As the War Drags On, More Israeli Soldiers Are Alarmed by the Scale of Killing in Gaza - Israel News - Haaretz.com
Amos Harel May 9, 2025
One reason some Israeli reservists are refusing to report for duty is rarely discussed: objection to the killing in the Gaza Strip. A few weeks ago, Haaretz reported that some air force reservists had expressed deep concern over the scale of the killing, particularly since the war resumed on March 18.
The daily Yedioth Ahronoth added that the air force's top ranks were also disturbed by the killing of many civilians in what were supposed to be focused attacks, and tensions flared with the military's Southern Command about the procedures for authorizing bombing runs.
On Wednesday evening, the air force bombed the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza. Before the attack, the military told the people to evacuate a mosque in the camp, claiming that Hamas was running a command post there. But according to reports from Gaza, shortly afterward a school nearby was bombed in two sorties. The Palestinians say that at least 32 people were killed in the attacks, including four women and nine children under 14.
There have been plenty of incidents like this in the past two months, harking back to the war's peak. The difference is that this time, the army is scarce on the ground, so no immediate danger looms for soldiers' lives to justify the use of massive force.
Atrocity images from these attacks are broadcast almost every night in every country around the world – except Israel. No debate is going on here about the immense pricePalestinian civilians are paying; in the worst case, all we have is the nationalist right's schadenfreude.
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The war has seen two clear intersecting phenomena: a desire to avenge the October 7 massacres, especially among junior soldiers on the ground encouraged by commanders, and severe problems in enforcing discipline. At first, the previous chief of staff, Herzl Halevi, was keen to go on the offensive after the shock of October 7.
Later, the army had a hard time restoring the basic rules of discipline, and the debate sputtered into esoteric realms like the controversy over the "messiah patches" that some soldiers wore, the ones bearing the crown of Chabad messianism. The new chief of staff has no such excuses.
Along with the multiplicity of issues he faces, Halevi's successor, Eyal Zamir, should make clear that there are also innocent civilians in Gaza and that the IDF isn't only committed to the rules of war, it ensures that its soldiers follow them.
That wasn't the case in the appalling killing of aid workers in Rafah at the end of March, and certainly not in many airstrikes since. But the problem doesn't end there. As I've reported throughout the war, one of the gravest – and most common – phenomena has been the killing of Palestinian civilians only because they crossed a red line whose virtual existence they couldn't see.
Hamas is hiding behind a civilian population and has its people go around in civilian clothing without their weapons visible, so this makes it hard to distinguish between combatants and civilians, and heightens the risk to Israeli soldiers. But soldiers often shoot without asking questions and rely on the automatic support of their commanders, knowing that no proper inquiry will be conducted.
Beyond all the good reasons to shun such behavior, it could also endanger the lives of hostages, as happened in Gaza City's Shujaiyeh neighborhood in December 2023 with the mistaken killing of three hostages who had managed to escape.
People carrying a wounded man after an Israeli strike at the UNWRA school at the Bureij camp.Credit: Eyad Baba/AFP
Qatar and Bar
Thursday saw both progress and complications in the investigation into the Qatargate affair. In a surprise move, the police rearrested Yonatan Urich, Netanyahu's senior media adviser. In court, the police argued that Urich had changed his story and that the suspicions against him were now even more credible.
At the same time, it was reported that a former senior defense official was arrested in the affair. Details weren't released, but sources say that more people might be interrogated soon.
The heart of the investigation, at least so far, lies in the suspicions that three of Netanyahu's spokespeople received large sums from the Qataris for consulting and PR services without declaring a potential conflict of interest and without the Shin Bet security service examining the possible leak of information and its implications.
This happened in the most important office in Israel during a war, and with a foreign country that's not only "complex," as Netanyahu has argued, but that also transferred billions of dollars to Hamas in Gaza with the Israeli government's encouragement.
The developments in the investigation might also have implications in the prime minister's battle for political survival. Netanyahu's opponents suspect that the Qataris have penetrated far deeper than is known so far. They're waiting for proof that he's directly implicated, beyond the criticism of the funds-transfer policy and his ignoring of warnings from intelligence agencies.
Netanyahu's supporters, however, are looking for proof that not only the prime minister's people erred. They'll be happy with any evidence linking top security people and the Qataris, as part of the effort to accuse the defense establishment of nurturing a failed conception that led to the October 7 massacres. Anyway, the investigation by the Shin Bet and the police is far from over.
Yonatan Urich this week in Lod, the site of the Central District Court.Credit: Moti Milrod
In the meantime, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara informed the High Court of Justice that she opposes the government's request to quash the legal petitions against the government's initial attempt to fire Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar. She argues that the position of Shin Bet chief is not one of political loyalty, and that a High Court decision is essential to ensure that Bar's successor will be able to withstand inappropriate pressure.
The court is due to decide soon whether to keep on with the issue. It's obvious that Netanyahu has no desire for a ruling that, based on the court's earlier deliberations, might be to his detriment. The prime minister wants to reduce the friction with Bar, to get safely through the remaining five weeks that the two will spend together (Bar is stepping down in mid-June) and try to appoint a successor to his liking.
As Haaretz's Yossi Melman reported this week, Netanyahu also recently ventured another gambit: appointing an acting Shin Bet head for a year and a half, the time remaining in Bar's five-year term. It's believed the intention was to appoint one of Bar's two deputies – the current one or his predecessor.
For the time being, this idea hasn't come to fruition. Its dangers are clear: The acting head will have Netanyahu to thank for his promotion and will be in office during a critical period, the run-up to the October 2026 general election, if it takes place as scheduled. Amid attempts to rig the election, the position of Shin Bet chief will be more important than ever.
Since his resignation announcement late last month, Bar has kept a low profile. He will still have to rebuff false accusations hurled by Netanyahu and his cohorts, but his struggle is over for the most part. In the legal proceedings, Bar did the public a vital service by making known his grave allegations about Netanyahu's behavior.
But as Bar well knows, none of this exempts him from his great role in the disaster wrought by Hamas. Bar is speaking the truth when he reports about his warnings to Netanyahu in the months before the war, but that doesn't explain the gap between his warnings and the limited steps that the Shin Bet and army took on the eve of the October 7 attack, especially the last few fateful hours.
The limited response by the security forces certainly didn't stem from malicious intent but from a deficient evaluation of Hamas' intentions and amid fears that intelligence sources would be burned. This limited response helped thousands of Hamas murderers run roughshod over Israeli communities near Gaza that morning.