'We're Champions at Repression': Israel Air Force Pilots Open Up About the Moral Dilemmas of the Gaza War - Israel News - Haaretz.com
Last week, the Israel Defense Forces assassinated the commander of Hamas' Shujaiyeh battalion. The air strike hit a four-story building and killed around 40 people, most of them women and children, according to reports. Sources in the Gaza Strip said that eight adjacent houses were damaged, and that among the dead were 15 members of a single family. According to the IDF Spokesperson's Unit, this was the third Shujaiyeh battalion commander to be taken out since the war began. In the meantime, his replacement has been killed as well.
The morning after the attack, the pilots' letter was released. It called on Israel to do all it can to bring about the release of all of the hostages, even if that means ending the war. In its early drafts, the letter's tone was much more aggressive, but moderating forces among the signatories prevailed, and the final version was kept well within the bounds of the national consensus. Nevertheless, the initiative of the pilot signatories, most of them in the reserves, caused a rift within the Israel Air Force, one that has quickly broadened to other IDF units. "The continuation of the war," they wrote, "will cause the deaths of hostages, IDF troops and innocent civilians." It seems as though the mention of innocent civilians was an act no less subversive than the call to stop the war. It sparked tremendous arguments among the initiators of the letter; some refused to sign it because of it.
Others insisted on the centrality of the issue, and complained that the wording was too neutral, not biting enough. "We're killing innocent people in Gaza, and people are silent," one of the initiators said to us during the interview. The tumult caused by the letter raised an opportunity to ask the pilots themselves about those innocent non-combatants killed over the past year and a half. Are they as marginal in the pilots' consciousness as they are in the public consciousness, or do they have the power to widen the fissure within the air force?
Interviews we conducted with active members of the air force – pilots, drone operators, air support officers and officers in the "pit," the military command center in Tel Aviv – brought to light their thoughts and positions on the moral dilemma at the heart of their service. These questions aren't new: "The world wasn't created on October 7," one of the pilots told us. But in the face of the ongoing nature of the war and the scope of the killing, they are more burning than ever. And they are indeed the subject of an ongoing discussion within the force. Some of the airmen interviewed spoke of difficult feelings, of dealing with a real dilemma and contemplating whether they should continue to serve. Others made clear that the current situation is valid in their view, albeit unfortunate. They explained that the broad harm caused to innocent civilians on the Palestinian side is a product of the cruel statistics of combat in a complex battlefield in which the enemy hides among the civilian population.
In all of the conversations, the moral dilemma was connected to the question of the legitimacy of the war and of the government running it. The cracks widen each other: the lack of faith in the war's righteousness and the sincerity of its goals is undermining the core justification for inflicting harm on innocent civilians. The widespread sense that the hostages have been abandoned most starkly underscores this lack of confidence. "When I leave the Kirya [the military headquarters in Tel Aviv] through Begin Gate," says a lieutenant colonel serving in the pit, "I feel more morally connected to Einav Zangauker [the mother of a hostage and a leader of a daily protest at Begin Gate] than to the system – from the government down."
From the conversations, it emerges that the air strike apparatus works in a way that easily obscures the full picture – including the consequences of a bombing – from those involved in the various stages of an operation. "I don't want to insult the guys in the cockpits, but a pilot today can't know what he's bombing," says a retired pilot who served in the current war as an air support officer in one of the brigades deployed in Gaza. "It's unpleasant to say, but pilots today are porters. No one lets them know about innocent civilians."
Members of the air force who aren't directly involved in strikes on Gaza admitted in interviews that they were glad that they were spared having to confront this information, and that they made efforts to stay away from the issue. "Why burden the soul with things I'm not sure I can bear?" one of them said. But we should listen to those who are bearing it. Last week, some of them warned in the pilots' letter that the situation is shaky. The dozens of fresh bodies that were buried that morning in Shujaiyeh attest to that as well.
Mariam Manoun is extricated from her family's destroyed house, following an Israeli raid on Jabalia al-Balad, in Gaza City, last Sunday.Credit: Jehad Alshrafi/AP
'I have very little trust in the government. But I still have trust in the military'
R. is an F-16 pilot in the reserves. "After October 7 there was a very strong feeling of the rightness of our path, including some very difficult things we were required to do," he says. "The feeling now is very different, at least for me. Other people come to the squadron and put all [other considerations] aside."
