Israeli soldiers ordered to fire on hungry Palestinians queuing for aid, say whistleblowers

Telegraph

18 hours ago

Israeli soldiers have been deliberately firing at unarmed Palestinians near aid distribution sites in Gaza, army whistleblowers have said.
First-hand accounts reported in Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper, allege that commanders had in recent weeks ordered troops to shoot at crowds 'to drive them away or disperse them, even though it was clear they posed no threat'.
Soldiers used 'heavy machine guns, grenade launchers [and] mortars' to suppress hungry Gazans queuing for food at new distribution points set up by a controversial private firm, it is claimed.
It is also alleged that some soldiers took orders from a brigadier general who had previously stated that there were 'no innocents in Gaza'.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has routinely denied firing on civilians at the aid sites. Hamas has also been accused of firing on crowds and looting aid.
But a senior Israeli military official confirmed to The Telegraph that Israel's military advocate general had ordered an investigation into the ' suspected war crimes '.
It is the first time such testimony from serving soldiers has been published in Israel. Their claims were approved for publication by the official Israel censor, as required by Israeli law.
The witness accounts relate to the alleged killing of scores of hungry Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in at least 19 separate incidents over the past month.
Aid site 'a killing field'
One soldier told Haaretz: 'It's a killing field. Where I was stationed, between one and five people were killed every day.
'They're treated like a hostile force – no crowd-control measures, no tear gas – just live fire with everything imaginable: heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, mortars. Then, once the centre opens, the shooting stops, and they know they can approach. Our form of communication is gunfire.'
The soldier added: 'We open fire early in the morning if someone tries to get in line from a few hundred meters away, and sometimes we just charge at them from close range. But there's no danger to the forces.'
'I'm not aware of a single instance of return fire. There's no enemy, no weapons,' they said.
The aid distribution points at which the majority of the killings occurred are run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a controversial joint venture set up by Israel and the US to bypass the UN, which Israel has accused of working with Hamas.
It now operates four 'rapid distribution' sites in Gaza – three in southern Gaza and one in the centre.
They are staffed by private US and Palestinian workers but secured by the IDF from a distance of several hundred meters and only open for an hour at a time – a tactic which attracts crowds of thousands, sometimes tens of thousands, of people.
An IDF officer told Haaretz that the military's security perimeters around distribution points included tanks, snipers and mortars, and they were designed to protect those present and ensure aid distribution could take place.
'At night, we open fire to signal to the population that this is a combat zone and they mustn't come near,' the officer said.
'Once, the mortars stopped firing, and we saw people starting to approach. So we resumed fire to make it clear they weren't allowed to. In the end, one of the shells landed on a group of people.'
In other cases, he said: 'We fired machine guns from tanks and threw grenades. There was one incident where a group of civilians was hit while advancing under the cover of fog. It wasn't intentional, but these things happen.'
'There's no danger to Israeli forces'
According to the officers and soldiers who spoke to Haaretz, the IDF fires at people who arrive before opening hours to prevent them from approaching, or again after the centres close, to disperse them.
One soldier said: 'We open fire early in the morning if someone tries to get in line from a few hundred meters away, and sometimes we just charge at them from close range. But there's no danger to the forces.'
A senior officer whose name 'repeatedly comes up in testimonies about the shootings near aid sites' is Brig Gen Yehuda Vach, commander of the IDF 's Division 252, reported Haaretz.
He has previously attracted criticism in the Israeli media and was reported to have once told his troops: 'There are no innocents in Gaza'.
Brig Gen Vach is also suspected of ordering the destruction of a hospital in Gaza without authorisation earlier this year, according to Israeli media.
However, Haaraz added: 'Vach's division is not the only one operating in the area, and it's possible that other officers also gave orders to fire at people seeking aid.'
Nir Hasson, an investigative journalist who researched and wrote the story, with colleagues Yaniv Kubovich and Bar Peleg, said that while the 'big majority' of Israelis still supported the war in Gaza, 'cracks in the mainstream consensus' were starting to appear.
He said the soldiers and officers the newspaper had interviewed were motivated to speak partly for 'humanitarian' reasons but also because they feared that 'professionalism' and 'ethics' in parts of the IDF were breaking down.
'They say it goes against the values of the IDF and the state of Israel, and they will add that 'it is unbelievable that we are killing starving people who only want to get to the food,' Mr Hasson said.
In a statement, the IDF denied its soldiers had been ordered to shoot at Palestinians but said it was investigating.
A spokesman said: 'The IDF did not instruct the forces to deliberately shoot at civilians, including those approaching the distribution centres. To be clear, IDF directives prohibit deliberate attacks on civilians.'
They added that 'systematic learning processes aimed at improving the operational response in the area and minimising, as much as possible, potential friction between the civilian population and IDF forces' were taking place.
The spokesman said the IDF was investigating the allegations further and 'any allegation of a deviation from the law or IDF directives will be thoroughly examined, and further action will be taken as necessary'.