Targeting Civilians
Overview
This page is devoted to collecting examples of Israel deliberately targeting civilians in Gaza. This is critical because defenders of Israel's genocidal war seek to claim that civilian loss of life is entirely Hamas's responsibility. However, the evidence - not only of Israel's total lack of regard for Palestinian life, but it's deliberate killing of Palestinian civilians - is shockingly clear. Israel is deliberately killing civilians as part of its genocide of Palestinians.
These examples include:
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the systematic deprivation of food, water, and medical aid to the entire population, which is half children;
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snipers deliberately and repeatedly shooting children in their heads and chests;
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repeatedly killing people waving white flags;
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Israeli soldiers forcibly evacuating a hospital and leaving newborn babies in incubators to die and decompose;
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evacuating civilians to “safe zones” where Israel bombs and burns people alive, while also killing people on the very roads on which Israel tells them to flee;
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arbitrarily creating “kill zones” where Israeli soldiers kill anyone who crosses an unmarked, invisible line;
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running over Palestinians – alive and dead – with tanks and bulldozers; and
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snipers and drones deliberately targeting unarmed civilians over and over again.
This is not to mention the systematic targeting of hospitals, schools, UN facilities, churches, mosques, refugee camps and homes - ensuring that nowhere is safe from the genocidal onslaught.
Click on any of the bullets below to jump to a specific section.
Targeting Civilians
This section describes:
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Israel's Intent to Kill Civilians - This section provides numerous examples of Israeli leaders and soldiers openly expressing their intent to kill Palestinian civilians en masse, as well the admissions of Israeli soldiers.
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Sniper Shots to Children's Heads and Chests - Over 75 international doctors have reported that children are being regularly targeted by snipers with kill shots to their heads and hearts.
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Newborns Left to Rot and Die – The Israeli army forced medical staff to evacuate a hospital, leaving newborn babies in their incubators, where they were subsequently discovered by journalists dead and decomposing.
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Targeting the Elderly - examples of Israeli forces killing elderly people who posed no threat to them at all.
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Shooting People who Try to Rescue the Wounded - This section compiles examples, often with video evidence, showing Israeli forces precision-targeting people who try to rescue the injured, including children.
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Targeting Writers - Targeting writers is a classic tactic of genocide. It is an assault on both the memory and the intellectual leadership of a people.
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Snipers and Drones Precision-Targeting Civilians - On numerous occasions, often with video evidence, Israeli soldiers have deliberately killed unarmed civilians including people waiving white flags on designated evacuation routes, pregnant women, playing children, people with special needs, and people simply walking.
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Driving Tanks and Bulldozers over Civilians - Israeli soldiers have confessed to running over Palestinians both dead and alive, which Palestinian testimonies confirm.
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Summary Executions - This section collects ample evidence of Israeli soldiers shooting civilians in their homes for no ostensible reason, blatant war crimes.
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Bombing “Evacuation Routes” and “Safe Zones” - Israel forcibly evacuates people to “safe zones” where they are bombed and burned alive, while also targeting them on the very routes on which they are told to flee.
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Shooting on Sight in Kill Zones - Dozens of international doctors report that children are being regularly targeted by snipers with kill shots to their heads and chests, while Israeli soldiers have admitted they kill anyone who enters arbitrarily-defined, invisible, and ever-changing “kill zones”.
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Bombing “Power Targets” – The Israeli army purposely bombs high-density civilian areas with little or no military justification as a way to pressure the civilian population, as Israeli soldiers have themselves admitted.
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Forcibly Starving the Entire Civilian Population by blocking all humanitarian aid for months at a time, and only letting in a trickle of aid the rest of the time. For a more detailed discussion, see the Starvation page.
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Massacring Starving Civilians at “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation” sites - as admitted by both Israeli soldiers and American mercenaries.
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The High Percentage of Civilian Deaths compared with other conflicts in the world.
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Conclusion: Intentional Killing of Civilians - There is only one conclusion that can be drawn from this mountain of evidence: The mass killing of civilians is part of Israel’s strategy, policy, and practice.
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Case Study: Jabalia and the Siege of Northern Gaza - Focusing on Israel's siege of northern Gaza in October 2024, it is possible to see how all these elements come together in one place, leaving no doubt of Israel's aim: genocide and ethnic cleansing. Through the implementation of the so-called “General’s Plan,” Israel openly aimed to create a humanitarian catastrophe, starve people out of the north, and shoot anyone who remained.
Intent to Kill Civilians
Before delving into the numerous examples of Israeli forces deliberately killing civilians, it is worth recalling statements by Israeli leaders, media, and soldiers where they openly say that this is precisely what they plan to do, that they wish to kill Palestinians - regardless of whether they are civilians or not. As detailed below, Israeli soldiers have also admitted there is a culture and practice of indiscriminate killing of Palestinian civilians by the Israeli army.
In the days following October 7, Israeli leaders openly proclaimed their genocidal intent towards all Palestinians in Gaza - and not simply a desire to defeat Hamas.
“No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. We are fighting human animals and we will act accordingly.”
~ Yoav Gallant, Defense Minister
“Remember what Amalek has done to you,” alluding to the biblical call to “attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep.”
~ Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
“It is an entire nation out there that is responsible. It is not true this rhetoric about civilians not being aware, not involved. It’s absolutely not true.”
~ President Isaac Herzog, Center-Left Labor Party
“The children of Gaza have brought this upon themselves.”
~ Meirav Ben-Ari, Israel Knesset member of the centrist Yesh Atid party
There is compelling evidence that statements like these were taken to heart by Israeli military leadership, soldiers, and society. For example:
In an article in one of Israel's leading newspapers, Giora Eiland, former head of Israeli National Security Council, argued for “creating a severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza” as a necessary means to achieve the goal. Israel, he said, should “turn Gaza into a place that is temporarily or permanently impossible to live in.” A few days later he wrote another article saying, “Gaza will become a place where no human being can exist.” According to a scholar of genocide, “Apparently, no army representative or politician denounced this statement.” This was later embraced by the Israeli government and became known as “The General's Plan.” Looking at Gaza today, it's evident that this is exactly what the Israeli army has done.
Jerusalem's Deputy Mayor, responsible for the lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, said the Israeli army should “Eliminate the Muslim Nazis in Gaza. We have to pick up the pace … cover all these hundreds of ants, while they were still alive. They are not human beings and not human animals, they are subhuman and that is how they should be treated.”