Is it a matter of political opinion? That those who support the government necessarily feel alright with the missions?
"That's not the division. There are also pilots who support the government and have a gut feeling – you know, the question of the purpose of all this. That question is not political at all."
Compared to soldiers in the land army, a pilot's sortie has more far-reaching consequences. If he doesn't understand where this thing is heading, how does he cope?
"I have very little trust in the government. But I still have trust in the military, and especially in the air force. I know the people who choose the targets, who calculate the collateral damage and decide the level of collateral damage. Without that trust I wouldn't fly a single sortie. In the end I go home with the things I was involved in, for good and for bad, and I have to live with it. It also has an impact on the next time I will report for duty."
Is there place for you to express criticism about a target you've been given?
"I have professional questions, but the knowledge of exactly what I am attacking is very limited. Let's say I'm told that it's a ranking [Hamas] figure who's in an apartment – it might be a 14-year-old who rose through the ranks rapidly in the past year. Nor do I have any way of knowing whether the apartment is empty of non-combatants or not.
But I rely on my buddies in the Kirya, whose task this is. I have to trust that the person who's responsible for choosing the target, for calculating the collateral damage and for [selecting] the type of munition, is doing it the best he can. It's possible that someone decided that they can get along with collateral damage of up to 10 civilians, and I don't live well with that. But that is exactly the trust that I have to decide about in advance, before I arrive. I can't critique it in the squadron."
What happens at home?
"There's always the friction with my wife, which from my point of view I need to avoid. From her point of view, I shouldn't go. From her point of view, this event [the war] has long since played itself out. Simultaneously, you get a message that the squadron needs people in the week ahead and I need to schedule myself, to decide that I'll go again next week, too."
Have there been times when you got home, watched the news, and asked yourself: "What have I done?"
"I don't know if those are the right words. Sometimes there's a feeling of pain and sorrow. As it happens, I've seen quite a few attacks; in some [cases] you sit in the squadron, go through the images, and one frame before the bomb explodes you see an old man with a donkey cart passing by in the next street over. No one intended it; on the other hand, it was taken into account that this could happen, and to our regret it happened.
"Does it feel alright? No. Does it make me say that I won't show up anymore? Also no. Even if 90 percent of the war's purpose is Bibi's attempt to hold onto power, in the end there are soldiers below who are waiting for air cover, and I'm going to be there to help them. But it's being eroded, that feeling. The commander of the air force writes in response to the letter [of reserve pilots] that it's not legitimate to be critical of a war that you're taking part in – but how is that not legitimate? There are people whose trust in the whole system is affected by that [response]."
Even if 90 percent of the war's purpose is Bibi's attempt to hold onto power, in the end there are soldiers below who are waiting for air cover, and I'm going to be there to help them. But it's being eroded, that feeling.
R., an F-16 pilot
Do you have a red line?
"It's very hard to answer that. Obviously, I can still go to the squadron, say 'Good morning' and receive the assignment – I've done it a thousand times. But the feeling in your gut is growing sour. When I get up in the morning and decide that I'm not doing it anymore, I'm not sure it will happen because of a specific attack, but rather because of an accumulation of feelings that it's no longer appropriate for me to keep inside."
Are there people who are thinking of ceasing to fly?
"Sure. There are people for whom this is a daily dilemma from their point of view. This subject of trust in the system disturbs their sleep nightly."
For them, is the significant factor the duration of the fighting, or the casting off of restraint in regard to the war?
"I would assess that it's a combination. There's a general feeling of purposelessness in the fighting. Why am I harming others – for a true operational purpose? A political purpose? In addition, there's the question of trust in the leadership. From their point of view, if the commander of the air force reacts that way to the letter, maybe there's something rotten in the whole chain. Just like we see what's happening in the police force, no one said that it can't reach the army. There are people for whom this [question] lies at the heart of the sense of personal morality."
To what extent are these conversations held among the members of the squadron?
"It's complicated. There are people I feel comfortable talking with, and people I will not talk to. In the period of the protest [in 2023] there was preoccupation with this all the time in official forums – the squadron split into two. Today, maybe as a lesson from what happened on October 7, there's no desire to deal with this in the army. In the squadron we will not talk about the crisis of trust in the government."
And after a mission that generates uncomfortable feelings, is there anyone to talk to about it?
