War, then and now | The Economist
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ON MAY 17th, as Israel commemorated its victory in the six-day war of 1967, an end to its conflict with the Palestinians had seldom seemed so far away. The coalition guidelines of Binyamin Netanyahu’s fourth administration, sworn in three days earlier, do not include a commitment to a two-state solution, and no strong protest is heard from the opposition. But part of Israeli society, at least, is open to hearing about the human toll of the conflict.
Breaking the Silence, an Israeli organisation founded by former soldiers, recently published one of its periodic reports, this one based on the testimony of over 60 soldiers and officers who took part in the fighting last summer in Gaza. The eyewitness anonymous statements of soldiers who were either on the ground or in command-and-control centres provide snapshots of the reality of war in an urban environment. The accounts describe permissive rules of engagement. Many of the stories revolve around whether a target was indeed civilian before a decision was taken to open fire. One tank commander who fought in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza said his unit’s assumption was that “anyone in an IDF [Israel Defence Forces] sector, that the IDF have captured, isn’t a civilian.” More than 2,000 Palestinians were killed in the 50-day long campaign, the majority of them civilians.