‘Israeli soldiers routinely executed Palestinian civilians simply because they entered an area that the military defined as a “no-go zone”.’ This was some of the horrifying testimony six Israeli soldiers gave to an Israeli magazine, +972, in July.
The six ‘paint[ed] a picture of a landscape littered with civilian corpses, which are left to rot or be eaten by stray animals; the army only hides them from view ahead of the arrival of international aid convoys, so that “images of people in advanced stages of decay don’t come out”.’
One of the six soldiers, Yuval Green, was one of 41 Israeli reservists who signed an open letter at the end of May declaring that they refused to take part in the assault on Rafah, endangering uninvolved civilians, the hostages, and themselves.
They condemned the government’s ‘torpedoing’ of possible peace deals with Hamas that might release the hostages and also ‘restore the security of the State of Israel’.
The 41 wrote: ‘The half year in which we took part in the war effort has proven to us that military action alone will not bring the hostages home. Every day that passes endangers the lives of the hostages and the soldiers still in Gaza, and does not restore security to those living on the Gaza and northern borders.’