything that moves, because those who remain are considered a threat and a legitimate target. He reported that he was instructed to do so. Similar reports are now surfacing.
In contrast to this attitude, consider the 2002 Israeli bombing of the home of a top Hamas commander in Gaza City, killing him and 14 other people, including eight children. A government commission concluded that misinformation led to the high civilian death toll and suggested that the attack would have been called off had it been known that there were more civilians at the scene.
The shocking number of civilian casualties in the current war (about 13,000 women and children, according to Gaza authorities) may also be, to some extent, the result of other changes in Israel’s targeting policy. be. According to sources spoken to by +972 Magazine and Local Call, previous operations defined senior military operatives as “human targets” who could be killed in their homes even if civilians were around. It is said that it was done.According to sources, in current warfare the term “human target” includes: all Hamas fighter.