Israel's far-right Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich called starving 2 million Palestinians in Gaza to death “justified and moral.” On March 22, 2024, Israel's new Defense Minister, Israel Katz told the starving and desperate residents of Gaza to “return the hostages and expel Hamas…the alternative is total destruction and devastation,” putting the burden on unarmed, starving civilians to defeat military combatants or face annihilation. In 2025, he told the people of Gaza City, including women, children, the sick and elderly, that those who remain would be considered terrorists.
Israeli media is awash with genocidal incitement. To take just a few examples, commentators regularly cheerlead and encourage the genocide, saying things like:
“Every baby in Gaza is an enemy”
“Yes, it is possible to achieve total victory…There’s a finite amount of people in Gaza.”
An Israeli commentator affiliated with Israel's Channel 14 posted on X (translated from the Hebrew):
"Gaza is death. The 2.6 million terrorists in Gaza deserve death!! They deserve death!! They deserve death! Men, women, and children—by any means necessary, we must simply carry out a Shoah [Holocaust] against them—yes, read that again—H-O-L-O-C-A-U-S-T! In my view—gas chambers. Train cars. And other cruel methods of death for these Nazis. Without fear, without weakness—just crush. Eliminate. Slaughter. Flatten. Dismantle. Smash. Shatter. Without conscience or pity—children and parents, women and girls—all of them are marked for a cruel and harsh death."
In light of statements like these - from Israeli political and military leadership, as well as Israeli media and society - there is no reason to trust that Israeli forces have been careful, precise, or targeted in their attacks in Gaza. To the contrary, they have made it deafeningly clear that they view all Palestinians as the enemy and unworthy of life.
Soldiers have increasingly spoken out about the culture within the Israeli army of intentionally killing civilians across Gaza.
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Reservists told Israeli NGO Breaking the Silence “You can fire wherever you want.”
The evidence of deliberately targeting Palestinian civilians - including children - is so clear and chilling, that American, British, and other foreign doctors volunteering in Gaza have felt compelled to speak out.
Numerous exposes in Israeli media in which soldiers testify to the widespread, intentional killing of Palestinian civilians.
“Every day I saw babies die. They had been born healthy. Their mothers were so malnourished that they could not breastfeed, and we lacked formula or clean water to feed them, so they starved,” said Asma Taha, a pediatric nurse practitioner.
Those who lived often awoke to find their entire families gone.
83% had reported seeing children shot in the head or chest…
nearly half of Gaza’s children are suicidal.
~American trauma surgeon Feroze Sidwha
The sheer frequency and regularity with which civilians are slaughtered – particularly when seen in light of Israeli leaders, media, and society openly calling for the erasure of Gaza and denying the innocence of Palestinian civilians, as well as the confessions of Israeli soldiers describing the culture of wanton and deliberate killing of civilians, including children - can mean only one thing: this is a genocide.
The claim that Israel seeks to minimize civilian harm is a brittle, transparent lie - mainly trotted out for Western audiences, while at home the killing of all Palestinians is openly accepted and celebrated.
Israel's deliberate targeting of civilians is not new. Indeed, it goes back to the 1948 war in which the state of Israel was created - a war characterized by numerous massacres of civilians, such as the most famous, Deir Yassin. These massacres - like the current ones - had the same goal: the ethnic cleansing of native Palestinians so the land could be settled by Jews.
Such massacres continued throughout the years, and was openly admitted to by Israeli General Mordechai Gur in 1978. In an interview, he was asked to comment on the Israeli army's actions in Lebanon, including attacks where there was no sign of terrorists. General Gur frankly and openly said the Israeli army always attacked civilians, purposely and consciously, and did not distinguish between civilian and military targets.
Targeting Civilians: Intent to Kill
Targeting Civilians:
Sniper Shots to Children's Heads
Specifically, every one of us on a daily basis treated pre-teen children who were shot in the head.
~ Open Letter by 45 American doctors to the U.S. Government
American and British doctors volunteering in Gaza's hospitals say that Israel is directly and deliberately shooting children on a daily basis in Gaza. In other words, children are being systematically executed by Israeli snipers.
These are not unique or isolated incidents. They were daily occurrences at hospitals across Gaza where these doctors volunteered throughout Israel's genocidal war.
CBS News compiled a similar report of testimonies from foreign doctors in Gaza.
“We wish you could hear the cries and screams our consciences will not let us forget.”
~ Open Letter by 45 American doctors to the U.S. Government
These are some of their testimonies.
American trauma surgeon Feroze Sidhwa recounted:
“Every day I was in Gaza, I saw a child shot in the head. Every single day.
Then I talked to other doctors at other hospitals and they told me the same thing. It’s not accidental.”
American orthopedic surgeon Mark Perlmutter described what he saw as an “overt genocide” in which children are “definitively” being intentionally targeted by Israeli snipers, while armed forces use cluster bombs at the times of day when they are most deadly, such as when civilians are gathered close together during evening prayers.
“No kid gets shot twice by a sniper by mistake.”
“I didn’t believe that this many children could be admitted to the hospital with gunshot wounds to the head.”
British surgeon Nizam Mamode wrote in The Guardian and testified to the UK parliament about the “persistent targeting of civilians day after day.”
“What I found particularly disturbing is a bomb would drop on a crowded, tented area and then the drones would come down and pick off civilians - children.
This is not an occasional thing. This is day after day after day.
The quadcopter would come down, hover over a child, and shoot them.”
“I stopped keeping track of how many new orphans I had operated on …
On one occasion, a handful of children, ages 5 to 8, were carried to the emergency room by their parents. All had single sniper shots to the head. These families were returning to their homes in Khan Yunis, about 2.5 miles away from the hospital, after Israeli tanks had withdrawn. But the snipers apparently stayed behind.
None of these children survived.”
Why This Matters
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Israel has banned foreign journalists from entering Gaza independently - making these doctors amongst the few Western observers to have visited Gaza. (Israel has allowed a few journalists to visit Gaza under official Israeli military escort - and subject to Israeli military censorship. Western media tends to discount the reporting of their Palestinian colleagues, revealing a racist bias. Thus, it is especially critical to have these trusted voices.)
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These doctors testify to the regular targeting of children by snipers and drones, even when they are nowhere near combat - even when it is eminently clear they are unarmed children. This shows very clearly that the goal of the Israeli army is not to defeat Hamas - it's to get rid of the Palestinian people.
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Killing children is core to genocide: It makes sense to target children if you’re trying to target the future.
