An Israeli army fighter wrote down his bitter memories of the settlements in Gaza that ended in 2005 and the existing settlements in the West Bank. He also wrote his opinions about the Israelis’ ambitions to regain control of Gaza, strongly criticizing that.

Alon Sahar, who was a fighter in the Givati Infantry Brigade, said in a report in the Israeli newspaper “The Jerusalem Post” that controlling Gaza is deadly for the Israelis and Palestinians, and that the settlements did not protect Israel, as the right-wing parties claim, and that as soldiers they always protect the settlements at the expense of the Palestinians.

Below is what Sahar recorded in his own words:

I was the last to leave Gaza in 2005

On August 22, 2005, I was among the last soldiers to close the gate as we left the Netzarim settlement in the Gaza Strip, for the last time. We served there for a year and a half of what can only be described as hell.

As a soldier sent to protect the Gush Katif settlements – the main settlement bloc in the Gaza Strip that includes 21 settlements, I saw and experienced first-hand the price of clinging to isolated enclaves in the heart of a hostile environment.

I lost friends when Hamas fighters penetrated our forward military positions. I rode home with the settler mothers who raced with their children in the back seat, to avoid being shot. I thought then, on that summer day in 2005, that I was leaving all that violence behind me.

They seek to open the gates of hell

Now, the Israeli settler right and their false prophets are doing everything they can to reopen the gates of hell.

According to recent opinion polls, they have the support of at least 25% of the Israeli public. As a filmmaker and anti-occupation activist, I have spent the last decade of my career trying to address the moral sensitivities of Israelis by showing the deep injustices that Palestinians are forced to endure every day.

I hoped that by arousing compassion, our citizens would come to see that permanent occupation—leading to untold human suffering—is not the way.

Now, in the new and terrifying post-October 7 reality, it seems there is no longer room for compassion in Israeli society. In this case, now is the time to expose the other side of the coin: the terrible price we pay as Israelis for accommodating the policy of imposing our rule on others because this is not just about the Palestinians; It's about us too.

Our worst nightmares

As a former occupying soldier, my comrades and I felt the heavy cost in the Gaza Strip. We have an obligation to speak out about the calls for Gaza settlement that are escalating in Israel. Those who refuse to see the humanity of Palestinians at least owe it to us, the soldiers who protected their settlements, to listen to us talk about the sacrifice we made before we were dragged there.

The atrocities of October 7, and the realization of our worst nightmares, sent every Israeli, including me, into a state of deep sadness. Now, settler leaders are exploiting our grief and anger to promote the dysfunctional idea of resettling what they see as part of their biblical right, while they parrot the age-old defense of settlements as a security necessity.

I experienced terror in my body

This enthusiasm for the messianic salvation they so desperately desire, and the inevitable human price it will exact, will come as no surprise to those who weren't there the last time. But I experienced the horror of my body in the Gush Katif settlement in the Gaza Strip.

Right-wingers often refer to these settlements as the country's "bulletproof vest." But in reality, we soldiers were those jackets. There was nothing we didn't do for the Palestinians in the name of keeping the settlements safe: we carried out dozens of operations in the middle of their crowded neighborhoods.

We stormed their homes and turned them into military posts, clearing away their properties and orchards around the settlements to create buffer zones. If there was a choice between impacting the lives of Palestinians or the comfort of settlers, the choice to be made was quite clear.

Hamas was a force in Gaza long before Israel demolished its settlements and withdrew military forces during the 2005 disengagement. There were rockets, mortars, roadside bombs and tunnels like the one from which Hamas blew up the IDF's Orhan outpost in 2005. Rocket and shell fire was common, but it was only part of the story.

I survived several serious accidents

Not every soldier has 9 lives, but apparently, I did. I was once shot at on my way to the bathroom, moving between an armored vehicle and a military position. Another time, an RPG was fired at me while I was riding in a car during one of our operations. Fortunately, it didn't hurt me. I stood right next to an explosive device as grenades were thrown at me, but they did not explode.

I was covered in pieces of his flesh

One time, when I was about to arrest a Hamas activist, he blew himself up next to a Shin Bet (Israeli security agency) officer. I still remember being covered in pieces of his flesh, and my ears ringing from the deafening explosion. I started to question what the hell I was risking my life for.

Today, the Israeli messianic right is frank about its aspirations. We will know we have won “when a Jewish child can walk in Gaza without fearing for his life,” said MK Simcha Rothman, one of the architects of last year’s judicial reform. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a former senior Defense Ministry official, speaks frankly about prolonged Israeli control of Gaza.

They are trying to impose permanent control over Gaza

Make no mistake. It will happen. How many are aware that earlier this year, the Knesset repealed the disengagement law in the northern West Bank, effectively paving the way for settlers to return to areas from which they had previously been evacuated? The same lawmakers who proposed this bill also recently introduced legislation to repeal the Gaza Disengagement Law.

At first, they will tell us that it is “just a security zone,” and later, an outpost will appear there. It is likely named after one of the decimated kibbutz communities near the Gaza border. After a while, we find out that the military provides security for it and actually has satellite outposts around it.

The settlers' imagination is our nightmare

We cannot allow ourselves to get around the issue of what happens after the war. We have to think about our vision of a free, safe and sustainable life here for both Palestinians and Israelis.

The Israeli public has let messianic ideas corrupt this place for too long, under the pretext that the settlements are vital to security. We must not believe that.

The settlements did not protect Israel - we as soldiers protect the settlements, always at the expense of the Palestinians. The settlers’ imagination was a nightmare for us... nothing more.

Source: Jerusalem Post + Aljazeera