IDF Officer on the Front Lines – Truth Behind the Gaza “Slaughter”

IDF Officer on the Front Lines – Truth Behind the Gaza “Slaughter”

Guest Blog Post – From an IDF Soldier on the front lines last Friday.

I’m writing this post for my good friends- my moral, humane friends. And for all those who are concerned and angry over today’s deaths and injuries on the border with Gaza. Regarding Israel’s exodus from Egypt, when the Egyptian army drowned in the Red Sea just before overtaking the Israelites – our sages say that God scolded the angels and prevented them from singing and rejoicing, saying “my creations are drowning in the sea and you are singing?!”

I write these words with great caution, and from a sense of mission. I can understand and identify with all of those good and moral Zionists who fear that the many Palestinian victims may be our fault, the result of mistakes made by our side.

I’m writing because I am one of the few who was there. In uniform, in the reserves, but I was there. Yes, right there on the fence where the demonstrations are happening. It was last Friday – but I saw it with my own eyes; I was on our side but I could see and hear and understand everything. I want to testify from my firsthand knowledge, not a theoretical point of view. Because I was there.Gaza Rioters

I want to testify that what I saw and heard was a tremendous, supreme effort from our side, to prevent in every possible way Palestinian deaths and injuries.

Of course, the primary mission was to prevent hundreds of thousands of Gazans from infiltrating into our territory. That kind of invasion would be perilous, mortally dangerous to the nearby communities. It would permit terrorists disguised as civilians to enter our kibbutzim and moshavim. And, it would leave us with no choice but to target every single infiltrator.

That’s why our soldiers were directed to prevent infiltration – in a variety of ways, only using live ammunition as a last resort. The IDF employs many creative means of reducing friction with Gazans. And uses numerous methods, most of which are not made public, to prevent them from reaching the fence.

In addition, over the last few weeks there have been serious efforts to save the lives of children and civilians. Those who have been pushed to the front lines by the Hamas, who tries to hide behind them in order to infiltrate and attack Israel.

When there is no alternative and live ammunition must be used to stop those who storm the fence – the soldiers make heroic and sometimes dangerous efforts not to kill and only to injure those on the other side.

The IDF stations senior commanders at every confrontation point. This is to ensure that every shot is approved and backed up by a responsible figure with proper authority. Every staging area has an especially large number of troops. This is in order to make sure that soldiers are not put into life-threatening situations where they will have no choice but to fire indiscriminately.

A situation where thousands of people rush you is frightening, even terrifying. It is extremely difficult to show restraint, and it requires calm, mature professionalism.

55 dead is an enormous number. But I can testify from my first-hand experience, that every bullet and every hit is carefully reported, documented and investigated, in Excel spreadsheets. Literally. I was there and I saw it with my own eyes.

This isn’t the time or place to discuss the situation in general and the desperate plight of the residents of Gaza. I’m not interested in starting a political discussion here, although I do have a clear position.

What I’m trying to do is present, for everyone who really wants to listen, the extent of the IDF’s enormous effort to protect Israel’s borders while minimizing injuries and loss of life on the other side.

And despite all this – the situation on the border with Gaza is deteriorating. I hope that we won’t be called up again soon for reserve duty to protect our country. But if we are, we will go with the knowledge that we are serving a just and morally correct cause. We do not rejoice when we must go to war, but we also don’t go like sheep to the slaughter. Not anymore.

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14 Comments

  1. NOEL REUBEN

    The IDF is really doing a fabulous job by restraining itself-the # of dead is 60 & not 6000 in a crowd of 30,000. If this would have happened in another country’d border I am sure the number would have been higher. What would the world or the criticizers done if G_d forbid these TERRORISTS would have infiltrated into Israeli territory and create HAVOV !!!! Would we have cut their BALLS instead !!!!!

    1. Anonymous

      If you had killed more that would lessen the numbers going forward. These savages will not stop and will continue on their insane rage until the very last one is eliminated.

