Major news outlets have a long history of getting burned by anonymous sources who turned out to be lying or wrong.
Sky News falsely reported chemical weapons in Syria and their sources turned out to be lying. Similarly with the WPD thing in Iraq. I remember recently CNN said Trump aide Scaramucci was under investigation, based on anonymous sources. The story was false, and loads of CNN people had to resign.
I think personally the story here is highly unlikely to be true and deserves serious scepticism.
First, there’s a massive difference between a soldier doing something wrong in the chaos of war - which happens in every army - and a systematic policy to target civilians. The claim here implies the latter.
But the IDF has strict rules of engagement, and every combat operation is monitored closely - drones, surveillance, comms logs, bodycams. Any deliberate civilian targeting would involve dozens or hundreds of people knowingly committing war crimes and hiding it - not just soldiers, but commanders, legal advisers, intelligence officers, and tech support staff.
We'd have to believe everyone was in on this murderous conspiracy which is far-fetched and also doesn't correlate with evidence of previous incidents.
The IDF has also shown it does prosecute misconduct (e.g., Elor Azaria in 2016). It doesn’t ignore violations - it punishes them when proven.
To pull off the kind of coverup being implied here, Israel would need to silence thousands of people, somehow prevent leaks, and avoid the eyes of NGOs, journalists, international observers, and satellite footage - all while risking total diplomatic collapse and war crimes trials. It’s just not plausible IMO.
Could one soldier misinterpret what they saw? Yes. Could someone make it up or spread second-hand stories for political reasons? Also yes. But anonymous claims without evidence, in a propaganda-heavy war, aren’t proof of anything.