"It happens. I had a sortie with a difficult result from both the operational aspect and the damage aspect, and I talked about it. It weighed on me."
Because the mission wasn't carried out the way it should have been, or because of what happened on the ground in the wake of your bombing?
"Because people died who apparently should not have died, and I was part of that. Maybe I could have prevented it and maybe not. In cases in which there was something I could have done differently, it's very disturbing."
A crater caused by an Israeli strike at the Zaytoun neighborhood in Gaza City on April 13.Credit: Omar Al-Qattaa/AFP
'The astronomical number of people killed in Gaza is a stain on the air force and on Israel'
Maj. G. serves in operational headquarters, the "Pit," and his task is to prepare the "target bank" and to oversee the attacks. "We are engaged in everything related to that, from intelligence all the way to the attack, down to the information that's received after the attack," he explains.
What's the discourse in the Pit about the exceptional scale of the harm to civilians in this war?
"After October 7, it was clear that the whole criterion of innocent people in Gaza had changed. It was clear that we were now in far greater danger, and therefore we also needed to be far more aggressive. I think that there was truly agreement on that. If during the previous rounds in Gaza we aspired to a situation of zero casualties among noncombatants, after October 7 we were ready to endanger more innocent civilians in every attack in order to achieve the goal.
"That was because we truly saw a possibility, especially at the start, of the country also being attacked from the north, and there was great apprehension. After that, I'm afraid to say, it just became more acute. We got used to it. We got used to the idea that in Gaza, this is what's done. It's natural. You do things, repeat them, it becomes the norm."
But didn't the penny drop at any stage? Wasn't anyone jolted by the number of people killed?
"I can't speak for others. I can say that it bothers me a great deal. I feel that the air force lost its professionalism. Its professionalism is not to harm innocent people, unless there is no choice. I feel that what is happening is disproportionate, that the number of those killed is astronomical and that this is a stain on the air force and on the State of Israel."
How many people in the Pit also think that way?
"There are opinions both ways. The dominant discourse is the aggressive one. But I can't really stand behind that statement, it's just a personal impression."
There are legal experts in the Pit who effectively supervise this. Where are they?
"There are clear rules: The attacks must be within the framework of the laws of war. But within the framework of the laws of war, there is place for commanders' discretion. If you attack in sensitive places – let's say a hospital – then it's only with the authorization of very high-ranking commanders. The commanders' discretion is within the framework of the laws of war, it does not exceed them.
"But if in the past we restricted ourselves greatly – for example, before using heavy bombs we issued a warning [on the ground], and then [first] used a small bomb that doesn't cause damage in order to make sure that everyone was evacuating – that is no longer the case. There's a general warning and that's it. I can tell you with certainty: We do not violate the laws of war. No one, ever. It may be regrettable to hear this, but within the framework of the laws of war you can bring about the killing of thousands of civilians."
It may be regrettable to hear this, but within the framework of the laws of war you can bring about the killing of thousands of civilians.
Major G.
Was there ever a situation in this war when people in the Pit reached their red line and said, "I am no longer taking part in this"?
"I saw cases. But I will not elaborate."
Were you ever in the room after a sortie in which many people were killed? What happens in a situation like that?
"I can tell you that there is no room for expressions of emotion. That gets no _expression_. There's a debriefing, it's professional, it always goes in the direction of cold rationalism. So you don't see people saying, 'Wow, we did something absolutely awful.' If that happens, it will be in retrospect. You are within a particular mission, you need to be focused and sharp and professional. It's like a surgeon who's fighting for a patient's life, he can't involve his emotions. He has to stay cold."
Did you ever hear people expressing regret at actions?
"I heard all sorts of things in that direction. People who say, for example, 'We were looking for someone very senior, we undertook a very aggressive attack, people were hit, and he wasn't there.' Do you understand? And then you ask yourself, 'Hang on, was I insistent enough in checking how reliable the intelligence we received was? Could I have prevented it?' In the end, you get particular intelligence and you work on the basis of that, but maybe you could have picked up between the lines that there was some sort of problem with the information?"
How do you cope with that?
"You say, 'I'll do better next time, I need to be more cautious and alert, to listen to tones and not only to words.' You look for how to improve, you don't go into a trauma and you don't stop functioning."
Don't those things build up in your psyche?
"Maybe they do, and we repress, I don't know. We pilots are champions at repressing."
