Report: Soldiers say open-fire policies in Gaza too loose, leading to civilian deaths

Israel Defense Forces soldiers who served in the Gaza Strip have described open-fire policies that make killing in some areas seemingly indiscriminate and casual, Haaretz reported Wednesday.

The left-wing newspaper said it had spoken to a number of officers and soldiers who served in the 252nd Division and who related how a no-go zone is enforced along the strategic Netzarim Corridor, which bisects the Gaza Strip and separates the north of the enclave from the south — with soldiers firing at anyone who enters the area.

Some of the soldiers reportedly said they had witnessed incidents in which civilians were killed but the IDF nonetheless allegedly tallied the deaths as slain terror group fighters.

The military, in response to the report, insisted that operational procedures are approved only at the highest level and that only military targets are attacked.

Israel is vigorously defending itself against international accusations of genocide and war crimes in Gaza, including at the International Court of Justice.

The seven-kilometer (4.3-mile) east-west Netzarim Corridor stretches from the Israeli border to the Mediterranean Sea. From it, the IDF can control movement between the north and south of Gaza.

Haaretz cited soldiers as saying that troops along the corridor have been instructed to shoot at anyone who crosses certain lines on both sides of the area. However, exactly where those lines lie is sometimes unclear, even to the soldiers themselves, and Gazans have only been told not to try to move between the north and the south of the Strip, the report said.

Aside from the danger of attacks, the IDF is also concerned over Hamas operatives and supporters carrying out reconnaissance in the corridor to observe military positions.

As one soldier was said to put it, the IDF has for a year been in a place “where there are no laws, where human life is worth nothing,” and Israeli soldiers are “taking part in the atrocities happening in Gaza.”

The war started on October 7, 2023, when the Palestinian terror group Hamas led a devastating cross-border attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, during which 251 were abducted as hostages to Gaza amid widely documented atrocities deliberately targeting civilians.

Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities in its subsequent campaign to destroy Hamas, which rules Gaza, and stressed that the terror group uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools and mosques.

According to Haaretz, a soldier in the 252nd division described how on one occasion, someone entered the Netzarim Corridor banned zone and the unit opened fire, shooting “dozens of bullets,” with some soldiers “firing for the sake of it and laughing.”

When soldiers later approached the body to check it, including seizing the person’s cellphone, they found he was “a youth, perhaps [aged] 16,” the soldier reportedly said. An intelligence officer arrived to gather information, and hours later the soldiers were told that the teenager was not a Hamas activist.

According to the soldier, that evening the battalion commander arrived and praised them for killing a terrorist. When one of those present tried to point out that the person was an unarmed civilian, he was shouted down, the soldier said. The battalion commander stressed to the soldiers that “anyone who crosses the line is a terrorist. There are no civilians. All of them are terrorists.”

“We are killing civilians and they are being counted as terrorists,” one officer was cited by Haaretz as saying.

Another soldier was said to describe seeing a tank fire at four unarmed people walking in the area, machine-gunning them. Three were killed instantly, and one survived and raised his hands. He was taken captive, stripped of his clothes, and kept in a lockup adjacent to a military outpost. Passing soldiers spat at him, the soldier said. A military investigator arrived to question the man while holding a pistol to his head, and then, after a few minutes, instructed that he be set free. According to the soldier, it later became clear that the Palestinian man was just trying to visit a cousin in northern Gaza.

“What people don’t understand is that this is not just killing Arabs; it is killing us,” the soldier was quoted as saying.

According to the report, field commanders have also been given greater powers to apply more force. Whereas before the war, approval for an airstrike or to hit a multistory building required approval from the IDF chief of staff, subordinates can allegedly now make the decision.

“A division commander has almost no limitations today in applying fire in the combat zone,” a veteran 252nd Division officer told Haaretz.

In another reported incident, a soldier from a different division described seeing an adult and two children who entered the banned area. Though the soldiers held their fire, a helicopter fired a missile at the three people.

Most commanders said that the Air Force had been careful in carrying out strikes, enforcing rules for clear identification of a threat and boundaries in places where people were gathered or humanitarian shelters. However, though the rules were abided by in the early stages of the war, over time, the Air Force has allegedly become less cautious, and “no longer asks too many questions,” as one commander put it.

Moreover, commanders can circumvent any hesitation by the Air Force, an officer reportedly explained, by simply calling in a strike as necessary to cover troops under fire or for the evacuation of injured soldiers. The so-called “lightning procedure” can be put into effect by any officer from a battalion commander and higher.

The current 252nd division commander, Brig. Gen. Yehuda Vach, was said to be particularly partial to using the workaround, according to one officer.

Haaretz cited several officers as talking about their concerns over Vach’s aggressive attitude to the warfare and his various remarks about conquering Gaza. One commander recalled Vach telling soldiers that “there are no innocents in Gaza,” and another cited Vach as saying: “In the Middle East, what wins is conquering territory. We need to conquer territory until victory.”

The IDF denied that Vach had said the remarks attributed to him.

In its response to the Haaretz report, the IDF also said that all activities and operations in the Gaza Strip, including along the Netzarim Corridor, “are approved by the highest levels of command, and all attacks in the area are carried out according to the mandatory procedures, including targets that are attacked at short notice due to operational circumstances.”

The military also said that “attacks are directed at military targets only, and before carrying out the attacks, many steps are taken to minimize harm to uninvolved people.”

Events that raise concerns about deviations from IDF orders and proper conduct are investigated, it said.