’We’re Not the Same People Anymore’: IDF Soldiers Reveal What No Israeli Wants to Hear About Months of Fighting in Gaza - Israel News - Haaretz.com
▻https://archive.ph/2025.07.03-144828/https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-07-03/ty-article-magazine/.premium/idf-soldiers-reveal-what-no-one-in-israel-wants-to-hear-about-months-of-fighting-in-gaza/00000197-cf00-dcbf-abd7-df3d0ea30000
[…] when journalists are embedded with IDF combat units, what they see isn’t the day-to-day reality – it’s a carefully orchestrated performance. Soldiers interviewed are handpicked by commanders and IDF spokespersons and thoroughly briefed on what they can and cannot say. And so, reporters return with the same clichés: “This is a generation of lions,” they declare. “Morale is sky-high.”
But active-duty army soldiers who spoke to Haaretz in recent months paint a very different picture – one that bears little resemblance to the official narrative.
They describe mounting exhaustion, severe physical and psychological strain, and a constant fear that they’ll be the next to have their names released as fallen.
Most refused to be quoted on the record. Five agreed to speak. They had just one request: “You sent us to war – now listen to what we have to say.”
"A few days earlier, we’d approached the rubble of a house in Khan Yunis that had been bombed by the air force. In the debris – what was once walls – we suddenly found five, maybe six bodies. There were flies everywhere, and I think dogs had torn at the flesh. There was barely anything left. Two of them were small children – I saw their bones. It was horrible, unforgettable, something that still haunts my nights. But more than anything, I remember the smell – it took over my body, clung to my clothes. Even after I sprayed myself with deodorant nonstop that night, it wouldn’t leave me.
"People think soldiers die in battle, but the truth is, lots of them died for no reason – because of officers’ negligence, or because there weren’t enough munitions to bomb a building before sending us into it. Then the media says he died from an explosive device and everyone thinks it makes sense. It feels like no one cares. How many more friends do I have to bury before people wake up?