Air Force chief Tomer Bar and IDF chief of staff Eyal Zamir, in the "Pit," on the night of April 17-18, when Israel resumed hostilities in Gaza.Credit: IDF Spokesperson’s Office
How do you explain that?
"As a reservist, you fly a sortie after leaving a sick child at home with a temperature of 40 degrees [104 Fahrenheit], and the car needs its annual test, and your business is having problems, and the check bounced. You have to disconnect, to focus on the mission. It's a matter of life and death. You can't mix these things. So what do you do? Repress. Disconnect. Everything disappears. Focused. It becomes a way of life."
And the same thing happens in reverse when you return?
"I think it does."
How central is the artificial intelligence system in the bank of targets?
"I don't know what the sources of information really are."
So targets come to you which possibly some computer emitted at a dizzying rate, and you treat them as though a person worked on them and researched them?
"Yes. I can't judge that, and I'm not sure which is preferable. People can also make mistakes, right? And computers can also be wrong. There is no way to judge that in our work zone."
'Many religious Zionist commanders are blindly determined – for me, that's the story'
E. is a drone operator in his thirties. According to him, the attack that ended the cease-fire should not have ended with 400 civilians killed. "That was dumb. Killing dozens of civilians in order to liquidate the battalion commander in Shujaiyeh – again [the previous battalion commander had been killed just days earlier] – is also exaggerated, totally exaggerated."
He relates that people in the corps talk among themselves about the harsh results of the attacks, but that happens mainly in one-on-one situations, not in meetings and not as something that gets into WhatsApp groups. "As a drone operator, those questions enter my mind mainly when areas are being evacuated. A zone is set in which from that moment everyone who enters it is [treated as] Hamas. You ask yourself, 'Just a minute, what if someone got lost? What if they just happened to pass by there?' From the viewpoint of the force on the ground, they crossed a line, they're not supposed to be there, and that's that. From my point of view, it's borderline legitimate."
A. relates that the question of whether an attack is necessary comes up with each attack. "Sometimes you're protecting forces on the ground, and you're asked to strike at someone who's kilometers away from there. So you ask yourself: 'Did that really endanger the force, or was it a whim of the command level?' You can't really know, because the ground forces encounter all sorts of things. They can say that they saw in the sector terrorists dressed as women, and there's a woman who came too close, so we couldn't take the risk and leave her alive.
"It depends very much on who you're working with. There are moderates, and there are some who come to heat things up. I can say that there are many commanders from the religious Zionist movement who are blindly determined – from my point of view, that's the story."
Was there ever a case in which you attacked, and you thought that there was absolutely no need for it?
"There were borderline cases, but if there is doubt there is no doubt [about what to do]. The issue of extensive killing of civilians relates first of all to the warplanes. The mistakes I might make are on a small scale. Let's say I think the man with the horse-drawn cart is a terrorist, and after the shooting it turns out that that wasn't the case. That is very bad, but it's one person. With warplanes the damage is far more serious. I have video, there's a story around the person. A fighter pilot knows nothing. He gets coordinates from HQ and executes."
In attacks by warplanes, there are no hot-tempered commanders from the religious Zionism movement – it's the air force chain of command. Do you feel anger toward the heads of the corps?
"I feel that there is a complex machine here, and that responsibility is divided among many people. After all, it's intelligence that provides the targets. The international law personnel give the authorization. The air force executes. Bottom line: I think that those who bring the targets that end with the killing of dozens of civilians and sign off on them – namely the heads of intelligence and of the air force – need to provide explanations."
Despite the stomach-churning feelings, A. doesn't think that refusal to serve is the solution. "There are many things that because of them I report for reserve duty: commitment to the state, a desire to protect the soldiers, the feeling that it's preferable for me to be there and not other people. Refusal is a lose-lose situation. After all, Hamas will see it and say, 'Great, they are falling apart from within.' It's playing into the hands of the enemy. And in terms of the international community, it will only intensify the feeling that we are the bad guys."
'I know I killed children; even if it was an error, it stays with you'
K. is a reservist in active service, flying drones. He has had a very long career in the air force. In civilian life, he works in the field of education. "I have had moral dilemmas through all the years," he says, "because you work in complex situations in which the enemy uses a civilian environment, and you have to know how to separate between them. I can say that there has been a major change in this area since October 7."