    2. R K

      Noel….the Palestinian Children have no weapons……You the IDF has all the modern artillery..you are just gunning them down for participating in a peaceful protest. but we all know the real for your Murders….it is your fear that they will enter your territory that you stole from them and contaminate your purity of your race…..this is why you do Ethnic cleansing like Hitler. All of your jews are little Hitlers…murdering people and taking their homes, settling on their land, diverting their water and allowing them only 3 hours of electricity per day…because you want to keep them in concentration Camps…..in an Open-air Prison …from which they cannot leave…so you can murder them one by one and use your Ethnic Cleansing Method to kill them so they won’t contaminate your PURE JEWISH Race. You are UNDEMOCRATIC TOTALITARIAN RACISTS bred to believe that you are superior because you are Jewish. You don’t belong in Jerusalem where the Holy Christian Places ar revered by Christians and Moslems…you killed Christ and you hate Christians….you think you’re better than all of us…well wake up and smell your STINK…your Murderous Acts that make you the SCUM of the earth for your cruelty killing innocent children, destroying their homes…shooting them deliberately in the Head with your Nazi SNIPERS. your murderous snipers have scopes that aim for the heads of these children. No Israeli has been killed but you have killed 60 Palestinian Children and wounded 3000 for doing NOTHING but demonstrating against your cruel treatment that makes their territory you occupy a Prison that you have trapped them in , unhealthy so they can’t even go to the water to swim or your snipers kill them and you destroyed their sewage treatment plant so they have to swim in feces. You are the scum of the earth and it’s no wonder that we spit on you on University Campuses in the USA and all over the World. You will be held accountable for your Murderous Acts as War Crimes when the UN gets finished with all of you.

    3. Michael Lesher

      I would assume the comment of “Noel Rubin” was meant as satire — any normal human being would — if it weren’t for the fact that the original post should be satire too, and yet it clearly isn’t. I don’t think these people even realize how perfectly they are reproducing Nazi-like ideology in defense of unspeakable atrocities. No one could have crafted a more damning indictment of the Israelis than these writers have produced themselves.

  2. Rafael

    brilliant.

    the world looks for any excuse to blame israel for anything , especially the europeans who still have the same hate for jews in their hearts they had 100 years ago.

    be strong and go forward.

  3. Peretz

    It is with the greatest thanks that I appreciate what you do as a soldier in the IDF. I wanted you to know how valuable you are to all of us. You are our precious treasure and without you we would not last one day in this greatest of all lands. That being said, take the following to heart not as someone who does not appreciate but from someone who cares deeply about all soldiers.

    The policy of sparing the enemies life is immoral, and was never done before in the history of combat. The simple reason is its treasonous. It puts your lives in danger, and YOUR LIVES ARE MORE IMPORTANT than the enemies life. The lives of the soldiers and subsequently the entire nation are being endangered by immoral restraint. Do you know why thousands are charging? They are charging BECAUSE of this restraint, this immoral restraint. This is why you would NEVER see such a protest on the Egyptian side, because Hamas knows Egypt would make swiss cheese out of every last one of them man woman and child. It is not because the Egyptians are immoral and we are moral. THE EXACT opposite. The Egyptians are NORMAL, MORAL and we are immoral. It is treasonous to try to prevent enemy casualties, TREASON! They have turned the soldiers into Hamas sympathizers! Your job is to not only protect the nation behind you on the front line but protect yourselves too. The fact that you yourself mentioned that it at times puts the soldiers in danger is TREASON! Let it be known, and know what is moral and what is not moral! Do not spare any last one of the murderers, no matter what their age! Scatter their ashes, disjoint their limbs, take them apart! Every last one of them, they are all enemies, and stop thinking like Meretz and the Joint List! Know what morality is, restraint causes death everywhere! It causes pain, terror, and more and more war! All restraint does is bring the next war on! If there was no restraint, not one Jew would suffer and the enemy themselves would not suffer either! There is no surer way to ensure death than to restrain from destroying Hamas, and let it be known, THIS JEW DOES NOT BUY INTO FALSE MORALITY, treason is treason and you stop thinking it is morally just to spare the enemy and put yourself in danger for those who want to kill every last Jew!

    We love you, all of the soldiers we love them all! The commanding politicians who put you all in extra danger, let them go to the front line and face the mobs! Let you sit back and watch them endanger themselves! They are corrupt, they are immoral, and lets set the record straight! No more apologies, take out as many as you can, irrespective of age…….all of them enable the other to kill…..Get your head clear, your conscience strong……We all love you and care for you, NOT THE ENEMY!

    1. Ed

      Thank you. I join you in my love for Israel and ever citizen soldier who protects the people of Israel. I have long shrugged at the “false morality” you have expressed so well and I agree it emboldens our enemies.

      1. jcw

        You repeat how there was no alternative but to use live fire, yet you do not say anything of substance to back up your assertions. In fact you claim to be able to testify to being present on every occassion live-fire was resorted to… I don’t believe not least because you gife no account of way life-fire was used. You seem to pin everything on the veracy of exel spreadsheets as if noone would or could enter false data… If I accept that you were there oike you claim the only thing I know from that is which side of the fence you were on.

    2. ilya

      BINGO!
      This is great (and long) comment/response to “morality”
      of the IDF! Not one nation or country in the World history followed this treasonous morality and put own soldiers in harms way to protect enemy!

    3. Alberto

      Es claro que sos realmente un árabe que odia a los judíos igual que el multi de Jerusalén que quería asesinar judíos décadas antes de que se declarara la independencia de Israel y que además miente alevosamente

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