Testimonies About Children Targeted by Israeli Snipers
As always, speaking in abstract about the targeting of children - while horrifying - only begins to scratch the surface of the reality. This section provides the lived testimonies of a handful of people who witnessed the killing of children by Israeli snipers.
Gupta said that a third young child also had a shot to the head and was sent for a CT scan.
Among the casualties was 14-year-old Ruwa Qdeih. Doctors say she was shot dead outside the hospital in Khan Younis as she went to collect water. They said there was no fighting in the area at the time and that she was killed by a single shot and then men who went to recover her body were also shot at.
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In Gaza City, 3-year-old Imad Abu al-Qura was shot outside his home as he went to buy clementines with his cousin, Hadeel, a 20-year-old medical student, who was also killed. The family said they were targeted by an Israeli sniper. A 3 year old – killed by Israeli snipers. Hadeel lost her life immediately, but according to her cousin, Imad was still alive. Neighbors tried to extend a wooden plank to reach him, but were shot at. When Imad tried to move, he was shot and killed. Watch the video below.
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A 4-year-old girl was shot in the neck when trying to leave Gaza City with her family - as instructed - on a so-called safe route designated by the Israeli military.
[Palestinian father Islam Ali Salouha] explained that on the afternoon of Sunday 24 March 2024, the Israeli army ordered everyone in the vicinity, through loudspeakers, to leave their residential area immediately or face having their home bombed. As a result, the residents were forced to leave the area with a number of their neighbours and cross a corpse-strewn road that the Israeli army had designated for travel.
Salouha said that they were only able to walk for 10s of metres before they were suddenly exposed to intense gunfire, which targeted the two children, Ali and Saeed, in particular. The children then fell in front of them, their bodies covered in blood.
As they attempted to pull the two kids off the ground, he said, the Israeli forces opened fire on them again, forcing them to leave Ali and Saeed on the ground and to continue walking.
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Such shootings became so commonplace that children would carry white sheets - as flags - when they were forced to leave their homes under Israeli evacuation orders.
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Doctors described an 18-month-old girl shot in the head and a 2-year-old girl shot in the heart - both killed - by Israeli snipers.
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An American doctor told the story of a 4-year-old girl shot in the head by an Israeli drone.
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This targeting of children continued even during ceasefires - including a 15-year-old boy who was trying to return to his family home and a 6-year-old girl who was sleeping when she was shot.
In a video on the second page of this post, a tearful father strokes his son's hair and cradles his face.
This girl's family say there was no military activity in the area, no military structures, no verbal warning from the drone, and no warning shots.
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Israeli soldiers and American contractors have also killed starving children as they tried to get food for themselves and their families at “aid sites” set up by the U.S. and Israel under the banner of the so-called “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.” (To learn more about the GHF and how it acts as a smokescreen for continued killing, click here.)
Israeli Soldiers and American Contractors Admit to Indiscriminate Killing
These testimonies of Palestinian children and their families - as well as American and British doctors - have been confirmed both by Israeli soldiers and by American contractors working for the so-called “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.”
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Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reported: “an Israeli soldier recounted shooting dead a 16-year-old in a hail of bullets, ‘shooting and laughing.’ That evening our battalion commander congratulated us for shooting a terrorist…When someone pointed out he was unarmed and looked like a civilian, everyone shouted him down.”
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Israeli soldiers told Ha'aretz that the army creates “kill zones.” Any person - even a child - who steps into certain arbitrarily-defined areas (for which there are no signs or other designations) is shot and killed. They then mark such persons as “terrorists.”
Sadly, Israel's willingness to brutalize and kill Palestinian children is nothing new. In 2023, 124 Palestinian children were killed by Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank. Israel is the only country that tries children in military tribunals, which lack basic due process protections and have astronomical conviction rates. During the first two years of the first intifada, which was primarily peaceful, 23,000-30,000 children were beaten by Israeli soldiers, requiring medical treatment, as part of a “break their bones” policy toward protestors; approximately one-third of those children were under the age of 10. On April 11, 2003, 21-year-old British photography student Tom Hurndall was shot by an Israeli soldier in Gaza and subsequently died. He was wearing a bright orange jacket and helping Palestinian children cross a street under fire in Rafah. He was shot in the head. During the 2018-2019 Great March of Return, a nonviolent protest movement in Gaza, the UN found that Israeli soldiers intentionally shot unarmed children. At least 50 children were killed. Ha'aretz published testimonies of Israeli soldiers saying shooting protestors in the knees became a competition of who could hit the largest number. These are just a few examples of how Israel has treated Palestinian children for decades.
Targeting Civilians: Intent to Kill
Targeting Civilians:
Abandoning Newborns to Rot and Die
This section is about a single incident so egregious and so illuminating about Israel's genocidal campaign it merits highlighting all by itself. It sheds light on the attitude and goals of the Israeli army as a whole.
The Washington Post reported that on November 10, 2023, the Israeli military forced doctors, nurses, and patients to evacuate Gaza City’s al-Nasr Children’s Hospital. A nurse with Doctors Without Borders recounted having to leave behind 4 newborn babies: they required oxygen and there were no portable respirators or incubators to transport them. An Israeli official provided an assurance that ambulances would be arranged to retrieve the patients. But the ambulances never came.
Two weeks later, during a pause in hostilities, a Palestinian journalist was able to enter the hospital. In the neonatal ICU he discovered (and captured video of) the decomposing bodies of the babies - still attached to the wires and tubes that were intended to keep them alive.
They had been left to die alone.
This is a crime so heinous - so heartless - it's hard to comprehend. And yet, it is less surprising when put in the context of all the Israeli government and military have said and done since October 7, including:
According to a report by The Guardian, the head of pediatrics at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis said the hospital’s supply of specialised formula for premature babies was “completely depleted” and he was forced to ration regular formula, of which he had only a week's supply.
Targeting Civilians: Intent to Kill
Targeting Civilians:
The Elderly
This section collects examples of Israeli soldiers targeting elderly Palestinians. It is not an exhaustive list of such incidents.
It should go without saying that intentionally or recklessly killing civilians is a war crime. Combatants are supposed to take special care to avoid unnecessary harm to civilians.
The evidence below consists largely of testimonies of Palestinian civilians. In some cases, there is video evidence that is startlingly clear. Many of the crimes described by Palestinians - including shooting to kill, using Palestinians as human shields, and driving over Palestinians with bulldozers and tanks - have been admitted to by Israeli soldiers themselves.