What are you referring to?
"Since October 7, more risks are being taken when it comes to harming civilians or noncombatants. In part because it's a war that has been going on for more than a year and a half already. And it's a good question whether it's possible to say that there is still a war."
Since October 7, more risks are being taken when it comes to harming civilians or noncombatants. In part because it's a war that has been going on for more than a year and a half already. And it's a good question whether it's possible to say that there is still a war.
K., a drone operator
How much information is available to you about the number of casualties there will be and what the mission involves, exactly?
"I have 100 percent information. There's an order. It states whether it is permissible for noncombatants to be harmed. From our point of view in the missions we execute, women and children are beyond the pale, always. The moment you spot a woman or a child, you cease. It's not like that for fighter pilots, for example – in regard to them, in the end you can't say who was in the building you toppled. In the missions that I execute, I see through the camera who I am hitting, so I know who is next to him, and the ability to decide whether I continue or not is in my hands."
If the dilemmas have existed for a long time already, what makes you speak out now?
"The fact that they returned to attacking Gaza and a week later passed the budget because [Itamar] Ben-Gvir returned to the government – that was simply [pissing from] the diving board [meaning a clearly unacceptable act done openly]. It was clear to me that I was a pawn in a political move, and that burned me up. That's what shook me up. Again, the experience of determining fates, who will die and who will live, that's something that I have lived with for years. But when [both] the path and the goal are clear to you, you can handle it. When you feel that you are doing something that is tainted professionally, things become even more complex."
The search for survivors at the home of the Manoun family, in Jabalia al-Balad section of Gaza City, on April 13. "We got used to it. We got used to the idea that in Gaza, this is what's done. It's natural."Credit: Jehad Alshrafi/AP
How does it work in the end? When you get an order, do you sometimes ask questions? Argue? What actually happens there?
"When something deviates from the order, or it's clear to you that something isn't right, many times people stop, ask, cease, or get a better answer than the one they received until then. As long as nothing exceptional has happened and there's not a red flag over what you are doing, you want to perform the mission you have been tasked with and succeed professionally."
Give me an example of a moral dilemma.
"There's a big difference between the units we worked with. In the ground maneuver in Gaza there were units that interpreted the orders one way, and units that interpreted them in a different way. Does a person who crosses a certain line that we drew between houses in Gaza deserve to die? Or do we need to determine that he really does have intentions to strike at our forces before he's killed? In the end, it's the maneuvering force [on the ground] that sets these lines. You [may] work with someone on the other end of the phone who tells you, 'Every person who crosses this line in Gaza, is fated to die.'"
You determine people's fates on the basis of that imaginary line.
"That's true, which is why I am saying that up until October 7 everything was very clear and precise, and when something was part of an order it was applied fully and zero risks were taken. Since the start of the war, things have become far grayer. But there is another angle to this. Hamas in Gaza works in a civilian guise, they don't go around in uniform with arms, but wander the streets, spotting and marking where our forces are, and then return to safe houses in order to strike at them. So I can't tell you how many were noncombatants when all is said and done."
When you have conversations in the wake of the reports about the people who are killed, do you sit and talk about this?
"There is a high awareness among the commanders about people's feelings, so, yes, there is an opportunity to express it and talk it out. In my view, the way the death of the children and the women went over among the Israeli public and the media, is the way it goes over in the air force. People engage with it, talk about it, but if the same event had occurred three years ago, it would have had a different resonance, in my opinion."
How do you cope with this at the personal level? Do you have people to talk to? Is there support?
"I share with my wife, I get therapy off and on, sometimes yes and sometimes no, and there are very few associates in the army with whom you can talk about it openly and clearly."
Can you explain that?
"There is repression. You explain to yourself why what you are doing is right and proper, and that you are one of the good guys. Most people explain to themselves that they are in a democracy, they are doing what they were told to do, that the commanders recognize and know this, and that if mistakes are made they are investigated and we move forward. Most people think they are not criminals."
What does your wife say?
"She says to me: 'It's better for you to invest your energy in good and useful places than to be sowing destruction.' But she accepts my decisions and understands why it's important."
Do you have a red line?
"Yes. In the end, there are both orders and also things that help me delineate what is permissible and what is forbidden. I haven't yet been in a place where I was required to do something about which I said to myself: 'Okay, this is something I am not prepared to do, not something I feel comfortable with.' So, happily, I haven't faced that dilemma."
