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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
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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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.
A report documenting the accounts of soldiers who were in the buffer zone was released Monday by Breaking The Silence, an anti-occupation veterans group. A handful of soldiers -- including some who also spoke to AP -- described watching the army turn the zone into a vast wasteland.
In testimony provided to Breaking the Silence, an Israeli watchdog group which vets and publishes military testimonials, multiple soldiers said they were told the mission was to dramatically expand the buffer zone, in order to prevent another border attack.
Over a decade ago, I recounted this to the organization Breaking the Silence: "Zhabo is taking measurements, looking, taking pictures … We realize that more and more people are coming. We're three jeeps. We were maybe 10 soldiers there, and all of a sudden, from outside the mosque, there are some 150 Palestinians … within a second, starting to stone our jeeps … battering the jeeps ... and we had to flee."
In 2014, the IDF’s acceptable civilian casualty ratio was one civilian for a high-level terrorist, said Tal Mimran, a former legal adviser to the IDF. In the Gaza war, the number has grown to about 15 civilians for one low-level Hamas member and “exponentially higher” for mid- and high-level members,” according to the Israeli human rights organization Breaking the Silence, citing numerous testimonies from IDF soldiers. The New York Times reported the number as 20 earlier this week.
“It’s a Gazafication of the northern part of the West Bank,” said Nadav Weiman, the director of Breaking the Silence, an advocacy group made up of former Israeli soldiers who say they are collecting testimonies from soldiers who took part in the raids in Jenin and another city, Tulkarm.
The soldiers who spoke to The Times said they began using the practice during the current war because of a desire to limit the risks to infantry. Some of the soldiers who saw or participated in the practice found it deeply troubling, prompting them to take the risk of discussing a military secret with a journalist. Two were connected to The Times by Breaking the Silence, an independent watchdog that gathers testimony from Israeli soldiers.
Using stealthy bureaucratic measures, Israel has transformed the nature of governance in the West Bank, taking it from a military occupation with obligations towards the occupied population under international law to a system in which Israeli civilian government institutions, carrying a duty of loyalty to Israelis, run most aspects of Palestinian life in the West Bank. Under Minister Bezalel Smotrich, adherents to the settler ideology have been given greater control over the West Bank and, in practice, the power to implement their ideological agenda.
"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
You mess with the ground to tie your shoelaces, pick something up, throw...
Rank: Captain
Unit:
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
The IDF has declared a buffer zone as far as it's concerned, 1.5 kilometers...
Rank: Warrant Officer
Unit:
Area: Northern Gaza strip