Israeli soldiers have revealed that Palestinian civilians were killed inside Gaza in a free-for-all at the wish of army officers amid a collapse of legal and military norms during Tel Aviv’s two-year brutal war on the besieged enclave, reports Anadolu Ajensi.

“If you want to shoot without restraint, you can,” Daniel, the commander of an Israeli tank unit, said in a documentary, Breaking Ranks: Inside Israel’s War, set to be aired in the UK on ITV on Monday.

The Israeli army has killed more than 69,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and wounded over 170,000 in Gaza and left the enclave uninhabitable since October 2023.

Israeli soldiers, some of whom spoke on condition of anonymity, said Palestinian civilians were used as human shields during the conflict, The Guardian reported.

Captain Yotam Vilk, an armored corps officer, said soldiers did not apply the long-standing army standard of firing only when a target had the “means, intent and ability” to cause harm.

“There’s no such thing as ‘means, intent and ability’ in Gaza,” he said. “It’s just suspicion – someone walking where it’s not allowed.”

Another soldier, identified only as Eli, said: “Life and death isn’t determined by procedures or opening fire regulations. It’s the conscience of the commander on the ground that decides.”

‘Hanging laundry’
Eli recounted an officer ordering a tank to demolish a building where a man was just “hanging laundry,” resulting in multiple deaths and injuries.

The documentary also presents detailed accounts of Israeli soldiers opening fire unprovoked on civilians running toward food handouts at militarized aid distribution points operated by the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

Film maker talks about Israeli ‘shoot to kill’ policies in Gaza    Video: LBC

A contractor identified only as Sam, who worked at GHF sites, said he saw Israeli soldiers shooting two unarmed men running to get aid.

“You could just see two soldiers run after them,” he recalled. “They drop onto their knees and they just take two shots, and you could just see . . .  two heads snap backwards and just drop.”

Sam also described a tank destroying “a normal car . . .  just four normal people sat inside it.”

According to UN figures, at least 944 Palestinian civilians have been killed by Israeli fire near such aid points.

Extremist rhetoric
The film also highlights the spread of extremist rhetoric inside Israel, including statements from rabbis and politicians depicting all Palestinians as legitimate targets after the October 7 events.

“You hear that all the time, so you start to believe it,” Daniel said.

Rabbi Avraham Zarbiv, who served more than 500 days in Gaza, defended large-scale home demolitions by the Israeli army in Gaza.

“Everything there is one big terrorist infrastructure . . . We changed the conduct of an entire army.”

In September, a UN commission concluded that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza, where a ceasefire came into force on October 10 after two years of Israeli bombardment.

Since the ceasefire, Israeli attacks have killed at least 242 Palestinians and injured 622. One Israeli soldier has been killed.

“I feel like they’ve destroyed all my pride in being an Israeli — in being an IDF (army) officer,” Daniel says in the programme. “All that’s left is shame.”

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A former senior UN aid official has condemned the bloodshed at the notorious US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s aid food depots, describing the distribition system as having turned into a “catastrophe”.

The number of aid seekers killed continues to climb daily beyond 1000.

Martin Griffiths, director of Mediation Group International and the former Under Secretary General of the UN Humanitarian Affairs Office, said: “I think when many of us saw the first plans of the GHF to launch this operation in Gaza, we were immediately appalled by the way they were proposing to manage it.”

“It was clearly militarised. They’d have their own security contractors,” he told Al Jazeera.

“They’d have [Israeli military] camps placed right beside them. We know now that they are, in fact, under instructions by [the Israeli military].

“All of this is a crime. All of this is a deep betrayal of humanitarian values.

“But what I at least did not sufficiently anticipate was the killing and was the absolutely critical result of this operation, this sole humanitarian operation allowed by Israel in Gaza,” Griffiths added.

“The 1000 killed are an incredible statistic. I had no idea it would go that high and it’s going on daily. It’s not stopping.

