Breaking Ranks: Inside Israel’s War,

[Everexpanding]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/10/israeli-soldiers-breaking-ranks-gaza-civilians-human-shields

Israeli soldiers have described a free-for-all in Gaza and a breakdown in norms and legal constraints, with civilians killed at the whim of individual officers, according to testimony in a TV documentary

“If you want to shoot without restraint, you can,” Daniel, the commander of an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) tank unit, says in Breaking Ranks: Inside Israel’s War, due to be broadcast in the UK on ITV on Monday evening.

The soldiers who agreed to talk confirmed the IDF’s routine use of human shields, contradicting official denials, and gave details of Israeli troops opening fire unprovoked on civilians racing to reach food handouts at the militarised distribution points set up by the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

I even highlighted it for you but somehow you seem to have missed the bit where a small group of foreign reporters got a tour of the tunnel that had been uncovered beneath the European Hospital in Khan Younis,

You mean the reporters who were allowed into Gaza and taken on a carefully orchestrated propaganda tour. There's been lots of those. Now, unfettered access by international journalists might be a lot more interesting/realistic.

Sorry why are we now talking about tunnels? The programme was about some IDF soldiers breaking the law and killing innocent civilians for no reason.

Hamas are terrorist bastards, no denying that but evidently (as many have been saying for years) so are the IDF! 2 things can be true at once. There is no defending the IDF on this one.

I am wondering if @Twiglets1and @mids2019have actually watched the documentary as a lot of things brought up were covered in the documentary.

The IDF soldiers literally said their commanders told them that they don’t have to worry about international law, they said they were told to shoot civilians in several circumstances, an army rabbi that seems to be high up also told them to kill civilians and demolish everything, they said that while not the majority that a significant number of IDF soldiers just want to kill all arabs. One of the soldiers said that if people want to use the term genocide he would not dispute the term.

If you have seen this documentary, I must ask how can you defend this army? How are you not horrified after you watched dead bodies, dead children and soldiers admitting that yes it was deliberate, yes they were targeted. IDF soldiers are saying that this is wrong and that it is happening throughout the army, in every battalion and comes from high up. This is not accidental casualties, the soldiers are saying it is targeted l, it is deliberate and the people doing it are across all ranks and battalions.

Speaking of tunnels, did you see the bit on the Mosquito protocol where they discuss how hundreds of Palestinian are being kidnapped and forced to go down tunnels. One soldier talks about two teenagers they abducted and put their lives at risk and when they no longer felt comfortable doing it challenged the commander who told them they did not have to worry about international law, just the IDF spirit. The IDF spirit of kidnapping kids and using them as human shields.

I am wondering if @Twiglets1 and @mids2019 see the difference between Hamas and Israel.

We publicly condemn Hamas. But we send military supplies and intelligence to Israel.

That’s the difference. What is so hard to understand?

Was international law framed with the idea of intense urban conflict in mind? Has any war embedded in a city not had a large number of civilian casualties especially with one antagonist having no uniform and actively using human shields. Maybe in such cases you don't worry about international law on an engagement to engagement basis though probably a lot of the IDF were conscious of it unlike Hamas who were cynically using public opinion to their propaganda advantage.

There is a genocide happening in Sudan right now where combatants are feeling no guilt whatsoever and are blatantly commiting genocide acts but how many documentaries will there be about this? There have already been high-profile departures are the BBC partly due to accusations of bias around this conflict so isn't there a high probability other commissioning /editing boards may have the same bias in their views of this war.

What is going in Sudan is incomparable with what is going on in Israel. Sudan is being torn apart in a bloody civil war between two opposing armies of equal strength and the civilians, trapped between these two armies, are caught in the crossfire. The whole country is suffering terribly. In Israel, Palestinian civilians are being indiscriminately, and as this program has shown, deliberately slaughtered by one of the best equipped armies in the world. Palestinian children are having their limbs blown off and hunted down by snipers while just a few kilometres away, Israelis are lying on a beach topping up their tans and sipping cocktails.

Have you actually watched the documentary? Are you saying it is okay to kidnap people and use them as human shields if you are in a built up urban area? Are you saying you can ignore International Law and people’s human rights and shoot them for hanging up laundry or walking too fast or too slow, shoot a child getting aid or pushing a cart, follow a civilian with a drone for half an hour and then shoot them when you get bored.

