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).

Given that approximately 2000 Gazan civilians took part in

First, if they took part they weren’t civilians because it wasn’t just Hamas that attacked but all these other splinter groups. But let’s assume your often repeated baselsss figure is correct and there were 2k ‘involved’ civilians, you’d deliberately force at gunpoint 99.9% of 2.3 million civilians, 40% of whom are children, to be trapped as Hamas human shields because 0.1% may have participated in Oct 7th?

Why do people keep harping on about tunnels in response to a documentary where IDF soldiers admit to blowing up and shooting civilians that they admit they knew were civilians. There are tunnels in Bath, Exeter - would that be relevant if someone went around those cities shooting kids in the head?

The 2000 figure is straight from the UN report, look it up for yourself.

Of course I wouldn't force uninvolved civilians to be trapped in Gaza. Don't put words into my mouth please. It was an absolutely ridiculous suggestion of yours that Israel allow Gazans to flee into Israel- its ok to just walk it back.

My suggestion would have been for Hamas not to commit 7 October in the first place, and put all those innocent people at risk in the first place. Failing that, surrender sooner so less people died.

Unfortunately Hamas don't take orders frome me, sorry.

Eh?

Not from my reading on Mosul:

In that battle, over 100,000 Iraqi Security Forces, backed by American advisors and U.S. and coalition air power, took nine months to clear a city of 3,000 to 5,000 lightly armed ISIS fighters.

There were very limited, shallow, house-to-house tunnels, but no tunnel networks, no hostages, no rockets.

Before Oct 7th Hamas was estimated to have 30,000 fighters and has recruited another estimated 15,000 during the war, so quite a lot more who are not lightly armed, The 600 mile (corrected) underground tunnel network, hostages and no rockets are further glaring differences.

Please direct me to any other reports from modern urban warfare experts that counter his opinion as I’d be interested to read them.

In fact, IMO the only way to obtain true facts on the ground about this war is from military experts like John Spencer which are largely and unsurprisingly absent from MSM and opinion.

You really need this to be able to form on opinion on a war IMO otherwise you’re just talking shit which I try not to do.

His stance hasn’t changed btw.

This podcast is from last month. It’s almost an hour long but immensely valuable in getting an understanding of the mechanics of this war. That’s if you actually WANT an understanding of course, instead of just to demonise the IDF!

https://mwi.westpoint.edu/urban-warfare-project-podcast-the-tunnels-of-gaza/

Apologies this paragraph should read:

Before Oct 7th Hamas was estimated to have 30,000 fighters and has recruited another estimated 15,000 during the war, so quite a lot more who are not lightly armed, The 600 mile (corrected) underground tunnel network, hostages and no rockets are further glaring differences.

Also Mosul is 4 times bigger than Gaza with a 20% smaller population in 2016 meaning there is no comparison in population density, and that the 600 mile tunnel network over a 141 square mile area, where buildings were often built on TOP of the tunnel tunnel network is very relevant to the way IDF operations were carried out and is unprecedented in an urban warfare environment.

Definitely explains the destruction on the surface as well with the booby traps in the tunnels and the IDF having to destroy as much as possible to disable Hamas movement, attacks and capture/neutralise Hamas operators.

I doubt Hamas employed building regulators to check the tunnels didn’t affect the integrity of the almost every building on the surface as they built them. Although they could have afforded to if they had a billion $ spare to build the tunnels with.

Do the armchair experts expect the tunnels could be been left intact and they weren’t a factor in thousands of Hamas being able to evade the IDF and plan/carry out ambushes? They should have been able to just pop out anywhere?

There’s 200 of them stuck in a bit of tunnel now who they are crying about (sincerely hope Israel does not give in on that). Doesn’t that give an indication of how many were down there and the size of them?

Nothing that you have said explains or justifies the killing of innocent unarmed Palestinian civilians as described by idf soldiers in the documentary?

I don’t understand how people can watch a documentary where people said ‘we killed civilians and we killed them on purpose, many of our group have expressed that they just want to kill all people of that ethnicity. Many of our commanders told us to kill civilians and told us international law doesn’t apply to us’ and your response is ‘they have tunnels so it was all jusified’.

Again, we condemn Hamas but we support Israel.

None of the twisted truths you wrote change that.

Take this testimony by a surgeon in Gaza

I'm sorry, but the [retired] British surgeon is confused - I have posted about his testimony before.

(From the link) -
"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.'
He added: "The bullets that the drones fire are these small cuboid pellets and I fished a number of those out of the abdomen of small children.

The 'bullets' the surgeon was describing are not bullets but cuboid-shaped fragmentations or shrapnel from a larger missile/shell - there were several articles describing these fragmentations published last year. When the missile explodes, the cuboid fragmentations randomly disperse in all directions - in a radius of up to 20-metres (65-ft).

Therefore the 'cuboid pellets' retrieved by the surgeon would not have come from a quadcopter or 'sniper drone' firing bullets.

Was the surgeon, 'Prof Nizam Mamode, from Brockenhurst, Hampshire', able to converse with the children himself? The parliamentary committee did not ask him if he shared a common language with his young patients.

In fact, there doesn't appear to be concrete evidence that Israel is using 'sniper drones' or quadcopters 'firing bullets', only speculation that the technology exists.

@Clavinova i have seen this argument used to try and discredit this surgeon before but if you knew a lot about some of the dystopian weapons the likes of Elibit and have developed and which are are used in Gaza, you would know of the spike firefly drone which drops fragmentation devices, the children already injured and terrified may have been confused but their injuries were clear to the surgeon
These drones have cameras and know who they target

Here is a link to the doctor’s testimony

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c7893vpy2gqo.amp

Possible also that some of the other drones the idf use in Gaza like the Lantius do use cuboid munitions as there are reams of reports by Palestinians of sniper drones, if you don’t believe Palestinians as a default there are numerous videos, specs which I can post for you from the weapons manufacturers supplying Israel

Well no, not speculation, if you watch the documentary that this thread pertains to, IDF soldiers testified that they have shot Palestinians using drones.