“I think it’s a catastrophe more than a disappointment,” he said. “I think it’s a great sin. I think it’s a great crime.”

Commenting about US envoy Steve Witkoff and US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee’s planned visit to GHF-run aid distribution sites in Gaza, he said this was “likely to be choreographed”.

However, he acknowledged it was still an “important form of witness”.

“I’m glad that they’re going,” Griffiths said.

“Maybe they will see things that are unexpected. I can’t imagine because we’ve seen so much. But I don’t see it leading to a major change.

“If I was one of the two million Gazans starving to death, this is a day I would like to go to an aid distribution point,” Griffiths added.

“There’s slightly less risk probably than any other day.”

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The report came as 70 Palestinians were killed across the Gaza Strip — mostly at aid sites belonging to the widely condemned Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) — in the last 24 hours.

Soldiers said that instead of using crowd control measures, they shot at crowds of civilians to prevent them from approaching certain areas.

One soldier, who was not named in the report, described the distribution site as a “killing field,” adding that “where I was, between one and five people were killed every day”.

The soldier said that they targeted the crowds as if they were “an attacking force,” instead of using other non-lethal weapons to organise and disperse crowds.

“We communicate with them through fire,” he continued, noting that heavy machine guns, grenade launchers and mortars were used on people, including the elderly, women and children.

The increased attacks, particularly those targeting aid-seekers, come as Gaza’s government Media Office said at least 549 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli forces while trying to get their hands on emergency aid in the last four weeks.

‘Evil of moral army’
Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara described what was happening in Gaza was more than the genocode.

“It is the evil of the most moral army in the world,” he said.

Israeli forces continued their attacks across the Gaza Strip on Friday, killing at least three Palestinians in an attack on Khan Younis, in the south, while also heavily bombing residential buildings east of Jabalia in the north.

Medical sources also said a Palestinian fisherman was killed, and others wounded, by Israeli naval gunfire off the al-Shati refugee camp, while he was working.

Gaza’s Ministry of Interior responded to the attacks with a statement, accusing Israel of “seeking to spread chaos and destabilise the Gaza Strip”.

Malnutrition soars
Gazans have continued to desperately seek aid provided by the US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, despite the hundreds of people killed at its sites, as malnutrition soars in the territory.

Two infants have died this week due to malnutrition and the ongoing blockade on Gaza.

For weeks now, health officials in the enclave have raised the alarm over the critical shortage of baby formula, but aid continued to be obstructed.

The two infants were buried on Thursday evening, after they were pronounced dead at the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. Medical staff said the cause of death was a lack of basic nutrition and access to essential medical care.

One of the infants, identified as Nidal, was only five months old, while the other, Kinda, was only 10 days old.

Mohammed al-Hams, Kinda’s father, told local media that children are dying due to severe malnutrition, sarcastically labelling them “the achievements of Netanyahu and his war”.

“Not a second goes by without a funeral prayer being held in the Gaza Strip,” he continued.

Malnutrition ‘catastrophic’
On Wednesday, Gaza’s Ministry of Health said the humanitarian situation in Gaza had reached “catastrophic” levels, noting that there had been a sharp increase in malnutrition among children, particularly in infants.

According to Palestinian official figures, at least 242 people have died in Gaza due to food and medicine shortages, with the majority of them being elderly and children.

Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 61,700 Palestinians since October 2023. The war has levelled entire neighbourhoods, and has been called a genocide by leading rights groups, including Amnesty International.

In Auckland last night, visiting Palestinian journalist, author, academic and community advocate Dr Yousef Aljamal spoke about “The unheard voices of Palestinian child prisoners”.

Dr Aljamal, who edited If I Must Die, a compilation of poetry and prose by Refaat Alareer, the poet who was assassinated by the Israelis in 6 December 2023, also described the humanitarian crisis as a “catastrophe” and called for urgent sanctions and political pressure on Israel by governments, including New Zealand.

Soldiers admit Israeli army is targeting aid seekers       Video: Al Jazeera

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