There is repression. You explain to yourself why what you are doing is right and proper, and that you are one of the good guys.
K., a drone operator
Neither before nor in retrospect?
"No. I know that I killed children. Even if it was an error. That stays with you. And that accompanies me and I want to avoid it. But I know that against the enemy we are dealing with and the situation in which we find ourselves, things will happen. It's not a clinic."
Are these situations that you are actually trying to better clarify or do you want to put them behind you?
"There were cases in which I googled and looked for [news reports of] the event, looked at the names and so forth, and there were events after which, for all kinds of reasons, I went to sleep, I went to eat and I went to take down the next [target]."
And to this day you haven't reached the point where you have said: "I am approaching my red line, I don't know whether I can go on doing this"?
"In the everyday, in what I am doing, I don't discern anything in which I am crossing a moral red line. I have a dilemma that is definitely a moral one and which also has a red line that needs to be drawn: that of the big picture. Whether I am taking part in a war whose bottom line is harming a great many people who don't wish me ill, and whether I am doing more harm than good to the big idea – that perhaps my children will be able live here in peace and quiet."
"Right now there are soldiers in Gaza being fired on. What is going to help them more, if I stop or if I go on being there for them?" says D., a fighter pilot.Credit: IDF Spokesperson’s Unit
'I didn't believe I would do the things I did. I didn't believe I would kill people'
Lt. Col. P., a retired fighter pilot, serves as a liaison between the ground forces and the air force. "My task is to ensure that the attacks come at the right time, with the required precision and without mistakes. I served three tours of duty and I announced that I would not report for a fourth, for the reasons we set forth in the letter," he says.
What happened with the fourth round?
"We are in a different situation. We struck everyone we needed to strike, the whole command structure of Hamas, of Hezbollah and of others. As in every war, the security concept speaks of military achievements, of exacting a steep price from the other side – which we did – and now is the time to wield the diplomatic arm. To bring back the captives, to end the war and to rehabilitate. That can happen easily. It's not happening, because someone up above doesn't want it to happen, because the person running this war has a conflict of interest."
What was the moment that made you say: My line has been crossed?
"When I was called up for reserve duty, I faced no dilemma. But gradually you realize that the war does not end because they do not want to end it. I cannot say I had a single moment when my eyes were opened, because you have thoughts all the time. I did not believe I would do the things I did. I did not believe I would kill people."
But I suppose this war was not your first combat experience.
"No, but it was never like this. Not at this level. Never."
What is different?
"Prof. Avi Sagi [philosopher and military ethicist] wrote that a pilot is a sort of blind sniper, because he does not see the target he is aiming for. Today, most activity is done with very precise weapons. The pilot's job in the air is to make sure that all systems are working properly, and if he makes no mistake, the bombs hit the target. The fellows down on the ground, the ones who construct this whole thing, see the strike. They see the bomb hitting the target."
And that's you.
"That's our teams. You get a mission to attack some building where there is someone that should die. And you have your eyes on the target. You have to strike, and then you see a boy playing soccer on the street. You see it on a screen, but you see it well. That is the essence of our dilemma. There are laws and rules and all is well and good, but in the end there are children playing soccer on the street."
Is this a true story?
"It happened more than once or twice. This is a dilemma because that person there needs to die. He needs to die both as punishment for what he did, and also because we need to kill and hit hard enough to get to where we are today, where they see that they have people dying every night, until someone there will come around and say enough. But on the other hand, the child playing street soccer is not guilty. Where do you draw the line? What do you do?"
What do you do?
"What would you have done? This is precisely where you find the answer to the question of how a pacifist like me could have done those things. There are all kinds of rules about collateral damage, and if you double the number of kids playing street soccer, for example, you go beyond permitted damage, so the strike is off."
How many such situations have you find yourself in?
"More than just a few. At least 15. Each one of those is an entire world. And the question is, what is there on the other hand. Sometimes what you have on the other hand is our forces, which need to be protected, and then the line moves and you become less sensitive to the other side's suffering. And this leads to tensions vis-à-vis people who think differently. Some say, I don't care about the other side's guys, and some say, a child is a child is a child. This is just where the dilemma reaches a limit."
Palestinian children in the aftermath of an Israeli strike on the Jabalya refugee camp.Credit: AFP/BASHAR TALEB
In situations when you have been involved, do you try to find out about the outcome later?
