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GBP Checks should be made out to “Breaking the Silence” and sent to:
POB 51027
6713206 Tel Aviv
“Breaking the Silence”
Account number 340211, Branch 567 at Hapoalim Bank
SWIFT: POALILIT
IBAN:
IL310125670000000340211
US tax deductible donations can be made through the website of the New Israel Fund.
For tax deductible donations from Europe please contact info@breakingthesilence.org.il
ILS
EUR
USD
GBP
One time
Monthly Checks should be made out to “Breaking the Silence” and sent to:
POB 51027
6713206 Tel Aviv
“Breaking the Silence”
Account number 340211, Branch 567 at Hapoalim Bank
SWIFT: POALILIT
IBAN:
IL310125670000000340211
US tax deductible donations can be made through the website of the New Israel Fund.
For tax deductible donations from Europe please contact info@breakingthesilence.org.il
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Breaking the Silence has received several testimonies from other soldiers denouncing similar practices. In August 2024, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz published an investigation into the “possibly systematic” use of human shields by the Israeli army, which also included testimonies from some Palestinians who had been victims of this abuse. The television network Al Jazeera also released a video showing Gazans being forced to wear Israeli military uniforms and enter buildings to check for booby traps or explosives.
"Awdah was a peace activist but also a man of education," says Weiman. "He could really speak to crowds and that's why we brought so many people to meet him — because he gave a very interesting angle of what it is to be a Palestinian under Israeli occupation."
It's unlikely that his murderer will face any punishment. According to human rights organizations, only 3 percent of investigations of Israelis engaging in nationally motivated violence against Palestinians lead to convictions for crimes.
Describing the general rules of engagement in Gaza, Joel Carmel of Breaking the Silence, an organisation of former Israel Defense Forces soldiers that campaigns against the occupation of Palestinian territories, said: “If it’s a man of fighting age . . . if they get close or if they’re in an area where they’re not supposed to be, [the orders] are shoot to kill.”
In what is being called the “mosquito procedure,” Israeli soldiers are “ordered by senior officers to grab Palestinians next to them and to use them as human shields,” explains Breaking the Silence’s executive director, Nadav Weiman. “Dehumanization of Palestinians in Israel [has] become something so common that it also leads to these kind[s] of practices inside the IDF.”
“These are not isolated accounts; they point to a systemic failure and a horrifying moral collapse,” said Nadav Weiman, executive director of Breaking the Silence — a whistleblower group of former Israeli soldiers that has collected testimonies about the practice from within the military. “Israel rightly condemns Hamas for using civilians as human shields, but our own soldiers describe doing the very same.”
“The official mission was to open a logistical route for maneuvering, but in practice, the bulldozers were simply destroying homes. The southeastern part of Rafah is completely destroyed. The horizon is flat. There is no city.”
Commanders and soldiers – some of whom also gave testimony to the organization Breaking the Silence – attempt to describe how, in practice, the balance is struck between "not waking up in the morning and destroying neighborhoods," as the senior officer claimed, and "not risking the troops."
The testimonies are some of the first accounts by Israeli soldiers to be published since the latest war started in October 2023 after Hamas’s attack on Israel. They were collected by Breaking the Silence, a group founded in 2004 by Israeli veterans who aim to expose the reality of the military’s grip over Palestinians. The Guardian interviewed four of the soldiers who corroborated the accounts.
12 04 22
"At each stop on the tour, repeated themes and patterns came up; settler violence as a systemic issue, eviction and demolition orders based on...
. Most of the time, the people who breach the perimeter are adult men....
Rank: Sergeant First Class
Unit:
Area: Northern Gaza strip
There's a map that the Gaza Division made of polygons along the Strip fence...
Rank: Sergeant Major
Unit: 5th reserve brigade
Area: Khan Yunis area
They called them Nukhbas sometimes; even though some of them hadn’t been...
Rank: First Sergeant
Area: Israel
The IDF has declared a buffer zone as far as it's concerned, 1.5 kilometers...
Rank: Warrant Officer
Unit:
Area: Northern Gaza strip
video
Number: 81322
Unit: Nahal Brigade
Rank: First Sergeant
Place: Hebron
Period: 2004-2007
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Over 50% of our funding last year came from foreign governmental entities. 100% of our testimonies came from soldiers who served in the occupied territories.
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