Soldiers' testimonies from the Gaza Buffer Zone
2023-2024
Breaking the Silence was established in 2004 by Israel Defense Forces veterans
with the aim of collecting and publishing the testimonies of Israeli soldiers who
have served in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip since the start of the
Second Intifada. We endeavor to stimulate public debate about the price paid
for a reality in which young soldiers face a civilian population on a daily basis and
are engaged in the control of that population's everyday life. Our work aims to
bring an end to the occupation.
All published testimonies are verifed before publication.
For more details about Breaking the Silence:
We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the volunteers who have
contributed their time and energy to make the publication of this booklet
possible, alongside all of our organizational activities. Without their invaluable
assistance, these important testimonies would not reach the public
Introduction
On October 7th 2023, following the horrifying attacks led by
Hamas in the South of Israel, which included massacres and
mass kidnappings of Israelis and foreign citizens, the State
of Israel went to war in the Gaza Strip. The main objectives
of the war, as determined by Israel's security cabinet, were
to eliminate Hamas and return the Israeli hostages; but
anyone who listened to the soldiers knew that many of their
missions were entirely unrelated to those aims. One of these
missions was to create a "buffer zone" inside the Gaza Strip,
which in practice meant razing the area to the ground.
Israel's political leadership avoided working towards a
political arrangement that would end the war and usher in a
new era for the "day after." This placed the duty for shaping
the future of the Strip on the IDF, which, in turn, created
facts on the ground with only the tools a military has at its
disposal. This operation — with the actions required to carry
it out, the risks involved, its ramifications, and the prices
it exacted — remained largely unexposed to the public.
Through widespread, deliberate destruction, the military
laid the groundwork for future Israeli control of the area. A
key element of this control was the creation of a new buffer
zone separating Gaza from Israel, which soldiers referred to,
simply, as "the perimeter."
The testimony collection that follows includes testimonies
by soldiers and officers who took part in creating the
perimeter and turning it into a zone of total destruction.
The testifiers describe in their own words how they
and their units transformed cultivated farmlands and
residential areas into the new buffer zone, what mission
objectives they were given, and how these missions played
out on the ground.
Buffer zones have been a staple of Israel's defense strategy
for decades. The military strategy that dictated the
creation of the new perimeter in Gaza merely expands
and replicates a significant element of the Israeli defense
establishment's failed security approach that prevailed on
the eve of October 7th, 2023. Before the war, the buffer zone
between Israel and the Gaza Strip extended approximately
300 meters into Palestinian territory, and access to it was
limited. The breadth of the new perimeter was not uniform,
ranging from 800 to 1500 meters. To create this area, Israel
launched a major miltary engineering operation that, by
means of wholesale destruction, entirely reshaped about
16% of the Gaza Strip (roughly 55-58 square kilometers), an
area previously home to some 35% of Gaza's agricultural
land. The perimeter extends from the coast in the north to
the Egyptian border in the south, all within the territory
of the Gaza Strip and outside of Israel's internationally
recognized borders.
As early as October of 2023, ministers and members of
the Israeli government declared their support for a new,
permanent buffer zone in the Gaza Strip, as well as their
desire to make Gaza pay a "territorial price" for the October
7th attacks. The soldiers' testimonies included within this
booklet show that the military did indeed get to work, razing
to the ground the lion's share of what existed in the buffer
zone from the very first month of the fighting until the new
perimeter was fully established, in around December of
2024. While work was underway, the zone's name changed
according to shifting political needs: "buffer zone," "security
zone," "security space," and "perimeter."
The military purpose of the perimiter is to create an
isolated strip that provides a clear line of sight, and with
that, a clear line of fire, at anything the military defines
as a potential threat. In other words — absolute military
control over the area. The mission given to soldiers in
the field, as revealed in their testimonies, was to create
an empty, completely flat expanse about a kilometer
wide along the Gaza side of the border fence. This space
was to have no crops, structures, or people. Almost every
object, infrastructure installation, and structure within
the perimeter was demolished. Palestinians were denied
entry into the area altogether, a ban which was enforced
using live fire, including machine gun fire and tank shells.