For instance, in the documentary Neta Caspin, a major in the IDF, talks about how a drone operator used a drone to follow an unarmed civilian for half an hour and when he grew bored obtained permission to shoot the man and they all watched the drone shoot the man and watched the man fall on a screen far away from the murder they just committed.

The poster I was replying to linked to the same article, which I quoted from.

the children already injured and terrified may have been confused but their injuries were clear to the surgeon

What expertise does the surgeon have with this new technology? Until recently he was a transplant surgeon.

Not an insult but curious what expertise do you have @Clavinova to contradict him, it takes about 10-15 years to train to be a transplant surgeon, and a long general surgery residency is part of that, so I would say he is very knowledgeable, surgeons also not reknowned for crying easily, you can see in his testimony how disturbed he was by what he saw

Quote from an earlier interview seems he has experience of working in other war zones too

“The surgeon, who has previously worked in other conflict zones, said it was "unlike anything that I've ever seen before".

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g5p8vjwlko

Obviously I don't have expertise in 'sniper drone' technology or munitions, but I can quite clearly see that Prof Mamode's specific reference was out of step with everyone else. Whereas other doctors and experts reported that the distinctive cuboid fragmentations were dispersed from a larger shell (which may have been dropped by a drone), indiscriminately injuring over a large area, Prof Mamode suggested that the cuboid fragmentations were 'bullets' fired from [a gun attached to] a sniper drone in precise targeting. I think he has simply misremembered something he has read/heard on that specific point rather than demonstrating expertise.

Looking at his testimony as a whole, Prof Mamode makes a number of references to things he has read/heard, e.g. 'a paper in The Lancet... it was reported in Haaretz... He also makes several, somewhat inflammatory claims, e.g. 'to my mind it cannot be anything other than collective punishment. It is just a consistent attempt to essentially wipe out a large part of the population.'

surgeons also not renowned for crying easily, you can see in his testimony how disturbed he was by what he saw

I don't think anyone is disputing that some of the injuries are horrific, but as you point out, surgeons are not renowned for crying, and we can only compare Prof Mamode to other surgeons who have volunteered during the conflict. His experience in Gaza is not unique but his reaction to that experience is - everyone is different. Just before he broke down at the committee hearing he said; 'So you have this constant whine, which is psychologically very affecting because it represents danger and is constantly there...'

Something else I have found that may be relevant to his distress (compared to the other surgeons) is this lengthy dispute with his previous employer/s - reported in the Daily Mail shortly before his time in Gaza;

July 2024
An internationally recognised senior surgeon ... has successfully sued the NHS after he was pushed out when he raised concerns about patient safety.
Nizam Mamode was subjected to an 18 month suspension from paediatric duties after his complaints led to a review which saw the surgeon face allegations of 'widespread bullying and intimidation'... [which he denied]
As a result of his exclusion, the surgeon suffered 'extreme anxiety and depression' and quit his job.

The remedy/compensation hearing was provisionally fixed for September 2024, so still not fully resolved when he was volunteering in Gaza, mid-August to mid-September 2024;

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13648241/transplant-surgeon-Crown-sues-NHS-patient-safety-concerns.html

He certainly told the committee that he had experience in Rwanda, but I don't think that helps with the discussion on sniper drones.

Everexpanding It's nearly impossible (by design) to say with any certainty whether the doctors testimony is accurate (mainly due to the lack of actual independent journalists being allowed into Gaza). Although it is a stretch to expect a Dr (British- we're not exactly a gun nut culture who'll know what a 30-06 Mauser M 98 bolt-action rifle is) to know the precise difference between weapon types/delivery methods.

Palestinians have documented their own destruction, however for some unknown reason they're rarely believed.

Though I'm impressed with the extent that outfits like the dailymail have gone to discredit him.

The truth is that Warzones are used as testing grounds for unreleased/classified weapons. Russia has been doing this in Ukraine since 2022 and Israel has a long history of using banned substances :
https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/12/15/scorched-olive-trees-and-poisoned-water-what-is-the-environmental-cost-of-war-in-lebanon

Al Jazeera (sponsored by Qatar etc etc) published a documentary of Gaza as a testing ground for new military technology (AI etc):

https://antonyloewenstein.substack.com/p/the-palestine-laboratory-film-explodes

And a book released in May 2023
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Palestine-Laboratory-Exports-Occupation-Technology/dp/183976208X

Thankfully it will be impossible to discredit all of the people that have documented what occured and the Terabytes of video/audio/pictures will be analysed in the future and lot of testimony will be proven accurate.

P.s. it's been funny watching Americans realise that a lot of tech being tested in Gaza, is coming "home" to be used.on them https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20251103-drones-tested-in-genocide-and-refined-on-palestinians-are-swarming-american-cities/

@Clavinova

https://mwi.westpoint.edu/a-case-study-on-integrating-tactical-drones-israel/
you can find the armed drones named as used by the idf if you search their names but only if you want to have nightmares
An example if you have the stomach
https://spearuav.com

using drones for psychological torture of civilians too, stay classy idf
https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/6747/Israel-intensifies-use-of-quadcopters-to-terrorise-and-target-civilians-in-Gaza,-with-terrifying-sounds-and-home-

As to the smears on the doctor, name me one person who has spoken out about events in Gaza who has not been smeared?
i have heard testimony from many doctors is everyone lying? I think not

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/17/gaza-doctors-testimonies

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/02/gaza-palestinian-children-killed-idf-israel-war