Another anonymous soldier said that using drones in Gaza “feels like a game”.
“You can sit in some basement of a house, safe with your helmet off, scratching your balls, half dressed and kill Palestinians,” he added bluntly.

This is stomach churning. It's difficult to understand why some people can't just condemn the actions of the IDF instead of continually jumping to their defence. At least the programme has answered a question that a lot of pro Israel posters have had over the conflict 'why would the IDF purposefully kill civillians?' Because they can.

That would be the same for any military drone operator from any country in a war or conflict.

Do you condemn them as well?

Just the fact it was reported that this anonymous ‘soldier’ said that shows the angle this documentary was coming from.

I can't stop thinking about this. Take this testimony by a surgeon in Gaza. www.bbc.com/news/articles/c7893vpy2gqo.amp

The 62-year-old surgeon told MPs: "What I found particularly disturbing was that a bomb would drop, maybe on a crowded, tented area and then the drones would come down

His face shook with emotion as he paused for several seconds to compose himself.

He continued: "The drones would come down and pick off civilians - children.

"We [were] operating on children who would say: 'I was lying on the ground after a bomb had dropped and this quadcopter came down and hovered over me and shot me.'

To think that this could have been done by half naked Israelis with their hands in their underwear? Bombed children being shot at by half naked Israelis chilling out with their hands down their pants. I don't have words to describe how disturbing that is. I've never really thought of the person on the other side of the drone before but never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that it could be a half naked man with his hands in his underwear.

No, I think that some half naked men fondling their balls while killing people are just fine. Wtf. Of course I condemn it, whoever is purposefully killing innocent people.

Yes the OCT 7 deniers are here in force

Hamas attacked Israel
Hamas constitution states that their mission is to kill every jew on the planet
And then ton enforce Islam onto the rest of the planets population
Is that ok with you

Did this surgeon see this with his own eyes?

How would you know that the drone operators are half naked with their hands in their underwear. Drone operators would on be on base in uniform. They don’t work from home btw.

Another anonymous soldier said that using drones in Gaza “feels like a game”.
“You can sit in some basement of a house, safe with your helmet off, scratching your balls, half dressed and kill Palestinians,” he added bluntly.

I'll take a soldiers word for it over yours, thanks though.

Wtaf?

Where's this image of Israeli drone operators doing their evil deeds with their hands in their pants originated from?

Did the pp make it up or is it a quote or been reported somewhere?

Ah I see, its a quote thats been 'elaborated' on... ignore my post.

The original quote of a soldier from the documentary

Another anonymous soldier said that using drones in Gaza “feels like a game”.
“You can sit in some basement of a house, safe with your helmet off, scratching your balls, half dressed and kill Palestinians,” he added bluntly.
‘

A soldier explains how she was in a room watching a drone operator follow a man for half an hour, it was clear that he was an unarmed civilian just going about his day so the drone operator gets bored and says to his commander that he could just find a reason and he gets the go ahead to shoot the guy for no reason and they all watch him on a screen getting murdered, because someone playing a “video game” got bored.

Yeah, such an elaboratation when someone describes themselves as being half dressed scratching their balls and killing people dairy.

Honestly this place. Even when Israelis tell us themselves what it is they are doing people still can't find it within themselves to acknowledge that it is rotten. What exactly do they think will happen if they acknowledge it? These people think that the BBC is worthy of more outrage than actual killers, it would be funny if it wasn't so pathetic. That's why I don't believe for a second that the BBC outrage is real, they can excuse cold blooded killers but writing about them is a step too far and elicits howls of outrage? Pathetic and transparent.

Did you watch the programme?

None so blind as them that will not see.

https://archive.nytimes.com/thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/22/prince-harry-compares-war-to-playstation-and-taliban-is-not-amused/

Does prince harry represent every man serving in the British army?

https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-publishes-audio-of-hamas-terrorist-calling-family-to-brag-of-killing-jews/

Does this 'man' represent every Gazan?

@quantumbutterfly

Are you incapable of condemning the killing of innocent civilians?

are you so biased that you can criticise no actions of the idf?

or do you just not care about the lives of Palestinians?

or for that matter do you not care for Israeli recruits exposed to and hardened to the killing of innocent civilians?