In this way, the military created a death zone of enormous
proportions. Places where people had lived, farmed,
and established industry were transformed into a vast
wasteland, a strip of land eradicated in its entirety.
The testimonies demonstrate that soldiers were given
orders to deliberately, methodically, and systematically
annihilate whatever was within the designated perimeter,
including entire residential neighborhoods, public buildings,
educational institutions, mosques, and cemeteries, with
very few exceptions. Industrial zones and agricultural areas
which served the entire population of Gaza were laid to
waste, regardless of whether those areas had any connection
whatsoever to the fighting. In their testimonies, soldiers
describe the systematic way in which the creation of the
new buffer zone was planned and executed. One example of
this was the way designated areas were divided into defined
sections — "polygons" — within which soldiers were ordered
to destroy structures. The military dedicated enormous
resources to this endeavor, including the extensive use
of bulldozers (excavators, D9 bulldozers, and other heavy
equipment), along with thousands of mines and explosives.
Destroying civilian infrastructure and buildings is an
integral part of the IDF's chosen method of warfare in the
Gaza Strip. Many buildings were destroyed after being
"incriminated" — meaning the IDF had deemed them to
be buildings in use by the enemy's warfare apparatus.
However, many of the buildings within the perimeter were
demolished without being incriminated. The destruction
was geographically based: being located within a certain
designated area was sufficient cause for a building to be
marked for demolition. Unlike many other combat zones
in the Gaza Strip, the annihilation of infrastructure and
buildings in the perimeter sometimes occurred after the area
was captured, when no immediate or concrete threat to the
forces was present. Some soldiers even testified that certain
commanders viewed the destruction as a way of exacting
revenge and punishment for the atrocities of October 7th.
The intent of the perimeter's territorial contiguity is to
create a "unilaterally demilitarized zone" of sorts, where
the forces are theoretically able to detect any movement
towards the fence and thwart it. The rules of engagement
in this area changed over the course of the war, but the
basic order was to prevent Palestinians from entering
the perimeter by shooting at them — sometimes in order
to drive them away, but mostly in order to kill. Like the
systematic demolitions, opening fire in the perimeter was
based on a geographical demarcation that was conveyed
to the soldiers and applied to anyone entering the area.
However, while the perimeter was defined and conveyed
to the forces on the ground, there was no clear marking
indicating its boundaries, putting the life of any Palestinian
who crossed this imaginary line at risk.
A dark cloud hangs over the creation of the perimeter.
Establishing and maintaining it cost many lives. And while
it may seem odd to speak of the destruction of homes given
the massive loss of life during this war, homes are more than
just concrete boxes. A home is part of a person's life, their
past, their future. Flattening an area, making it unfit for
human habitation, has a tangible and immeasurable human
cost. The residents of Gaza were those made to pay for Israel's
new security demands. Destroying and expropriating
this area constitutes collective punishment enacted on all
those who previously lived there, as well as to Gaza's entire
population. The seizure of this area presents a significant
obstacle to rehabilitating the Gaza Strip and is therefore
not only immoral, but will also perpetuate instability in
the region. Among other things, this means that it will
never be able to provide true security for the citizens of
Israel. If history teaches us anything, it is that fences and
buffer zones can never provide absolute protection; military
occupation cannot replace political solutions.
The logic of maintaining military control and creating the
perimeter led to the annihilation of more than 3,500 buildings,
as well as industrial and agricultural areas which are critical
for the fabric of life in the Gaza Strip, and would be vital for
any attempt at reconstruction. All of them were wiped off the
face of the earth. Annihilation, expropriation, and expulsion
are immoral and must never be normalized or legitimized.
[This is the opening six pages of a 22-page pdf document]