1. Hala Kreiss, a grandmother, was shot while holding her 5-year-old grandson's hand, as
he waved a white flag, on an Israeli designated evacuation route.
2. An 80-year-old couple was made to serve as human shields and then shot to death.
This is part of a deliberate and widespread policy of using Palestinians as human shields - known amongst Israeli soldiers as the “mosquito policy.” NBC News reports a similar story of a 25 year old being used by the Israeli military as a human shield and then being shot to death.
3. Naifa al-Nawati, a 94-year-old grandmother was detained and separated from her
family by Israeli soldiers who took over and occupied the family home. Weeks later,
when Israeli soldiers left the area, her charred remains were found in their burnt house.
4. Bodycam footage of an Israeli soldier shows the moment he killed an unarmed 73-year-
old Palestinian who signaled to him not to shoot. In response, the soldier’s commander
said “He signaled ‘no no [with his hands]’ and you took him down? Excellent.”
5. Footage shows an Israeli tank firing at an unarmed elderly Palestinian man who posed
no visible threat.
6. A video shows an elderly man being shot in front of a hospital under siege by Israel.
The BBC conducted an investigation of videos and testimonies from Nasser Hospital in February 2024, when Israel laid siege to it. Dr Mahmoud Shammala, an oral and maxillo-facial surgeon said, “They surrounded the hospital with tanks, with bulldozers, quadcopters in the sky, snipers were everywhere. ” “A lot of displaced people who were living in the complex were walking around normally and they got targeted,” said Nasser doctor Mohammed Harara. Medical staff also said they were detained, beaten, and humiliated.
Consistent with these testimonies, video emerged of an elderly man shot in front of Nasser Hospital's emergency department, dragging himself through the entrance.
7. A 73-year-old man was shot dead near a charity hospital in Gaza City and an elderly
woman was shot while on the back of a donkey cart.
8. 65-year-old Safiya al-Jamal was injured when Israeli soldiers stormed her home,
spraying bullets throughout the room. They used her son as a human shield and then
9. A 74-year-old man was killed while sitting in his home in the Jabalia refugee camp. His
son says Israeli forces shot him, then launched a lethal rocket at him. His son was only
able to recover his body after Israeli forces withdrew.
Targeting Civilians: Intent to Kill
Targeting Civilians: The Rescuers
Overview
Israeli snipers and drones also repeatedly target Palestinians who try to rescue the wounded. This includes:
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Killing medics and ambulance workers. Even though this is the subject of a dedicated page, we include a few examples here in order to show the broader context in which Israel targets all kinds of rescuers, destroying Palestinian hope and possibilities of survival. It also shows a cynical attempt by Israel to destroy the fabric of Palestinian society and solidarity – imperiling anyone who seeks to help anyone else.
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Targeting civilians who seek to rescue injured children or loved ones by shooting at anyone who comes near.
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Blocking rescue workers from reaching the injured in the first place, ensuring the death of any survivors.
An investigation by +972 Magazine and Local Call confirmed this pattern, showing that Israel is systematically using “double tap” strikes in Gaza—deliberately bombing the same site twice to kill rescue workers, paramedics, and civilians trying to save the wounded. One of several sources within the Israeli army recalled “a woman crying and screaming - her daughter's body was burned. Her daughter was still alive, she was begging for someone to come and save her. You could hear the ambulances trying to get in, and you don't let them enter.”
Killing Medics and Targeting Ambulances
According to the UN, Israel has killed over 1,580 health care workers in Gaza and over 400 aid workers. Attacks on health care workers and aid workers are the subject of dedicated pages. Here, we provide a few examples here to show the broader context in which Israel targets all those who seek to help or rescue others in Gaza.
1. Killing 6-year-old Hind Rajab and the Paramedics Who Tried to Rescue Her
On January 29, 2024, 6-year-old Hind Rajab was fleeing north Gaza in a car with her family when they came under heavy tank fire. Surrounded by the dead bodies of her family, she called the Palestinian Red Crescent, begging for help. Her scared voice can be heard in the heartbreaking audio.
The ambulance that was sent to rescue her coordinated and pre-approved its movements with the Israeli military. Nonetheless, as it approached Hind, it was destroyed by an Israeli tank, killing both paramedics. Hind also perished. The car she was in was riven by 355 bullets.
Israel initially lied and said no Israeli military had been in the area. A Washington Post investigation found that Israeli tanks were in the area at that time.
In short, Israeli soldiers brutally murdered a 6-year-old girl, her family, and the paramedics who rescued her—and then tried to cover it up. It all happened in broad daylight.
2. The Massacre of 15 Medics in Ambulances - and Israel's Attempt to Cover it Up
In late March 2025, 15 medics in 5 ambulances were ambushed by Israeli soldiers. They were killed in a barrage of gunfire and buried along with their ambulances in a mass grave. Israel prevented anyone from accessing the area for over a week. It then brazenly lied about the incident, claiming the ambulances were advancing suspiciously with their lights off.
The vehicles were crushed. Some of the medics had their hands or feet bound. The sole survivor of Israel’s aid worker massacre told The Guardian that he watched wounded colleagues beg for mercy before soldiers executed them one by one.
3. Killing 3 Rescue Workers as They Tried to Reach the Wounded
Israel killed three paramedics and a journalist in Gaza City’s Tuffah neighborhood in early June 2025 as they tried to rescue the wounded and retrieve bodies from a prior Israeli strike. Among the dead was Hussein Muhaisen, who weeks earlier had been filmed carrying a small girl away from a fire. He had previously been interviewed by The New York Times, saying “My job is mostly rescuing children. We will continue working til we die.”
Hussein, a paramedic, with the young girl he rescued from a fire.
Killing Civilians Who Try To Help The Injured
Israel also repeatedly targets Palestinians who rush to help the injured. Not only do Palestinians themselves frequently tell us this, it has also been captured on video. This section collects a few illustrative examples.
1. An Israeli drone shoots a small boy. When people gather to help the wounded child, an
Israeli drone bombs and kills them all.
2. Israeli drones play sounds of crying babies to lure people out of homes and kill them.
Palestinians report that Israel has been using a new tactic - playing the sounds of crying women and babies with drones in order to lure people out of buildings and kill them. Videos have been examined and published by Al Jazeera and human rights group, Euro-Med Monitor.
In other words, Israel is weaponising the humanity of Palestinians in order to kill them. In this way, Israel also aims to tear apart communal bonds.
