Israeli occupation officers, soldiers, and members of the security establishment say those they kill in Gaza are often civilians who pose no threat and do nothing but enter the combat zones, or “extermination areas,” established by Israeli combat units, Haaretz reported on Sunday.
About a week and a half ago, Al-Jazeera broadcast a video taken by an Israeli drone of the killing. The footage showed not one, but four people walking together in civilian clothing on a wide dirt path in the Khan Yunis area.
*22ND MARCH*
*DRONE ATTACK*
*DISTRUBING VIDEO FOOTAGE*
*#GAZA*
*DRONE VIDEO SHOWS KILLING OF PALESTINIANS IN ISRAELI AIR ATTACK*
*VIDEO RETRIEVED FROM AN ISRAELI DRONE IN GAZA SHOWS THE MOMENTS FOUR APPRENTLY UNARMED PALESTINIANS WERE KILLED BY ISRAELI AIR ATTACK*
*UNITED NATION pic.twitter.com/rswA4LGEub— Ayad Alnasiry اياد الناصري (@AyadIraqi8) March 23, 2024
There was no one around them, only the remains of destroyed homes. An Israeli drone suddenly dropped a bomb on the young men. The explosion killed two of them on the spot. The two others were injured and tried to continue walking. Within seconds, a bomb was dropped on one of them. The other fell to his knees. Israeli forces dropped another bomb, killing him as well.
“This is a very bad incident,” a senior officer told Haaretz, “They were not armed; they did not endanger the troops where they went.”
According to an intelligence officer, they were simply the closest to the site where a Hamas rocket was launched. “Maybe they were terrorists, maybe just civilians begging for food.”
The incident is just one example of how the Israeli occupation army operates in Gaza and tallies the alleged number of Hamas fighters it kills.
Whoever counts as a “terrorist” is subject to “a lot of interpretation,” permanent and reserve commanders who spoke to Haaretz explained, meaning that some civilians who have never held a weapon are being counted as Hamas fighters.
Palestinians are being killed because they unknowingly enter the ‘combat space’ of an Israeli army unit operating somewhere in Gaza.
“In every combat space, the commanders define extermination areas,” explained the reserve officer. “[N]o one – who is not part of the IDF forces – is allowed to enter, in order not to allow damage to the forces on the spot,” the officer said, referring to Israeli occupation forces.
The borders of those extermination areas are not determined in advance but by each commander according to the area’s conditions, the distance from the building where the forces are staying, and its height. “As soon as people, mainly adult men, enter the extermination area,” said the reserve officer, “the order is to shoot, even to kill, even if that suspect is not armed.”
Source: Agencies
