'For Israeli soldiers, some Palestinians are little more than props'
http://972mag.com/for-israeli-soldiers-palestinians-are-little-more-than-props/81381/
How can an entire army battalion pass through a village without disrupting its inhabitants? How can soldiers train with live bullets while ensuring that no one will be injured? A former IDF soldier describes the ways in which soldiers are taught to make their presence known, always at the expense of the local Palestinian population.
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Earlier this week, Haaretz published the IDF prosecutor’s response to complaints that these training operations have been held inside Palestinian villages. According to the prosecutor, there is “there [is] no legal obstacle to holding training in inhabited areas.” As a soldier, that’s something I’m well aware of. Indeed, we would do so time and time again.
What we were not told during the training, however, was the second part of the prosecutor’s statement, which states: “It will also be made clear that as part of the training exercises, the soldiers must avoid putting the population at risk, damaging their property or causing unreasonable disturbance to their daily routine.”
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About half a year ago, I joined Breaking the Silence, where I was exposed to testimonies by soldiers like me who also used Palestinian civilians during their training. I heard testimonies about soldiers who trained by breaking into homes on which there was no suspicious intelligence information. They would force the entire family in one room, search the house, and leave. I learned about how the army’s canine unit would train by searching random cars that simply want to pass through a checkpoint (soldiers would hide explosives in the car and let the dogs turn rummage through the whole car until they find them).
State sponsored terrorism on a captive population.
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