Shaiel Ben-Ephraim@academic_la
The IDF is intentionally shooting at people near aid distribution centers, a fact admitted by several soldiers and officers.
One soldier described the situation bluntly: "The story is that there is a complete loss of purity of arms in Gaza. Where I was stationed, between one and five people were killed every day. They fire on them as if they were an attacking force: no crowd control methods, no tear gas, just shooting everything — heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, mortars. Then when the Mahpaz opens, the shooting stops and they know they can approach. We communicate with them through fire."
He added that soldiers shoot early in the morning at those trying to get in line from hundreds of meters away, and sometimes simply charge at them at close range — even though there is no threat to the troops.
An officer expressed deep concern over this approach: "Working with a population when your only tool against them is lethal force is very problematic, to say the least. It’s not ethically or morally right to reach or not reach an area through tank fire, snipers, and mortars."
The same officer recounted that at night they fire to warn civilians that the area is a combat zone and off-limits. Even when mortars cease firing, they continue shooting to keep people away, sometimes with tragic consequences: "Eventually, one shell fell among a group of people." He described firing machine guns from tanks and throwing grenades, insisting it wasn’t deliberate, but added, "these things happen."
A reservist armored soldier detailed the so-called "removal procedure" for civilians gathering against orders: "The kids waiting for trucks hide behind dirt mounds and jump on them as they pass or stand at distribution points. We usually see them hundreds of meters away; they don’t really threaten us."
In one case, a soldier was ordered to fire a shell at a crowd near the coastline. "Basically, you’re supposed to fire warning shots to disperse or prevent them from advancing, but lately firing shells has become routine. Every such shot causes casualties and deaths, and when asked why a shell was needed, there are never smart answers. Sometimes the question annoys commanders."
A senior officer familiar with the fighting put it bluntly: "The shooting and harming civilians in Gaza is not an operational necessity or a mistake in judgment, but an ideology of commanders on the ground who make it a deliberate operational plan."
One soldier described the grim acceptance among troops: "You know it’s wrong. You feel it’s wrong, that commanders here take the law into their own hands. But Gaza is a parallel universe, and people move on quickly." Summing up the tragedy, a senior reservist officer stated: "I can say unequivocally the people weren’t close to the forces and didn’t threaten them. They were just, simply, killed. They normalized what’s called the killing of innocents."
This paints a stark picture of a system where lethal force is routinely used not out of necessity, but as a deliberate tactic to target people Israel has starved. This is an atrocity. This is a policy. This is genocide.
