Israeli soldier was ordered to kill Palestinian holding white flag, says reservist

A former Israeli reserve soldier who served in Gaza has revealed that army commanders instruct troops to open fire on any Palestinian regardless of whether or not they pose a threat.

In a Haaretz article published on Wednesday, Israeli journalist Chaim Har-Zahav, who served an 86-day reserve mission in the enclave, detailed what he witnessed during that time.

“The lives of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip depend first and foremost on the private and personal scale of values of the commanders in the Strip,” Har-Zahav wrote, adding that any senior officer who orders the killing of Palestinians simply because of their identity will not face consequences.

“A human life in the Gaza Strip is worth less than the lives of the thousands of stray dogs that roam the area looking for food. While there is a clear order prohibiting shooting dogs unless a soldier is in real danger when the dog’s jaws are locked on him, humans are permitted to be shot without any real restrictions.”

In the piece, Har-Zahav relayed an incident that involved a senior commander ordering the shooting of an unarmed man waving a white flag. Though the general was told the man did not pose a threat and was clearly without weapons, he responded by saying: “I don’t know what a white flag is, shoot him it’s an order.”

“No one carried out the order, and it is understood that the commanders in the field knew that it was a clearly illegal order,” the former reservist wrote. 

In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, the author of the piece reiterated that the lives of Palestinians depend “entirely on the values and worldview of the soldier who holds the weapon”, adding that the Israeli army “values, orders and norms no longer exist”.

‘Televised war crime’

Middle East Eye has previously covered cases involving the deliberate shooting of civilians across Gaza, with one of the earliest in November of last year, where a family fleeing south was targeted by Israeli snipers. 

Hala was holding her grandson Taim, who was holding a white flag, a universal symbol of surrender, when she was shot to the ground. 

According to exclusive footage of the killing obtained by MEE, Taim was seen running towards a group of people who had been forced to take a different route to reach safety. His parents stayed behind, trying to provide his grandmother with urgent medical aid.

This marked the beginning of a year of torment for the Abd al-Aati family, during which their lives became a roller coaster. 

“Every night, he tells us that he sees the bullet that killed his grandmother. It went right over his head, and he still imagines it,” Yousef, his father, told MEE.

“It is very difficult for me to say this, but I believe he has developed psychological issues. But after all, even we [as adults] still think of what happened in Gaza as if it were happening in front of us today.”

In a similar incident aired by the British broadcaster ITV News in January, Israeli forces are seen targeting a group of men walking in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, holding their hands up in surrender. Mohammed Abu Safia, a cameraman working for ITV News, captured the sound of drones overhead.

As the group made their way, gunshots rang out, and Ramzi Abu Sahloul, who was holding a white flag, was gunned down and killed

Though the Israeli army first claimed that the clip was “clearly edited”, evidence provided by ITV indicates the timeline of how the incident unfolded through multiple camera angles, satellite imagery, geolocation and expert analysis.

Additionally, Brigadier-General Dan Goldfuss, senior Israeli commander of the 98th Division, confirmed to ABC News that the troops seen in the video were part of his force, adding that the event was under investigation.

“That is not the way we carry out our rules of engagement. No, we don’t fire at people waving white flags. We don’t fire at civilians,” Goldfuss said. The ABC journalist said in response “But, you do sometimes”, prompting Goldfuss to reject that claim.

“There are mistakes, it is war. This is not a machine working, these are people,” he said.

Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, described Sahloul’s killing as “a televised war crime”.

“What kind of justification can be found for the killing of someone waving a white flag? From that distance? What kind of danger were those people posing? They were just talking to some journalist,” she added.

‘Horrific premeditated murder’

On the morning of 24 January, the Barbakh family were getting ready to leave the Amal neighbourhood, west of Khan Younis, after expulsion orders were issued by the Israeli army, forcing Palestinian to head towards the Israeli-designated “humanitarian zone” of al-Mawasi, according to Al Jazeera. 

Fourteen-year-old Nahed Adel Barbakh was the first to step out of the house with a white flag, when he was immediately struck by a bullet to the legs and fell to the ground. As his family attempted to bring him back inside the house, Nahed, attempting to get up, was shot two more times in his back and head.

Ramez, his older brother, ran out of the house to save him, however, he too was shot and fell atop his brother. 

“I kept hoping that they were still alive, that there was some breath in them,” their mother Islam said. “I couldn’t think of anything other than ‘I want my children, I want my children.'”

Though they were not able to retrieve their bodies at the time due to Israeli fire, Ahmed, their 18-year-old brother, took one last photo of the two.

“I took a photo of my murdered brothers so I never forget them, and to document this crime that was committed, the crime of shooting a child who is carrying a white flag and then shooting his brother who rushes out to save him,” he said. 

The NGO Euro-Med Rights Monitor described the shooting of the brothers as an “execution and horrific premeditated murder”.

“Euro-Med Monitor stressed that the Israeli killings and executions are flagrant violations of international law, drawing attention to laws prohibiting the deliberate targeting or killing of civilians who are not directly involved in hostilities, as such violations could be considered war crimes, crimes against humanity, and a form of genocide,” the organisation said. 

Code of ethics ‘thrown out the window’

Another recent case documented by Al Jazeera shows Israeli forces targetting unarmed Palestinians attempting to head north of the enclave, with at least one of them waving a white flag. 

The group were near the Nabulsi Roundabout, southwest of Gaza City, when they were attacked. One man in the clip could be seen being pursued by an armoured vehicle, after which troops opened fire on him. Later, a bulldozer was used to bury two bodies. 

Professor Richard Falk, a former UN special rapporteur on human rights in Palestine, told Al Jazeera that the shootings were a “vivid confirmation of continuing Israeli atrocities”.

“The eyes and ears of the world have been assaulted in real-time by this form of genocidal behaviour,” Falk said.

According to Har-Zahav, the Israeli army’s code of ethics and guidelines have been “thrown out the window since October 7.” 

The journalist added that the Gaza Strip’s boundary and what constitutes as a “red line” is not fixed and remains unclear to Palestinians in Gaza.

“They find this out the hard way: they are shot to death as they approach the imaginary line that the [Israeli army] has decided on, and it changes from time to time,” he said.

Har-Zahav said that whether they were civilians caught up in the wrong place and time or Hamas members gathering intelligence, the moment a Palestinian is targeted and killed, “they officially become terrorists and enter the statistics that will appear the next day in the [Israeli army] spokesman’s statement praising the heroism of the fighters who further reduced the number of terrorists in the Gaza Strip.”