3. Killing a 3-year-old and Shooting at Those who Tried to Rescue Him.
Three-year-old Imad Abu al-Qura was shot outside his home as he went to buy clementines with his cousin, Hadeel, a 20-year-old medical student. Hadeel was killed immediately, but according to her cousin, who was also there, Imad was still alive. Neighbors tried to extend a wooden plank to reach him, but were shot at. When Imad tried to move, he was shot and killed. Watch the video below.
4. Israeli snipers shot and killed two young brothers in Khan Younis as they tried to
evacuate. The first carried a white flag, the second was shot and killed trying to rescue
his brother.
The Guardian reports that 14-year-old Nahedh Barbakh was carrying a white flag to lead the way for his family, but after walking just a few steps from the house, he was hit in the leg by a bullet. As the teenager attempted to turn back home he was shot in the back and head.
20-year-old Ramez was shot through the heart when he tried to rescue his brother. The family decided it was too dangerous to recover the bodies and eventually fled the area, leaving the brothers still lying in the street. A last photograph shows Ramez stretched across Nahedh’s body with the white flag tangled between them.
Witnesses said the shots came from the rooftop of a nearby building taken over by Israeli soldiers.
A photo published by Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor showing the dead bodies of two brothers, with a white flag tangled between them.
5. Israel bombed a residential block. Drones shot at anyone trying to rescue survivors.
In September 2024, Israel bombed an entire residential block, completely destroying seven buildings housing Palestinian families. According to witnesses, the Israeli army prevented ambulances and rescue crews from reaching the site, using quadcopter drones to shoot at anyone who tried to help the survivors.
6. Israel bombed a school in Gaza City. An hour later, it bombed the school again - this
time targeting those desperately trying to rescue the wounded.
Israel bombed the Al-Arqam School in the Tuffah neighbourhood of northern Gaza City. Four airstrikes targeted the school on April 3, 2025 - killing at least 31 people, including 18 children - and injuring over 100 more. Approximately one hour after the initial four airstrikes, Israel bombed the school again - this time targeting those desperately trying to rescue the wounded.
7. Video shows Israeli forces killed 3 Palestinians who were trying to retrieve the body of another Palestinian.
8. An Israeli soldier admits to shooting a young man, and his unarmed younger brother who tried to retrieve his body.
Images of first one brother, then the other, killed by Israeli-American sniper Daniel Raab.
Blocking Rescuers
Israel also routinely blocks rescue teams from reaching the wounded and rescuing any survivors. This is a longstanding practice - in both Gaza and the West Bank.
This type of thing occurs regularly in the West Bank, where Israel maintains a brutal and illegal occupation of Palestinian territory, according to the International Court of Justice.
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In July 2025, NBC News reported that a 20-year-old Palestinian-American from Florida was beaten to death by Israeli settlers, who also blocked an ambulance from coming to his rescue. (Settlers, remember, also serve in Israel's army.) A week later, Israeli forces shot 13-year-old Amr Qabha seven times in the back, neck, and groin from 10 meters away, then beat and handcuffed his father as he cradled his still-living son. Soldiers blocked ambulances for 40 minutes as Amr bled to death. The Israeli army later claimed, as it often does, that the boy was a “terrorist” who threw an explosive, but provided no evidence. (DCIP, Haaretz)
Examples of Israeli soldiers and settlers violently attacking Palestinian civilians and then preventing ambulances from reaching them.
Targeting Civilians: Artists and Writers
Overview
The Palestinian Ministry of Culture reported the deaths of 45 artists, writers, and cultural activists between October 2023 and February 2024. A project by the nonprofit PEN International, documents the cases of 23 writers and poets who were killed between October 2023 and September 2024, making the Gaza genocide the deadliest assault on writers in recent history.
This section highlights one example - the killing of Refaat Alareer. It discusses the significance of targeting writers and artists like Refaat and Israel's long history of assassinating Palestinian writers and poets.
The Targeted Assassination of Palestinian Poet and Activist Refaat Alareer
Refaat Alareer was a 44-year-old Palestinian writer, poet, academic, activist, and father of six. He was killed in a targeted Israeli strike on his sister’s home on December 6, 2023. Because of his critical views surrounding Israeli disinformation following the October 7th attack, Alareer was subjected to a vicious smear campaign, and received death threats, as well as threats of sexual violence against his female relatives.
Born in the Shejaiya neighbourhood of Gaza, Refaat was instrumental in cultivating a generation of young Gazan authors who wielded the power of storytelling to promote the Palestinian struggle for liberation and human dignity. He was a professor of English literature at the now-destroyed Islamic University of Gaza. He earned his M.A. from University College London in the UK, and his PhD from the Universiti Putra Malaysia.
Alareer dedicated his life to writing about the experiences of Gazans living under the illegal Israeli occupation and the 17-year-long blockade of Gaza. He edited two compilations by young Palestinian writers: Gaza Writes Back (2014) and Gaza Unsilenced (2015), both containing collections of short stories, essays, poems, and photos documenting Palestinians’ experiences under the blockade. Alareer also co-founded We Are Not Numbers, a non-profit organisation established following the 2014 war on Gaza, with the goal of encouraging a new generation of authors to tell the stories of Palestinians killed by the Israeli occupation.
During the Gaza genocide, Refaat wrote a poem called If I Must Die, asking people to fly a kite in his name if he’s killed to give hope to orphaned children. He wrote it for his daughter, Shaima. Months after Refaat was assassinated, Shaima had a baby. Two months later, Israel killed Shaima. And her husband and baby.
The Significance of Killing Writers
Intellectuals and cultural figures, including writers, are often targeted during genocides as part of a broader strategy to dismantle the fabric of a society and eliminate a group's identity. Intellectuals often play a crucial role in shaping a group's cultural and political identity, acting as community leaders and potential sources of resistance or alternative narratives. Targeting them is a way to silence opposition and weaken the group's ability to organize or resist. This pattern of targeting intellectuals highlights the devastating impact of genocide on the cultural and intellectual life of the oppressed group, and the long-lasting consequences it can have on a society's ability to rebuild and recover.
Israel has a long history of assassinating Palestinian intellectuals and writers.
While it is not our aim to tell the full story of Israel's targeted assassinations of Palestinian cultural and intellectual leaders, it's important to understand that Israel's killing of writers like Refaat Alareer in Gaza is part of a long history of such killings, aimed at destroying Palestinian society and its movement for self-determination.
