In May of this year, 41 reservists of the Israeli army (IDF) signed an open letter in which they refuse to participate again in Israeli operations in Gaza, after the offensive in Rafah in the south of the Strip was launched.
Two of them, Michael Ofer Ziv and Yuval Green, testified for CNN about the operations carried out by the IDF, the crimes against Palestinian civilians, the wanton destruction of infrastructure and the horrors of the war in Gaza.
Michael Ofer Ziv, as commander of the operation, followed the IDF inside Gaza and authorized airstrikes. He said that every day his unit had a certain quota to meet.
“They will tell us, today you have seven, today you have nine, sometimes you fight for more, but you will never use less than you are given,” he told CNN in an interview.
One by one, the buildings exploded on his screen. At first, it was easy to forget that those images were real, but the more he left that war room, the more he was exposed to the reality of those attacks.
One minute, he was watching a silent video of the airstrikes he had ordered.
After that, he watched unfiltered videos on his phone of Palestinians screaming, carrying their loved ones who had been killed by the Israeli army.
“This is happening in real life and it’s really affecting these people. At some point your brain can no longer separate the two,” he said.
Like thousands of Israeli reservists, Ofer Ziv was drafted into the war after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7th, killing at least 1,200 people and taking more than 250 others hostage, according to Israeli officials.
He and other reservists realize they represent a minority of reservists who oppose the war, but they hope their decision to take a public stand will spark debate in Israeli society and pressure the government to prioritize a ceasefire agreement.
His conscience simply did not allow him to continue. He could not fathom the number of casualties inflicted on Palestinian civilians.
“There’s also a decision here to not be as careful as we can be, or even to be careless and disregard human life. I can count on one hand the number of times we’ve been told not to shoot at something. The approach was to shoot first, and then ask questions,” he added.
“They don’t care about the lives of the Palestinians. We’ve inflicted so much damage upon Gaza, something that would be beyond the imagination of any reasonable person. I can’t imagine how people would go back to live there,” said Yuval Green.
