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POB 51027
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“Breaking the Silence”
Account number 340211, Branch 567 at Hapoalim Bank
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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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"You can't authorize the potential killing of 300 civilians for a battalion commander [referring to the assassination of Biari], or the killing of 20 civilians for every Hamas truck driver, and still tell the public we did everything we could to avoid harming innocent people," says Nadav Weiman, executive director of Breaking the Silence.
DER SPIEGEL spoke to 10 Israelis who served in the Gaza Strip after the Hamas terror attack of October 7, 2023, remotely piloted drones or selected targets for airstrikes. The Israeli organization Breaking the Silence , which collects testimonials from soldiers about misconduct and crimes committed by the military, facilitated contact with some of them.
And according to testimony from soldiers that Breaking the Silence collected and cross-checked, the collateral damage approved for that attack was 300.
"The staggering death toll in Gaza is largely the result of inhumane and immoral collateral damage thresholds, but those thresholds are only part of the story. The permissive rules of engagement given to troops on the ground, and the killing of unarmed civilians crossing imaginary lines all played a part."
Testimonies collected by Breaking the Silence suggest that this gap is not simply about individual incidents, but about the policies, assumptions and rules of engagement. The testimony surrounding the Nasser Hospital strike points to “retrospective incrimination”: rather than identifying a legitimate military target before an attack, evidence connecting those killed to Hamas may be sought afterward in order to justify the strike.
The soldier said after high-profile strikes that kill civilians without clear military purpose, army officials search for militant links among those killed.
"The infrastructure of the occupation is built in a way that for a soldier, for us, it's almost impossible to enforce the law on violent settlers and very easy to do whatever we want on Palestinians," said Nadav Weiman, a former sniper who now heads Breaking the Silence, an advocacy group for Israeli veterans.
The incident G. describes is not unusual. Other testimonies from commanders and soldiers in regular and reserve service who have served in the West Bank since October 7 describe a reality in which the line between the army and the regional defense battalions, made up of local settlers called up for reserve duty, has become blurred.
The collaboration between the Israeli army and the most extreme and violent settlers is not a new phenomenon – we at Breaking the Silence have been documenting it for years. It's an omnipresent characteristic of the occupation. Anyone who has served in the occupied territories knows that settlers are an integral part of the mechanism of control over Palestinians.
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...
You mess with the ground to tie your shoelaces, pick something up, throw...
Rank: Captain
Unit:
. Most of the time, the people who breach the perimeter are adult men....
Rank: Sergeant First Class
Unit:
Area: Northern Gaza strip
You see normal, pretty ordinary people, reaching a point where they abuse...
Rank: First Sergeant
Unit: Reserves
Area: Israel
They called them Nukhbas sometimes; even though some of them hadn’t been...
Rank: First Sergeant
Area: Israel
video
Number: 50952
Unit: Engineering Corps
Rank: First Sergeant
Place: Ramallah
Period: 2005
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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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