In 1972, Israel assassinated Ghassan Kanafani, considered the leading novelist of his generation, and the author of beautiful, evocative books like Return to Haifa, which tells the story of Palestinian refugees living in the occupied territories who have the opportunity to visit the homes from which they were expelled by Israel in 1948. Kanafani was assassinated by an Israeli Mossad agent, who planted a bomb in his car in Beirut, killing him and his 17-year-old niece.
In 1987, Naji al-Ali, a Palestinian political cartoonist, was assassinated in London. He was unsparing in his criticism of empire and Israeli colonization. He was most famous for creating Handala, a ten-year-old refugee boy, barefoot, with hands clasped behind his back, bearing witness to history, who became a national symbol for Palestinians. Although Al-Ali's killing has technically never been solved, the UK arrested two suspects, both Israeli Mossad agents, and subsequently expelled another Mossad cell and Israeli diplomats for their refusal to cooperate in the investigation.
Targeting Civilians:
Precision-Targeting Civilians
Overview
Prior sections catalogue examples of Israeli soldiers purposefully, and calculatedly, targeting civilians - including sniper shots to children's heads and chests, leaving newborn babies to die and decompose in hospitals the Israeli army forcibly evacuated, killing elderly people by driving over them with tanks and shooting at them after using them as human shields, targeting rescuers, and deliberately killing writers and intellectuals.
This section captures numerous additional examples - often with photo or video evidence, and sometimes just with the testimony of witnesses and family members who saw their loved ones brutally murdered. Examples include missiles dropped on children playing at a foosball table, snipers shooting at families in and around hospitals, snipers and drones targeting people simply walking along the coast, shooting fishermen, killing people with special needs, repeatedly targeting civilians waving white flags, shooting at doctors while operating or tending to patients, and killing women and children - including pregnant women. These people are not “collateral damage” or children killed by relentless bombardment. They are individuals specifically and precisely targeted by Israeli soldiers.
Confessions by Israeli soldiers
Israeli soldiers have themselves described an Israeli policy and practice of bombing and shooting Palestinian civilians - including children - who are unarmed and posed no threat. Instead, they say, killing civilians is a way to empty neighborhoods (i.e., ethnic cleansing) and exact revenge. Sometimes, they shoot because they are bored.
Precision-Targeting Civilians: A Collection of Examples
Prior sections discuss numerous examples of Israeli forces deliberately killing civilians with no apparent justification - often buttressed by video and forensic evidence, as well as the testimonies of Palestinian children and families. Before jumping into these new examples, it's worth recalling a few of these prior examples, including:
Journalist Owen Jones suggests a thought experiment: “Just imagine we had the recording of a 6-year-old Israeli girl, desperately ringing the emergency services after Hamas militants slaughtered her relatives in a car, including 3 other kids.
Imagine we also had a prior recording of her 15-year-old cousin, desperately pleading for help, before you hear her being violently murdered by Hamas gunfire.
Imagine then an Israeli ambulance sent to rescue this little girl was then blown up by Hamas militants, killing both paramedics.
What would be the response?
You know what the response would be.
It would be offered up as evidence of the supreme evil and barbarism of Hamas.
We would be told it showed they’re worse than the Nazis.
It would also be offered up as justification for the need to wipe Hamas off the face of the earth.
Every politician in the West would issue statements dripping with grief and righteous fury.
But this atrocity happened to 6-year-old Hind Rajab and her family - all Palestinians - at the hands of the Israeli state.”
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The shooting of a 3-year-old who went out to buy clementines with his cousin, a female 20-year-old medical student, as soldiers continued to fire at those who sought to rescue the child.
To these handful of illustrative examples from previous sections, we add some more examples below. These are, of course, a tiny fraction of the war crimes Israel has committed in Gaza, many that will never be told, by voices now forever silenced.
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CNN reported on 11 children, playing around a foosball table, who were killed by an Israeli precision-guided munition. CNN reported that: “In the two weeks since the attack, the Israeli military’s statements have shifted, but it has not taken responsibility for the strike that ultimately killed Shahed and 10 other children … Three munitions experts who reviewed videos and photos showing damage caused by the strike and shrapnel left in its aftermath, independently drew the same conclusion: that the carnage was likely caused by a precision-guided munition deployed by the Israeli military.” The Israeli military “declined to answer questions regarding the nature of the target or whether any militants were killed.” Israel has a history of targeting Palestinian children at playgrounds. It's hard to imagine this being called anything but terrorism.
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Doctors told The Guardian that what appeared to be targeted Israeli fire killed more than two dozen people, including children, as they entered or left Nasser hospital. Among the casualties was 14-year-old Ruwa Qdeih. Doctors say she was shot dead outside the hospital in Khan Younis as she went to collect water. They said there was no fighting in the area at the time and that she was killed by a single shot and then men who went to recover her body were also shot at. Al Jazeera likewise reported that “Israeli snipers have killed at least 21 Palestinians after they opened fire on displaced civilians trying to reach Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis.”
Israeli drones target a Palestinian civilian carrying a bag of flour as he returns to his starving family in the Al-Shujaiya neighborhood of Gaza.
An Israeli soldier published a video on his personal social media account showing him murdering 5 Palestinians in North Gaza along with the horse. “Too bad for the horse,” he comments.
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Israeli soldiers and drones have also deliberately targeted people with special needs.
In another case, an Israeli soldier killed a Palestinian man with special needs with a bullet to the neck in front of his mother in a Gaza hospital after the man shouted in fear and did not keep quiet as the soldier commanded. The shooting of Najeeb Salem Sadeq occurred just hours before ITV News captured footage of an unarmed civilian being shot dead while walking in a group waving a white flag, in the same area of Khan Younis.
A man with Down syndrome was set upon by an Israeli attack dog and left to die by Israeli soldiers, according to a report by the BBC. Israel has used these attack dogs to torture prisoners, and even set an attack dog upon a sleeping 3 year old in the occupied West Bank in November 2024.
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Israeli soldiers have repeatedly targeted people waiving white flags - including civilians on designated evacuation routes, and even 3 people who turned out to be Israeli hostages.
A few weeks after the Israeli military admitted it shot and killed three Israeli hostages waving white flags in Gaza, ITV News aired a video obtained from one of its cameramen in Gaza showing a group of men, one of whom is seen waving white flag, walking in a so-called safe zone. One of the men, Ramzi Abu Sahloul, is interviewed and says he is attempting to reach his mother and brother to escort them out of harm’s way. A drone can be heard overhead. Once the interview is complete, the cameraman walks away and the group of men continue on their way. A round of gunshots can be heard and Ramzi is fatally hit. ITV's video analysis and audio ballistic expert analysis contradicted Israeli denials and deflections.
