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.
‘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.
The US-backed diplomat overseeing the truce says progress is deadlocked over the central sticking point of disarming Hamas, upon which all other issues — including Israeli withdrawals and reconstruction — hinge.
In the meantime, Israel has expanded its occupation of additional territory in Gaza.
Since the ceasefire went into effect, more than 900 people have been killed in Gaza — dozens of those close to or over the Yellow Line, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
Israel's military has said most of the people killed crossing the line posed a threat to troops.
But soldiers who spoke to AP and Breaking the Silence — the whistleblower group that has collected troops' testimonies throughout the war — say that at times soldiers were too far away, acting too quickly and under too much pressure to tell.
Soldiers shooting or ordering drone strikes don't always know who's crossing the line, he said.
Breaking the Silence says the general rules of engagement are extremely permissive, especially for those crossing the line, with orders in many areas being “shoot to kill.”
‘Human lives are not valuable’
Executive director Nadav Weiman, a veteran who served in Gaza but not in this war, said distance from the target and some trigger-happy soldiers can be problematic.
He said orders and policies from the military’s high commanders “have created a reality where countless civilians have and are being killed for crossing invisible lines.”
In one account to Breaking the Silence, in interview notes seen by AP, a soldier describes instructions for troops about anyone crossing the yellow line: “eliminate him no matter what."
A soldier who was stationed in Gaza says human lives weren't valued. Another soldier stationed in Gaza for weeks after the ceasefire said the message from commanders was to hold the line at all costs.
“There was a general feeling that human lives are not valuable,” he said.
Separate data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, a US-based nonprofit, said April was the deadliest month in Gaza this year and that recorded deaths near the yellow line or of people who crossed it increased by more than 25 percent from January to April, to 73 from 58.
This week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel controls 60 percent of Gaza and the next step was to move to 70 percent control.