"Yes. You have tried to hit people that should have died, who were among the raiders, the murderers and rapists, and you want to make sure that they really have been killed."
Do you also get information about collateral damage in the strike?
"You don't get that. In extreme cases, there is an inquiry. You are just as familiar with the numbers as I am. You know how many children have been killed there, you know how many uninvolved people have been killed there. The numbers exist and the numbers are not good."
But you, for the sake of argument, are not aware of what you are responsible for in those numbers.
There are a lot of people like me who have not signed the letter, but who are stopping without saying anything. They cannot connect with the big picture of the war. Even if every target is justified in itself, there are too many big pictures where it looks bad.
D., a fighter pilot
"No, no. You are aware that you are part of the system. In a job like this, you have to trust the system, but once the system is filled with incompetents, with people of no morals and no understanding, not to mention with conflict of interests, this is a problem."
All these adjectives are directed solely at the government or also at the military? Have you at some point lost faith in the chain of command?
"Not at that level. Not at a level where I am unwilling to take commands from them. Certainly not. Certainly not at the extreme level of conflict of interests. The commanders are professionals, and to the best of my understanding and my experience, they are doing the best they can. Like with everything else, some are better and some not as good, but you learn to live with that. Once someone is in a conflict of interest – even if it just because my sons go to war and his don't, or if it is an extreme situation of criminal conflicts of interest, somebody who has to remain in power so that he can appoint his own judges, and so doesn't end the war – that is something else. Today I saw that the chief of staff said there is a shortage of soldiers. This is because people have grown tired of this dilemma. People in general do not believe the government. Reserve enlistment is already very low. The regular soldiers are fatigued."
To what extent did you share your dilemmas and your decision with your family?
"I shared it with them and they pretty much support my decision and see things in the same way. As for the complex dilemmas we have talked about, they felt it in me, but I hardly shared anything [those moral dilemmas]. You don't have to make it hard for others as well."
Can you talk a little about how you experience all this on the emotional level? Do you carry around names and images with you?
"Yes. Before October 7, I did a lot of sports that require concentration, and I haven't been able to go back to that since. It is very hard to go back to your routine. Your head is somewhere else; it cannot focus on things I have been doing for years."
Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Katz. The war hasn't ended because "because someone up above doesn't want it to happen," says Lt. Col. P.Credit: Tomer Appelbaum
And you link this to strikes whose outcomes you are not aware of?
"Absolutely. Also to other incidents. You also see our guys getting killed, and you ask, what could I have done better? Where did I go wrong? Between the lines, it sounds as if I'm saying I had a really hard time. But that's a joke compared with what the hostages are going through. In all of this, I don't know if I did right, I don't know if I have made mistakes. But what made me act is the thought that I can help get the hostages released."
"I did not sign the letter, but if I feel I cannot fight anymore, I will just stop fighting"
D. is a fighter pilot. He says, "There are many strikes in which I do not see the target when I fire the weapon. So the air force has developed mechanisms where the pilot knows he can trust the system. They explain to me who provided the target, what is the possible expected damage, why this particular weapon has been selected, and so on."
So you know whether innocents are likely to be hit?
"Of course. They do not always tell me that in the next house lives a family with four children, but they usually tell me – look out, your target is an arms storehouse in some building's cellar, and you strike after the building is supposed to be empty of [uninvolved] people. It's possible that nearby houses will sustain this or that damage. When the sortie is over, the inquiry also deals with exactly these kind of things. Did we hit [our target] or not, was there any unanticipated damage, and were other people hit?"
But it seems like in this war, the parameters have changed. The accepted level of harm to innocent bystanders, [reducing] the early warnings, and the like.
"I read in newspapers about a lot of things that may have happened and may not have happened. I am not exposed to this. In my squadron, in my cockpit, nothing has changed. That is, I am not aware of any incidents in which the death of uninvolved people has been ignored. I think that it is just that there have never been strikes on this scale, which is why there are so many innocent civilian deaths. As critical as I may personally be to the actual war and whether it is achieving its strategic goals, still in the tactical mechanism of any specific strike, in all the strikes I have carried out, and I have had hundreds of strikes in this war, the mechanism has been preserved."