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Israeli soldiers have also shot doctors while on duty in the operating room of hospitals.
For example, a doctor was shot in the chest while on duty in the operating room at Nasser Hospital in February 2024.
American orthopedic surgeon Mark Perlmutter testified that an orthopedic nurse was shot in the knee while he was operating because he refused to abandon his patient mid-operation. He was later imprisoned for 45 days, blinded in one eye because a rifle butt exploded his right eye, and then released and dumped on the side of the road.
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There are also numerous incidents of Israeli soldiers targeting women and children, including newborn children, children collecting water, children waiting in line for food, and pregnant women.
Israeli soldiers shot a pregnant woman and her daughter when it raided their home.
Israeli forces also shot pregnant women carrying white flags as they walked to a hospital.
Starving Palestinian children waiting in line for bags of flour were shot and killed trying to bring back something to eat for their families. So, too, apparently, was a child selling coffee to try to make money for his family.
Israel fired a missile at children collecting water, killing at least six. This was just days after Israel killed 17 people, mostly children, who were in line for nutritional supplements.
Video shows Israeli forces targeted a 12-year-old girl, Amna al-Mufti, as she was carrying water to her family.
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Israel has also shot at people while fishing. It's hard to imagine what threat they could possibly have posed.
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Videos also document Israeli soldiers opening fire on displaced people trying to return to their homes, targeting a UN bus with a missile, and targeting civilians outside a mosque during Ramadan.
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Video shows Israeli forces targeting and killing 3 Palestinian men who were simply trying to retrieve the body of another.
Israel didn’t need to kill them. Yet, they did.
Amjad, Mohammad, and Mo’men Yusuf Al-Madhoun — three brothers, ages 13 to 27 — were murdered by an Israeli quadcopter as they walked through the shattered remains of their own neighborhood in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza.
They weren’t fighters.
They weren’t a threat.
They were simply trying to salvage wood and broken scraps from what used to be their home. That’s all. A few planks. Some cabinet doors. Anything they could possibly reuse.
They never came back.
Their father, Yusef consumed by a growing dread, began walking toward the area. On the way, their friend — the sole survivor — stumbled back, bleeding, and recounted the horror.
Even then, their father’s first instinct was to do what was right: he rushed the injured boy to the hospital. Only after that did he turn back — alone — into a place no one else dared to go.
He stripped off his undershirt, held it high as a white flag, and stepped into the kill zone.
He found his sons' bodies. Two near each other. The third, tragically, 50 meters away.
He carried them out himself.
When Yusuf’s siblings saw him return, something flickered inside them — courage, love, desperation. And they joined him. They helped recover their brothers' bodies with their own hands.
At the funeral, there were no customary dates.
No coffee.
No comfort.
Only grief — raw, bottomless, unspeakable.
He buried them in a single grave — the only one he could afford.
Their mother stood over them, sobbing, her voice echoing the unfillable void.
No one could speak. Because nothing about this is okay.
The killers?
They’ll be vacationing soon.
Maybe in Europe. Morocco is nice too.
Maybe somewhere chillingly close to you.
They’ll get to live.
Our three boys — and tens of thousands of Palestinians before them — will not.
Don’t call it war.
This is a slaughter.
This is not a comprehensive catalogue of all the times Israeli soldiers have deliberately targeted and killed Palestinian civilians. There is no way to know how many times these atrocities have occurred. Israel has assiduously forbidden international journalists from entering Gaza. Al Jazeera's Investigative Unit, however, has created a database of crimes which Israeli soldiers have themselves documented and posted on social media, as well as a documentary on what they discovered.
Although this violence is unprecedented in scale and technological ferocity, the practice of Israeli soldiers indiscriminately killing Palestinian civilians is not new. The 1948 war - known to Palestinians as the Nakba - was characterized by numerous massacres of Palestinian civilians, such as the killings at Deir Yassin and Tantura. Such massacres did not stop in 1948 either, but have continued throughout Israeli history. The clip below is from a documentary called “Tantura,” in which several Israeli soldiers recall the indiscriminate and cold-blooded killing of Palestinian civilians as part of an effort to take over their land and establish a Jewish state.
Driving Tanks and Bulldozers
Over Civilians
Running over sleeping families and families sheltering in tents near hospitals in the hopes of safety and protection.
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In December 2023, doctors and other witnesses said Israeli forces bulldozed tents housing displaced Palestinians near Kamal Adwan hospital, crushing them to death. (CNN, Al Jazeera)
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Another documented incident took place on January 23, 2024 when an Israeli tank ran over a family sleeping in a shelter caravan in the Taiba Towers area in Khan Younis, leading to the death of a man and his eldest daughter, and injuring his wife and three remaining children.
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The AP and NPR reported that Israeli tanks and bulldozers drove over people during their assault on Al-Shifa Hospital. According to photos and survivors' testimony gathered by NPR: “Bodies lay decomposing in the hospital's dirt courtyard, which was laden with unexploded ordnance. Other people were shot and left to die in its hallways, maimed and crushed by tanks outside its gates, decomposing on side streets and in buildings.” The Israeli government claimed in Orwellian fashion that there was not a single civilian casualty in the siege and raid on Al-Shifa, which destroyed the hospital and put it out of service.
Running over detained persons, with their hands bound.
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On February 29, 2024, in the Zeitoun neighbourhood in Gaza City, a detained Palestinian man had his hands zip-tied before driven over by an Israeli tank, potentially while he was still alive. An image of his mutilated corpse was shared on an Israeli telegram channel with a post stating, “You are going to love this!!!”
Running over children and the elderly.
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A 10-year-old boy was run over by Israeli tank while he was alive, in front of his family.
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A man's great aunt was crushed alive by an Israeli tank.
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The family of 65-year-old grandmother Safiya al-Jamal describe how she was critically wounded by Israeli troops raiding their home and then crushed alive.
Israeli soldiers have admitted to running over Palestinians dead and alive in Gaza.
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CNN reported on an Israeli soldier who testified before the Israeli parliament that he drove over Palestinians, both dead and alive, “in the hundreds.” He called them “terrorists,” a term that soldiers often use to describe every Palestinian they kill, no matter who they are. He also said that “there is no such thing as citizens [in Gaza],” referring to the common Israeli belief that there are no innocent civilians in Gaza. Similarly, an Israeli officer serving in Gaza told +972 Magazine: “every person we killed, we counted him as a terrorist,” including unarmed women and children. This shouldn't be surprising from an army and society that has loudly and repeatedly claimed that there are no innocents in Gaza.
