Breaking the Silence, an Israeli veterans’ group critical of the country’s occupation of Palestinian lands, has released chilling accounts from soldiers involved in creating a “buffer zone” in Gaza.
The testimonies, published in a report titled The Perimeter, reveal the disturbing orders soldiers received to raze vast stretches of Gaza and open fire on anyone who came near.
“Residential buildings, greenhouses, sheds, factories—everything needs to be flattened. That’s the order,” said one sergeant major who fought near Khan Younis.
Another soldier, stationed in northern Gaza, detailed how bulldozers were used to obliterate agricultural fields, including olive groves and crops. “A massive excavator just comes through, takes all the soil, rolls it up, and flattens it,” he recalled.
A captain in southern Gaza described how the area around the military’s designated security zone became a “kill zone,” where crossing an invisible line meant a death sentence. “Anyone who crosses a certain line, that we have defined, is considered a threat and is sentenced to death,” the captain said.
The report also outlined how Israel sough to destroy Palestinian self-sufficiency in food production with the army razing “around 35 percent of all agriculture in the Gaza Strip.”
“This crippled Gaza’s self-sufficiency by increasing its reliance on food entering from IDF-controlled crossings, sabotaging any future attempt at rebuilding sustainably,” the report added.
“The Perimeter:” a new collection of testimonies from soldiers who fought in Gaza in 2023-2024. It chronicles the systematic annihilation and expropriation of entire villages and agricultural zones while creating the new Gaza buffer zone, which the IDF “completed” last December… pic.twitter.com/Vj9hA86nl7
— Breaking the Silence (@BtSIsrael) April 7, 2025
