Israeli soldiers describe clearance of 'kill zone' on Gaza's edge

By James Mackenzie

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli troops flattened farmland and cleared entire residential districts in Gaza to open a "kill zone" around the enclave, according to a report on Monday that quoted soldiers testifying about the harsh methods used in the operation.

The report, from the Israeli rights group Breaking the Silence, cited soldiers who served in Gaza during the creation of the buffer zone, which was extended to between 800-1,500 metres inside the enclave by December 2024 and which has since been expanded further by Israeli troops.

Israel says the buffer zone encircling Gaza is needed to prevent a repeat of the October 7, 2023 attack by thousands of Hamas-led fighters and gunmen who poured across the previous 300 metre-deep buffer zone to assault a string of Israeli communities around the Gaza Strip. The attack, which killed 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage, was one of the worst security disasters in Israel's history.

"The borderline is a kill zone, a lower area, a lowland," the report quotes a captain in the Armored Corps as saying. "We have a commanding view of it, and they do too."

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report.

The testimony came from soldiers who were serving in Gaza at the end of 2023, soon after Israeli troops entered the enclave, until early 2024. It did not cover the most recent operations to greatly enlarge the ground held by the military.

In the early expansion of the zone, soldiers said troops using bulldozers and heavy excavators along with thousands of mines and explosives destroyed around 3,500 buildings as well as agricultural and industrial areas that could have been vital in postwar reconstruction. Around 35% of the farmland in Gaza, much of which is around the edges of the territory, was destroyed, according to a separate report by the Israeli rights group Gisha.

"Essentially, everything gets mowed down, everything," the report quoted one reserve soldier serving in the Armored Corps as saying. "Every building and every structure." Another soldier said the area looked "like Hiroshima".

Breaking the Silence, a group of former Israeli soldiers that aims to raise awareness of the experience of troops serving in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, said it had spoken to soldiers who took part in the operation to create the perimeter and quoted them without giving their names.

One soldier from a combat engineering unit described the sense of shock he felt when he saw the destruction already wrought by the initial bombardment of the northern area of the Gaza Strip when his unit was first sent in to begin its clearance operation.

"It was surreal, even before we destroyed the houses when we went in. It was surreal, like you were in a movie," he said.

"What I saw there, as far as I can judge, was beyond what I can justify as needed," he said. "It's about proportionality."

'JUST A PILE OF RUBBLE'

Soldiers described digging up farmland, including olive trees and fields of eggplant and cauliflower as well as destroying industrial zones including one with a large Coca Cola plant and a pharmaceutical company.

One soldier described "a huge industrial area, huge factories, and after it's just a pile of rubble, piles of broken concrete."

The Israeli operation has so far killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, according to Palestinian health authorities, which do not distinguish between civilians and armed fighters. The Israeli military estimates it has killed around 20,000 fighters.

The bombardment has also flattened large areas of the coastal enclave, leaving hundreds of thousands of people in bomb-damaged buildings, tents or temporary shelters.

The report said that many of the buildings demolished were deemed by the military to have been used by Hamas fighters, and it quoted a soldier as saying a few contained the belongings of hostages. But many others were demolished without any such connection.

Palestinians were not allowed to enter the zone and were fired on if they did, but the report quoted soldiers saying the rules of engagement were loose and heavily dependent on commanders on the spot.

"Company commanders make all kinds of decisions about this, so it ultimately very much depends on who they are. But there is no system of accountability in general," the captain in the Armored Corps said.

It quoted another soldier saying that in general adult males seen in the buffer zone were killed but warning shots were fired in the case of women or children.

"Most of the time, the people who breach the perimeter are adult men. Children or women didn't enter this area," the soldier said.

(Reporting by James Mackenzie; Editing by Aidan Lewis)