A new film shows that Israeli troops were encouraged to exterminate Palestinians, including women and children, by their politicians and Jewish religious leaders.
Originally published in The Cradle.
In a new documentary film, Israeli soldiers have described a âfree-for-allâ in Gaza, in which they killed civilians âwithout restraintâ with the encouragement of politicians and rabbis, The Guardian reported on 10 November.
âIf you want to shoot without restraint, you can,â stated Daniel, the commander of an Israeli tank unit.
He and other soldiers gave testimony about killings they perpetrated during combat tours in Gaza for the film âBreaking Ranks: Inside Israelâs War,â which will be broadcast in the UK on ITV on Monday night.
The soldiers who agreed to talk confirmed they routinely used Palestinians as human shields and opened fire unprovoked on civilians seeking aid at militarized distribution points set up by the US-Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
Captain Yotam Vilk, an Israeli armored corps officer, said that in basic training, they were taught to only fire at a target that has the means, shows intent, and has the ability to cause harm.
But in Gaza, âthereâs no such thing as âmeans, intent and ability,ââ Vilk stated in the film.
âNo soldier ever mentions âmeans, intent, and ability.â Itâs just a suspicion of walking where itâs not allowed. A man aged between 20 and 40,â he explained.
Another soldier, identified in the film as Eli, says individual commanders had the freedom to determine who was killed and who was allowed to remain alive.
âLife and death arenât determined by procedures or opening fire regulations. Itâs the conscience of the commander on the ground that decides,â Eli said.
âIf theyâre walking too fast, theyâre suspicious. If theyâre walking too slow, theyâre suspicious. Theyâre plotting something. If three men are walking and one of them lags behind, itâs a two-to-one infantry formation â itâs a military formation,â he added.
Eli describes an incident in which a senior officer ordered a tank to destroy a residential building, crushing civilians to death inside, because a man was hanging laundry on the roof.
âThe officer decided that he was a spotter. Heâs not a spotter. Heâs hanging his laundry. You can see that heâs hanging laundry,â he said.
âNow, itâs not as if this man had binoculars or weapons. The closest military force was 600â700 meters away. So, unless he had eagle eyes, how could he possibly be a spotter? And the tank fired a shell. The building half collapsed. And the result was many dead and wounded.â
The Guardian notes that according to the Israeli militaryâs own intelligence data, 83 percent of those killed in Gaza were civilians, a historic high for modern conflicts. More than 69,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war started, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, with tens of thousands more likely not counted as they remain buried under the rubble of destroyed buildings.
The Israeli military publicly claims its forces seek to protect civilians. However, some of the soldiers interviewed for the film said they were influenced by genocidal language used by Israeli politicians and religious leaders who claimed that no Palestinians in Gaza were innocent after the Hamas attack of 7 October 2023.
For example, a UN commission pointed to comments made by Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who claimed after 7 October that, âIt is an entire nation out there that is responsible. It is not true, this rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved, itâs absolutely not true.â
Roughly 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals were killed in the Hamas attack. Israel blamed all these deaths on Hamas; however, the military itself killed hundreds with attack helicopters, drones, and tanks, per a special order known as the Hannibal Directive.
The order was given for Israeli pilots to fire on their own civilians to prevent them from being taken to Gaza as captives that Hamas could use to liberate Palestinians in a prisoner exchange.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly referred to Palestinians in Gaza as âAmalek,â citing a story from Jewish scripture in which the Hebrews were ordered to exterminate the entire Amalekite nation, killing every man, woman, and child â even babies.
Daniel, the tank unit commander, said that this type of rhetoric influenced the behavior of soldiers in his unit. âYou hear that all the time, so you start to believe it,â he stated.
Jewish rabbis in the Israeli army also advised soldiers to exterminate Palestinians in Gaza.
âOne time, the brigade rabbi sat down next to me and spent half an hour explaining why we must be just like they were on 7 October. That we must take revenge on all of them, including civilians. That we shouldnât discriminate, and that this is the only way,â said Major Neta Caspin.
Rabbi Avraham Zarbiv, who participated with his unit in the genocide in Gaza, stated in the film that, âEverything there is one big terrorist infrastructure.â
Zarbiv personally drove military bulldozers and boasted about destroying Gaza, stating that the army spent âhundreds of thousands of shekels to destroy the Gaza Strip. We changed the conduct of an entire army.â
The soldiers speaking in Breaking Ranks also confirmed their use of Palestinians as human shields, known as âMosquitos,â to clear tunnels and homes where booby traps may be present. That way, a Palestinian would be killed rather than an Israeli soldier.
âYou send the human shield underground. As he walks down the tunnel, he maps it all for you. He has an iPhone in his vest, and as he walks, it sends back GPS information,â said Daniel, the tank commander.
âThe commanders saw how it works. And the practice spread like wildfire. After about a week, every company was operating its own mosquito.â
A private contractor, identified as Sam, confirmed that Israeli soldiers opened fire on and killed unarmed civilians seeking food at GHF distribution sites.
He described witnessing Israeli soldiers murder two Palestinian men.
âYou could just see two soldiers run after them. They drop onto their knees, and they just take two shots, and you could just see ⌠two heads snap backwards and just drop,â Sam explained.
In another case, he saw a tank destroy âa normal car ⌠just four normal people sat inside it.â
At least 1,889 Palestinian civilians were killed by Israeli soldiers while seeking food in Gaza between 27 May and 18 August 2025, according to UN figures.
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