A group of former Israeli occupation army soldiers criticized the Israeli government for its killing policy in the Gaza Strip against Palestinian civilians, calling on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “correct the course.”

According to what was reported by the American website The Daily Beast, Uri Givati, director of support for this group called Breaking the Silence, believes that Israel has the right to respond to the October 7 attacks, but this response should not be extremely cruel.

"We have no right to do what we want"

Givati told The Daily Beast: “This war is different from all other operations because of the Hamas attack... but that does not mean that we have the right to do whatever we want.”

Givati added: “The leadership now, and the way they are talking...some of them are talking about re-settlement of Gaza. Some of them are talking out of revenge, that we have to level Gaza to the ground and things like that. But these positions are disturbing for two reasons; the first is that they are, of course, immoral and inhumane.” The second is that it is necessary for operations to be shaped according to a vision that pave the way towards peace in the future, and not a path that returns the region to the usual situation of continuous fighting and hatred.”

“We have to understand where we are going from here,” Givati said, noting that the Israeli government should not do anything just for revenge, but for the purpose of reaching a political solution.

Givati expressed his fear that the way Israel is carrying out its operations against Hamas, with unlimited bloodshed and killing of innocent residents, will not help in achieving any progress on the path to peace. This is likely to anger and entrench division between Palestinians and Israelis, and this will make peace much more difficult.

Givati added: “Will this make me or us Israelis safer, or will it prolong the occupation longer and longer and leave us in this vicious cycle of bloodshed? This is clearly not working. If we kill tens of thousands of civilians, or destroy a lot of infrastructure, "It will not bring back our families and friends who were killed or our hostages. Revenge is not a war plan."

“There are no civilians. If you identify someone, kill him.”

Givati said that team members at Breaking the Silence are working to collect testimonies from former Israeli soldiers who participated in previous operations in Gaza to evaluate how to change the strategy.

Testimonies from past wars showed that the Israeli army gave the green light to launch operations as quickly as possible after warning civilians.

“The prevailing perception is that anyone you see is a terrorist,” says one testimony given by a former IDF soldier who participated in previous operations. Another said: “They told us: There are no civilians. If you spot someone, kill him.”

Breaking the Silence seeks to completely change the assumptions for waging war on Gaza. So that the army adopts a strategy aimed at reaching a real solution, and not just the blind use of old tactics.

Nadav Wyman, a member of Breaking the Silence, wrote on GroundUp: “The lessons learned from past conflicts have always been about the proper application of these principles, not the validity of the principles themselves. We must question our principles: The lesson we must draw from past conflicts is that only strength "It cannot provide us Israelis with the security we deserve."

It is essential that the Israeli government's plan now includes a solution that addresses the conflict from its roots and a realistic assessment of what should happen after the end of the war, according to Breaking the Silence.

Givati said: “What is the point of sacrificing so many soldiers and killing so many innocent people, if in the end we will return to... where we were before?”

source: Arabic Post