An Israeli soldier saw his teammates celebrating and congratulating each other after striking a vehicle near Israeli-occupied Gaza, killing every Palestinian inside, according to an Associated Press
report.The reservist said scenes like this had become common after a fragile ceasefire took effect in October.
In the weeks he was stationed in Gaza, he said, he saw soldiers relishing the chance to go after those who crossed — or came close to crossing — the so-called Yellow Line that divides the Palestinian territory into Israeli-controlled and Palestinian areas.
“It was a jungle,” the soldier, in his 20s, told the AP. “After the ceasefire, the order was: If someone crosses the line, you shoot them.”
As diplomatic efforts to strengthen the deal have stalled, three soldiers described to AP a sense of confusion in the embattled territory, with a lack of clarity on rules of engagement around the Yellow Line.
Some commanders paid lip service to the agreement, the soldiers said, while privately voicing desire for the war in Gaza to continue.
Sometimes, troops were too far away or acted too quickly to recognise who they were shooting, one soldier said — a concern echoed in comments from a whistleblower group of veterans.
The soldiers’ accounts are a rare glimpse into what’s happened in the Israeli-occupied part of Gaza since the deal went into effect seven months ago.
The soldiers — reservists deployed throughout Gaza between October and January who’ve since returned — spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared being ostracised over their comments.
They said they were speaking out because they were angered and saddened by what they saw.
AP has documented shootings of Palestinian civilians, including children playing, close to the Yellow Line.
The soldiers said it felt like the killings never stopped amid the truce deal.
“To call it a ceasefire is a joke,” one soldier told AP.
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‘Shoot to kill’
Gaza’s Yellow Line has been ambiguous, and Israel has taken control of more land when the ceasefire went into effect, Israel withdrew troops to a buffer zone demarcated by a Yellow Line, giving it control of over half of the Palestinian enclave.
Under the agreement, Israeli forces are meant to complete a fuller withdrawal, though there’s no timeline for that.
