Israeli Killings of Civilians in Gaza Detailed

A New York Times article about the killings of Palestinian civilians by Israeli soldiers during the recent military incursion into the Gaza Strip should concern us all. The reasons for Israel's invasion are not at issue here. The history of civilian casualties on both sides since 1948 is not at issue here. What is at issue is the way Palestinian civilians have been viewed, and killed, by some Israeli soldiers during this most recent warfare.

The following indented paragraphs, from the article, are especially noteworthy. click here to read the entire article

- Now testimony is emerging from within the ranks of soldiers and officers alleging a permissive attitude toward the killing of civilians and reckless destruction of property that is sure to inflame the domestic and international debate about the army’s conduct in Gaza. On Thursday, the military’s chief advocate general ordered an investigation into a soldier’s account of a sniper killing a woman and her two children who walked too close to a designated no-go area by mistake, and another account of a sharpshooter who killed an elderly woman who came within 100 yards of a commandeered house.

- When asked why that elderly woman was killed, a squad commander was quoted as saying: “What’s great about Gaza — you see a person on a path, he doesn’t have to be armed, you can simply shoot him. In our case it was an old woman on whom I did not see any weapon when I looked. The order was to take down the person, this woman, the minute you see her. There are always warnings, there is always the saying, ‘Maybe he’s a terrorist.’ What I felt was, there was a lot of thirst for blood.”

- The testimonies by soldiers, leaked to the (Israeli) newspapers Maariv and Haaretz, appeared in a journal published by a military preparatory course at the Oranim Academic College in the northern town of Tivon. The newspapers promised to release more such anecdotal accounts on Friday, without saying how many.

- The academy’s director, Dany Zamir, told Israel Radio, “Those were very harsh testimonies about unjustified shooting of civilians and destruction of property that conveyed an atmosphere in which one feels entitled to use unrestricted force against Palestinians.”

- Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Israel Radio that he believed such incidents to be exceptions, adding, “The Israeli Army is the most moral in the world, and I know what I’m talking about because I know what took place in the former Yugoslavia, in Iraq.”

- Amir Marmor, a 33-year-old history graduate student in Jerusalem and a military reservist, said in an interview with The New York Times that he was stunned to discover the way civilian casualties were discussed in training discussions before his tank unit entered Gaza in January. "Shoot and don’t worry about the consequences,” was the message from the top commanders, he said. Speaking of a lieutenant colonel who briefed the troops, Mr. Marmor said, “His whole demeanor was extremely gung ho. This is very, very different from my usual experience. I have been doing reserve duty for 12 years, and it was always an issue how to avoid causing civilian injuries. He said in this operation we are not taking any chances. Morality aside, we have to do our job. We will cry about it later.”

- Some 1,300 people were killed in the Gaza war, but how many of them were combatants remains a matter of controversy. Israel lost about 10 soldiers in Gaza, some because of fire by its own forces.

- One of the soldiers’ testimonies involved the killing of a family. The soldier said: “We had taken over the house, and the family was released and told to go right. A mother and two children got confused and went left. The sniper on the roof wasn’t told that this was O.K. and that he shouldn’t shoot. You can say he just did what he was told.”

Leaders set the atmosphere, philosophy, direction, and culture of their organizations. These organizations range from businesses to cities to departments of governments. Need I say more?

And what of the "defenses" used to excuse the killing of a Palestinian family by an Israeli sniper on the roof of the family's house?
- Defense #1: The family turned left instead of right after they were released from their house.
- Defense #2: "You can say (the sniper) just did what he was told."

Where have we heard Defense #2 before?

The "I was only following orders" defense was used, most prominently, by Nazi SS Lieutenant Colonel Karl Adolf Eichmann at his trial in Jerusalem in 1961. While serving in the SS, he had been in charge of the mass deportation of Jews to concentration camps in World War II. Eichmann was convicted, and executed, in 1962.