The IDF opened an investigation after Israeli soldiers confessed to the murders committed during Operation ‘Cast Lead,’ the 22-day military operation in the Gaza Strip. The testimonies of several Israeli soldiers who claim that they killed civilians and committed acts of vandalism in Gaza have given rise to a wave of criticism that forced the army to open an internal investigation.
Head of legal services, Brigadier General Avichai Mendelblit, has ordered the immediate commencement of the criminal investigation. The disputed testimony was released last February 13 by pilots and infantrymen who gave a talk at a preparatory course for military service at an academic institution.
Israeli soldiers gave the statement that during the last military offensive in the Gaza Strip from December 27-January 18, they fired at unarmed Palestinian women and children and damaged private property. It goes without saying that these soldiers committed murders and brutality during the Gaza offensive.
Operation ‘Cast Lead’ killed over 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians. In the editorial of the newspaper Haaretz, the ‘acts of disregard for human life and a tendency toward brutality’ were attributed to the ‘disconnection between the battalion commanders and their senior officers.’
After Operation ‘Cast Lead,’ the United Nations needed $613 million for the recovery and reconstruction of the Gaza Strip.
At the academic conference, a squadron commander told how the company shot and killed an elderly Palestinian who was walking along a road about one hundred meters from a housing that the company had seized. He described the act as ‘cold-blooded murder.’
Another soldier said that during a discussion with his squadron commander on the permissiveness of the code of action and where other soldiers complained, the officer said, “We should kill everyone here [in central Gaza]. Everyone here is a terrorist.”
Another soldier testified, saying, “When entering a house we had to pull the door and start shooting inside, from floor to floor. I wondered how this can make sense.”
The dissemination of hard evidence by the military has caused a wave of protests after it was shown that war crimes were committed during Operation ‘Cast Lead.’ The Israeli human rights organization Yesh Din has demanded that a military commission be formed to investigate the allegations. “If Israel does not investigate its crimes, others will have to do it,” said Yesh Din in a statement. The NGO Rabbis for Human Rights has declared that the turn of events is a moral tsunami that forces Israel to make a fast examination of conscience.
The Hamas-led government in Palestine planned to file a petition with the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague against Israel over Gaza air strikes. There is sufficient evidence that Israel used white phosphorus, the chemical incendiary bomb, in crowded places in Gaza during the air strikes.
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