Refuse to fight more – soldiers testify to the horrors of Gaza

Before Yuval Green’s platoon entered Gaza, the commanders determined they would show no mercy. Gazans were demonized: everyone would be killed, everything would be destroyed.

A year into the war, more and more Israeli soldiers choose to desert the army and speak out. Others take their lives.

The destruction in Khan Yunis was incalculable. Building after building was left in ruins “purely out of Israeli revenge,” according to Yuval Green. When his commander told the platoon to burn down the house where they were stationed, the cup overflowed.

– I said: “I am not ready to participate in it.” I’m not going to destroy a house belonging to families who are now going to be homeless,” the former soldier told CNN in August.

The 26-year-old claims to have witnessed how other soldiers looted countless homes. Many took “souvenirs” from Palestinian homes, according to Green, who says senior commanders officially distanced themselves from looting and the like, but did nothing to stop it.

28-year-old Max Kresch spent three months on the Israeli-Lebanese border before he had enough. He states that many of his comrades were driven by religious fanaticism. A soldier claimed that it is a Jewish religious duty to kill Palestinians in Gaza – including children.

– Because they would grow up to be terrorists, Kresch explains to CNN.

When he returned home in December, he suffered a deep depression, like many soldiers who served in Gaza. According to Israel’s military, thousands of soldiers have received or are receiving treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD, or other psychological problems as a result of the war, Israeli media write.

Father of four took his own life

At least ten soldiers have committed suicide since the outbreak of war last October, Haaretz newspaper reported in May. Since then, more have followed the same path, including 40-year-old father of four Eliran Mizrahi. When he came home from his first tour in Gaza, he was changed, the family told CNN: angry, withdrawn, impatient with the children. Had nightmares, sweats and had trouble sleeping.

In June, two months after being diagnosed with PTSD and two days before he was due to return to the war, he took his own life.

– He got out of Gaza, but Gaza remained in him, says his mother Jenny Mizrahi.

Mizrahi’s colleague Guy Zaken has previously testified in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, about how he and Mizrahi ran over “hundreds of terrorists, dead and alive” with their bulldozer. Zaken tells CNN that he suffers from insomnia and has stopped eating meat – it reminds too much of the blood and bodies in Gaza.

– We saw very, very, very difficult things. Things that are hard to accept.

“Shoot what you want”

Michael Ofer Ziv left the army after two months. As an operational commander, he spent his days staring at grainy, black-and-white live feeds from Israeli drones over Gaza. Every day he had a quota of airstrikes to approve. One by one, buildings exploded on his screen, boom boom boom, like a video game.

In the evenings, other images appeared on the phone: Palestinians screaming in grief, carrying their dead relatives in their arms.

– You are far from there and it doesn’t feel real. You see vehicles, houses, people being fired upon. Every time a building collapses, everyone says “wow,” he told Haaretz.

– But then I realized: that is a house that is collapsing. If there were people there, they are dead now. And even if there were no people, everything else—televisions, memories, pictures, clothes—is gone.

Michael Ofer Ziv describes indiscriminate Israeli shelling, an atmosphere of “shoot what you want”.

Killed civilians

A 26-year-old who was responsible for finding and killing Hamas members, referred to by Haaretz as A, describes the same thing. If his group failed to find the right person, they chose someone else to kill, often without actually knowing who it was.

– They (the military) justify it in hundreds of ways, says A to Haaretz.

– When you finally blow him up, you say “no, we see no problem with his whole family being in the house”.

Once it turned out that the man they were going to kill was not at home when the bomb fell. Instead, two women were killed, and several more were injured. A left the military when he realized that he was violating both the laws of war and his own conscience.

“The right side of history”

The soldiers who choose to leave are still a clear minority in Israel’s 169,000-strong army. But there are more and more of them.

In October, over 130 Israeli soldiers wrote in an open letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant that they refuse to fight if a ceasefire agreement is not reached. Transport Minister Miri Regev has demanded that everyone who signed the letter be arrested.

28-year-old Yotam Vilk had spent over 230 days in Gaza when he decided to abandon the army. He is not worried about the consequences, he tells CNN.

– I am more concerned about my moral decisions, my well-being and my ability to look back and feel that I made the right decision. That I was on the right side of history.

During the war, reports of war crimes have been repeatedly denied by Israel’s military, which claims it investigates all allegations and always tries to avoid civilian casualties.

FACTSOver a year of war

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