Because we wanted to maintain the units honor, the goal of the battalion became to kill, relates a former combat soldier, who unravels another testimony in the framework of the ‘Breaking the Silence’ organization. Incidents of kill-verifying, in his words, have become routine; something that young soldiers are educated to.
Two combat soldiers with the rank of staff sergeant, who served in a special unit, tell of an incident that happened a little over a year ago in the Tul Karem area. The witnesses are designated witness 1 and witness 2 in order to prevent identification and the danger of self-incrimination.
Something we were used to
In one of the operations, they sprung us in the middle of the night, relates witness 1. They said that there was a warning of a suicide terrorist, who was coming out of Tul Karem. By the time we got there, it was already morning. They told us that we were entering in order to make a mess. Enter a house on every corner, as if we came in large forces, pass from building to building and create pressure in order to prevent the departure of the suicide terrorist.
Witness 2: And we had to get the armed people out [of the houses].
Witness 1: We did not know that the moment we would enter, they would shoot at us. The idea was to enter a house, search it, leave, and then to go over to the other side of the refugee camp. Just like that, random houses. We would choose houses at random. It’s supposed to make the terrorist feel that there are many IDF forces in the camp. When they entered the first house, two or three people started to shoot at us from the alley. We were an entire company inside one house, 30 men. They posted sharpshooters at all the windows.
At a certain stage one of the guys identified a pistol and a head poking out. He fired and hit him from a distance of about 50 meters. Then the company commander decided that he would take our entire team out. I think his idea was to take the pistol or something like that. The man was lying in the alley 50 meters from us. There were at least two other guys they identified who were shooting at the house in that alley, and he decided that he would go out to get the pistol. We went out, an entire team, to the alley, he gave him a bullet in the head, the team commander gave him a bullet in the head, the machine-gunner sprayed the alley, I don’t know how many bullets.
Witness 1: The whole team went, with the company commander, they got to the body. They turned it over, took the pistol, the one who got there first, everyone there put a bullet in the head, the company commander, the team commander… In any case, he was already dead. The man took three or four bullets in the head from 50 meters. The kill verification had already been done.
Witness 1: In the morning we returned to the unit, they made us a meal fit for kings. We raised a glass to the new era, because the new company commander arrived and now we would start to liquidate people. The company commander promised that whoever killed someone would get a week’s leave. The shooter didn’t want to take the leave, but nobody understood why.
Witness 2: Kill verification was something we were used to. It was taught to us. Its what we were supposed to do.
It wasn’t ideology
A staff sergeant from the ‘Egoz’ (elite unit) relates: You get to this kind of [mental] stage where you really want action. Experienced soldiers who’ve already been two years and seven or eight months in the army. We went to do an ambush. People really wanted action; they wanted something to happen already. We sat in the ambush position and someone came. When they killed him, people hugged each other out of joy.
You must understand, he was armed, he had to die. They did the right thing, but when you’re hugging each other because of it, when you’re yelling, that’s not ideology. It’s something else. It’s vengefulness. You’re enjoying it already. I’m not talking about simple soldiers; I’m talking about the deputy company commander and the company commander who were happy, the commander of the unit, who was happy, and said: “Congratulations, you can see how the corpse jumps. They watched the film from the MRPV [pilotless plane] over and over again, and every time they got excited all over again about how in the film you could see the corpse jumping.
About Breaking the Silence
They are not refusnics. They are not politicians. They are simply soldiers who were there, which is also here, and decided that it cannot go on. That somebody had to stand and shout: wake up and look at what’s happening to us. Breaking the Silence: every Tuesday Chen Kotas-Bar brings testimony from the war in the Territories, and about what it is doing to us.
