As the Israeli onslaught in Gaza drags into its 15th month, a growing number of IDF soldiers are refusing to return to the battlefield. Some say they witnessed war crimes in Gaza and no longer want to be a part of the conflict that several human rights organizations have labeled a genocide. 200 Israeli soldiers signed a letter calling for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end the war.
One of the soldiers, Yuval Green, a 27-year-old medic, told the AP he walked off his post last January. He said decided he could no longer be a part of the war in Gaza after witnessing his fellow soldiers looting and destroying Palestinian homes.
A second soldier, Yotam Vilk, explained that he would not return to Gaza after he saw the murder of a Palestinian teenager in what he described as a “buffer zone.”
Israel has set up multiple “kill zones” in Gaza. As Haaretz explained in March, anyone slain in a designated kill zone is labeled a “terrorist” even if they “never held a gun in their lives,” and they are “often civilians whose only crime was to cross an invisible line drawn by the IDF.”
Green and Vilk are among the 200 Israeli soldiers – members of the group Soldiers for the Hostages – who signed a letter addressed to Netanyahu demanding an end to the war in Gaza. In comments to the AP, the IDF condemned the soldiers’ refusal to serve. They could face jail time for declining to fight, though the activist group says none of its members have yet faced legal consequences.
At the group’s conference, the AP spoke with seven Israeli soldiers, all who reported witnessing war crimes, including indiscriminate killings and the intentional destruction of homes. Some reported that they were ordered to set fire to houses.
Other soldiers opposed to further deployments in Gaza are primarily concerned about the war’s impact on Israelis, not Palestinians. They cited the high number of deaths of Israeli troops after more than a year of fighting, as well as post-traumatic stress and moral injury from the violence.
Another member of Soldiers for the Hostages, Max Kresch, told CNN in October that he was worried his fellow soldiers were religiously inspired to fight in Gaza. He explained one soldier believed it was a “mitzvah,” or Jewish religious duty, to kill Palestinian children since “they would grow up to be terrorists.”
