Israeli soldiers stationed in the Netzarim Corridor in the Gaza Strip regularly shoot and kill Palestinian civilians but count them as “terrorists,” Haaretz reported on Wednesday, citing testimony from Israeli commanders and other soldiers.
The Netzarim Corridor is a strip of land that separates northern Gaza from central and southern Gaza, where Israeli troops have demolished virtually every building and established military outposts. The Haaretz report says the IDF has designated the area a “kill zone,” meaning any Palestinians who try to cross a certain line are shot and killed even if they’re unarmed.
“The forces in the field call it ‘the line of dead bodies,'” a commander in the IDF’s Division 252 told Haaretz. “After shootings, bodies are not collected, attracting packs of dogs who come to eat them. In Gaza, people know that wherever you see these dogs, that’s where you must not go.”
A recently discharged Division 252 officer said, “For the division, the kill zone extends as far as a sniper can see. We’re killing civilians there who are then counted as terrorists.”
The officer said Israeli units compete to see how many people they can kill. “The IDF spokesperson’s announcements about casualty numbers have turned this into a competition between units. If Division 99 kills 150 [people], the next unit aims for 200,” he said.
In one instance, Israeli troops massacred 200 Palestinians, and only 10 were confirmed as being “known Hamas operatives.” But the IDF announced they were all militants. “No one questioned the public announcement about killing hundreds of militants,” a Division 252 officer said.
One soldier, described as a veteran of Division 252, recounted a time when the unit killed a boy he estimated was only 16 years old. “One time, guards spotted someone approaching from the south. We responded as if it was a large militant raid. We took positions and just opened fire. I’m talking about dozens of bullets, maybe more. For about a minute or two, we just kept shooting at the body. People around me were shooting and laughing,” he said.
The soldier said when it became clear the boy was not a Hamas militant, the battalion commander still congratulated them for “killing a terrorist” and said he hoped they would kill more. “When someone pointed out he was unarmed and looked like a civilian, everyone shouted him down. The commander said: ‘Anyone crossing the line is a terrorist, no exceptions, no civilians. Everyone’s a terrorist.’ This deeply troubled me,” the soldier said.
In another instance, a soldier described witnessing four unarmed Palestinians being shot at by an Israeli tank, and only one survived. “We put him in a cage set up near our position, stripped off his clothes, and left him there. Soldiers passing by spat on him. It was disgusting. Finally, a military interrogator came, questioned him briefly while holding a gun to his head, then ordered his release,” the soldier said.
The soldier said the three unarmed Palestinians who were killed were buried by IDF bulldozers. “I don’t know if anyone remembers they’re there,” he said.
The report is just the latest piece of evidence that Israeli soldiers on the ground in Gaza are purposely killing civilians in Gaza. Earlier this year, a report from 972 Magazine cited Israeli soldiers who detailed how “Israeli soldiers routinely executed Palestinian civilians simply because they entered an area that the military defined as a ‘no-go zone.'”
American doctors and nurses who have volunteered in Gaza have reported seeing many children with gunshot wounds to the head and chest. “Every one of us who worked in an emergency, intensive care, or surgical setting treated pre-teen children who were shot in the head or chest on a regular or even a daily basis,” 99 American healthcare workers said in an open letter to President Biden released in October.
