Two Israeli soldiers on Thursday claimed they were ordered to carry out a series of revenge attacks on Palestinian policemen after the killing of six soldiers by militants.
For the first allegation of its kind, the unnamed soldiers gave testimony to Breaking the Silence, an organisation of former soldiers dedicated to gathering evidence of abuses by the Israeli army.
One soldier, from the Yael reconnaissance unit, described a ”crazy blood revenge rush” on the day of the attacks three years ago. ”I really enjoyed it,” he said.
The Israeli army on Thursday night issued a statement which did not deny the soldiers’ account, saying: ”It was decided that the IDF [the army] will hunt down all those involved in terror activities, including members of the PA security apparatus.”
The killings began on February 19 2002 when gunmen from the Fatah-affiliated al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade attacked an Israeli checkpoint near the West Bank city of Ramallah. The militants killed six out of the seven soldiers at the checkpoint and escaped unharmed.
The killings were seen by Israel as a military defeat rather than terrorism. Gideon Ezra, the internal security minister, said at the time: ”They attack and we defend. In the past we attacked and they defended. We need to return to that.”
According to the soldier from the Yael unit, ”we were going to kill six Palestinian policemen somewhere, revenging our six they took down.”
He questioned his commanding officer about the orders, asking ”what had they done?” and ”who are they?”. He was told there was a suspicion that the gunmen who had killed the Israeli soldiers had passed through a checkpoint manned by the Palestinian policemen.
The Yael troops attacked a checkpoint at Deir as-Sudan, close to the Israeli settlement of Hallamish in the West Bank.
The soldiers had a ”crazy blood revenge rush”, according to the testimony. ”The idea was simply to kill them all. Whenever they arrived we would kill them, regardless whether armed or not.”
The soldier went on: ”The first firing was ineffective and missed … We got up and fired, hitting two of theirs. I think we hit one in the shoulder and one in the leg and they escaped. I shot one in the head as he was running while another was crawling behind.
”We got up and started chasing them. It was … really … I really enjoyed it. It was the first time we were in an advance storm situation like in our training exercises. And we acted flawlessly. We performed superbly.”
The wounded policeman escaped into a hut which the soldiers fired at, blowing up a gas cylinder and starting a blaze.
A third tried to escape but was shot. ”He was smashed, a completely smashed body. I turned the body around. It was a guy in his mid-50s or 60s,” said the soldier.
According to the witness, none of the men they had attacked was armed.
The second soldier, from the paratroop reconnaissance unit, also recalled orders given in the presence of his commanding officer, Brigadier Cochavi, in the early hours of February 20.
”The order called to approach three Palestinian checkpoints, manned by Palestinian police in the Nablus area, from what I remember: approach three positions, and shoot at the Palestinian police.”
The paratroop unit divided into three groups. The soldiers were told to kill Palestinian policemen at the checkpoints.
The soldier said it was clear it was a revenge attack, adding that the targeted policemen had a good working relationship with the soldiers.
One checkpoint was deserted and another manned by a single policeman, who was killed. At the second checkpoint, a car approached and was fired at. At the third, at least one Palestinian was killed and a battle erupted in which a paratrooper was slightly injured.
It is not clear how many Palestinian policemen were killed. Media reports and Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group figures suggest 18 were killed in Gaza and the West Bank.
The Israeli army on Thursday said: ”On February 19 2002 IDF forces operated against Palestinian Authority targets throughout the West Bank. Among those targets were checkpoints manned by Palestinian policemen who facilitated the passage and actively assisted the terrorists who passed through these checkpoints to carry out murderous attacks against Israeli civilians and soldiers.”
The statement said it had become apparent that the PA security agencies were deeply involved in terrorist activities. ”It was decided the IDF will hunt down all those involved in terror activities, including members of the PA security apparatus, until such time as the PA accepts responsibility for the areas under its control and prevents the terror attacks emanating from Palestinian towns and cities.” – Guardian Unlimited Â