Israeli officer : Shelling Gaza clinic raised soldiers’ morale - Diplomacy and Defense - - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News
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An Israel Defense Forces officer who fired shells at a clinic in Gaza during last summer’s war said in a radio interview that the action had served to “raised morale” of the battalion. Maj. (res.) Amihai Harach told Galei Yisrael radio on Tuesday that the structure had to be destroyed because a Hamas position was operating from it, but that the action was also an act of revenge for the killing of one of the battalion’s officers. Harach, who is the reserve deputy brigade commander in an armored corps battalion, also said that revenge firing was not unusual during Operation Protective Edge.
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Another unusual element, Harach said, was that soldiers documented the shelling of the clinic “so we could distribute it to the whole battalion.”
A recent report by the NGO Breaking the Silence contains testimony by an Armored Corps soldier from the same brigade about firing in revenge. According to the soldier, his company commander ordered him to fire shells at Palestinian homes in memory of a comrade from the company who had been killed. “To me it seemed not right at all, very problematic…they fired like they do at funerals, just with a shell at houses. It wasn’t in the air. The tank commander said ‘pick a house that’s farthest away, so that it hurts them as much as possible.’ A sort of revenge,” the soldier said.