You are describing a mechanism that makes a clear distinction between the people who decide, the people who dispatch you, the people who know the details, and the people who carry out the bombing. Is there something about this that makes it easier for everybody to do their part without seeing the overall picture? The overall picture is, in the end, tens of thousands of civilians killed.
"You are right. But I do not know a single pilot who after a strike does not check up on what happened, why did it happen, and how it went. I take great interest in what I have done, and when I know that uninvolved people have been killed by my sortie, I am sure to ask questions, and I get answers from very senior staff officers. Why were they killed and whether it was proper. I think, in the overall picture, the air force carried out tens of thousands of strikes, and each half-ton bomb could kill dozens of people. I think that, relatively speaking, out of tens of thousands of strikes, it was just a small percent that resulted, unfortunately, in thousands of uninvolved people getting killed.
Does it ever happen that you go home after the sortie is over and you want to find out more, because you are personally interested in what happened there?
"Yes, I take an interest, so I make more inquiries. Who exactly at headquarters planned it and so on, and whether this could have been prevented. Look, the belly-ache and the heartache are not simple, and I am the one who has to live with myself in the end. I still think we are fighting a complicated war, and there are a lot of terrorists who want very much to kill us. This is not about revenge, Heaven forbid, at least not with me. I believe that stopping the war is important first and foremost in order to bring back the hostages, but that is not the only reason, because also what do we really stand to gain anymore? Not only are the hostages not coming back, we are also not making any operational accomplishments, yet we also hit civilians for no reason. This has been true since the middle of last year, certainly well into this year. This is what pains me most of all."
Doesn't this belly-ache worsen with time? That is, doesn't your attitude toward all this change?
"It changes a lot. I have deep dilemmas. I was against the letter, but not because I do not think it is right to call for an end to the war. I think, if I feel I cannot fight anymore, I will just stop fighting. I think there are a lot of people like me who have not signed the letter, but who are stopping without saying anything. They cannot connect with the big picture of the war. Even if every target is justified in itself, there are too many big pictures where it looks bad. And this has to do with the stretching out of the war. I will just tell you the other side, why I have not stopped yet. Because right now, while you and I are debating what is right, there are soldiers in Gaza being fired on. What is going to help them more, if I stop or if I go on being there for them? How do I protect your kids and mine better, by stopping or by continuing? Even though it is clear to me that strategically, systemically and diplomatically we need to stop, we still have a war on our hands. These are very tough considerations to weigh. If tomorrow a thousand activists say that they are not ready to fight, it will be very dangerous. So I am not there yet."
What if a young pilot comes to you and says, I went on a sortie, and I later saw on the news that three families were erased. How do you deal with this?
"Here is what I would tell him: Did you ask if the target was clean? Did you check who approved the target? Did you make inquiries afterward? Did you do everything you could have done? Did you check that HQ did all it should have done? That's it, you did your bit. Now, can he make his peace with that? Everybody makes their own deliberation. The definition of a combat soldier, whether airborne or on the ground, is someone who is risking his or her life and could take other people's lives. It is a shitty pursuit. I believe the way the air force educates its soldiers is worthy. Asking questions, understanding the target and understanding the cost. But, see, some people went the extra mile and decided to stop because of what they perceive as the big picture. No one will say, I only want to fly on sterile missions, to defend against cruise missiles from Iran, don't put me down for strikes. You cannot do that. You are either all in, or you are out. It won't work any other way. But if the war goes on like this, the more question marks there are, people will just stop showing up for reserve duty. Because if you cannot live with yourself, you just can't. And in the end, it may become a wave. This is what the government must understand.
"There is another aspect to it. As long as the Supreme Court and the attorney general and military advocate general are there, I do not rely solely on the colonel that approved the target for the strike, because he himself will be subject to professional investigation and judicial overview. But if you tell me tomorrow that there is no judicial overview, this will devastate much of the way in which I resolve this balance between belly-ache and the need to protect you and me. Perhaps this is what politicians need to realize, it is not just the personal concern about being arrested abroad, but really about my not being able to have faith in the system."
In terms of this wave you have been talking about, where are we on a scale of zero to one hundred?
"I do not think this is a continuous scale, there are gradations. If they dismiss the military advocate general or the attorney general tomorrow, or if they appoint a problematic chief to the Shin Bet – and many of my targets are acquired from the Shin Bet – then we won't go from 6 to 8, but will leap to 40."