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An Israeli soldier posted a video on X, showing a Palestinian man's body lying on the ground seen through a tank window, and boasted about “running over him.” The soldier had previously posted prolifically about his happiness in seeing starving Gazans and celebrated the killing of 30,000 people in Gaza.
But before the humanitarian convoys arrive, S. noted, the bodies are removed. “A D-9 [Caterpillar bulldozer] goes down, with a tank, and clears the area of corpses, buries them under the rubble, and flips [them] aside so that the convoys don’t see it — [so that] images of people in advanced stages of decay don’t come out,” he described.
“I saw a lot of [Palestinian] civilians – families, women, children,” S. continued. “There are more fatalities than are reported. We were in a small area. Every day, at least one or two [civilians] are killed [because] they walked in a no-go area. I don’t know who is a terrorist and who is not, but most of them did not carry weapons.”
These examples are likely only the tip of the iceberg. Indeed, this is not the first time Israeli soldiers have run over civilians. A young Rachel Corrie, an American who volunteered in Gaza in 2003 to help Palestinians resist the bulldozing of their homes by the Israeli army, was crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer at age 23.
Summary Executions
Overview
Summary executions - the killing of individuals not engaged in combat without due process of law - is illegal under international human rights law and humanitarian law. This is meant to protect civilians - as well as combatants who are wounded, who surrender, or who are prisoners of war. Renowned international law scholar William Schabas explains: “It's not really important to demonstrate that they're civilians. Summary executions even of fighters, even of combatants is a war crime.”
Israel appears to be carrying out summary executions regularly throughout its genocidal war on Gaza. Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor told Al Jazeera they believe there is a pattern of “systematic” killing and arbitrary field executions. The UN has also documented numerous reports of field executions. Palestinian journalists and civilians have likewise testified to witnessing summary executions. In some cases, these testimonies are corroborated by photo and video evidence.
Examples with Video Evidence
In one case investigated by The New York Times from December 2023, an Israeli sniper killed a boy from the Abu Saleh family who ventured outside a shelter to see what remained after the area was bulldozed. His family found his body and prepared him for burial. Upon their return to the school all six family members – who were holding a white flag – were shot by Israeli forces. Their corpses were bulldozed into a garbage pile where they were discovered later.
Another video shows the graphic aftermath of the summary of execution of 15 men in a Gaza apartment. The wife of one of the men says the men were stripped and forced to lay on their stomachs on the floor. Israeli soldiers then shot and killed every single one. “I don’t think there is a human being who could forget anything like this,” said one survivor. One resident said that the ground troops had to know that there were no armed fighters in the building because no one fought back at any point. Even though the soldiers were speaking English, as well as Hebrew, “there were no questions. No ‘What’s your name?’ or ‘What’s your ID number?’ Nothing.”
Executing Families in Homes
There are numerous examples of Israeli soldiers summarily executing families while sheltering in their homes in late 2023 and early-mid 2024.
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In one case in December 2023, survivors - including a small child - say Israeli soldiers lobbed grenades in the house, then opened fire indiscriminately, without distinguishing between the young and old, women and men. Survivors were stripped in the yard of the house, frisked, and told to flee for their lives. Soldiers then executed the injured, leaving a pregnant mother to bleed to death. A 4-year-old boy was taken to the hospital in critical condition. He lived to the tell horrific story of what happened that day.
A Palestinian-American eulogized her uncle Munir on social media:
“when my sister was little, she used to pronounce amu (uncle) as abo and my uncle muneer thought it was the cutest thing ever. so it stuck and it was our collective nickname. we’d yell abo when we saw him and he’d yell back abo before we raced to each other’s arms.
abo was the spoiled baby brother of nine. his father died when he was a year old. when he was 8 years old, the zionist army shot him in the leg twice. he was one of the first children brought to the united states through @thepcrf to receive treatment, but he was never able to play soccer like the rest of the kids again. he lived with us for a while in the states before moving back permanently to gaza. his favorite movie of all time was blue streak and until the last time i saw him he would say “what you gonna do with one shoelace?” and i’d respond with “floss your ass?” we’d then spend the next 10 minutes quoting and laughing at his favorite lines. he’d always rent a fancy car and sneak us away from the crowded family home to take us to the newest popular shawarma and knafa joints in gaza city. i remember during one of those getaways he told me that my dad was not only his brother, but his father. he swore he would name his son after my father in accordance with our tradition of naming one’s firstborn son after their father. and he did.
today, abo was executed right before his mother’s eyes by the merciless zionist army. the soldiers raided our family home and forced themselves into my grandmother’s bedroom. she said he was trying to explain to the soldiers that she was his mother and no one was there when they suddenly and ruthlessly shot him in the neck. he exhaled a faint “يما” (mama) before collapsing to the ground. and that was it. he’s gone.
my devastated and heart shattered grandmother was not even given a chance to say goodbye. she begged them to let her take her son’s body with her. instead they expelled her from her house and forced her to leave her baby boy’s precious body behind. then they abducted her two other sons and her grandchildren.”
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On December 21, Mohammed al-Kilani was inside his apartment in the Sheikh Radwan area of Gaza City, performing dawn prayers with his father and brother. 55 members of the family were crammed in the apartment, seeking shelter from Israeli bombardment. Israeli soldiers stormed the building. Kilani’s father, Hussein, went out to meet them, raising his hands in submission and asking them what was happening.
“They shot him in the heart. He was killed immediately,” Kilani said.
One of his sons, aged 12, was just behind his grandfather. “They threw a bomb on his abdomen. His intestines spilt out before my eyes. He was killed.”
When the family expressed shock at what had happened, an Israeli soldier fired another bullet into the boy’s dead body.
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A UN Human Rights report describes reports that “Israeli forces took control of a building where civilians were sheltering, separated the men from the women and children, and then shot and killed at least 11 of the men, in front of their family members. The IDF then allegedly ordered the women and children into a room, and either shot at them or threw a grenade into the room, reportedly seriously injuring some of them, including an infant and a child. OHCHR has confirmed the killings at Al Awda building, although the details and circumstances of the killings are still under verification. IDF has not released any information on the incident.”
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At least 274 Palestinians were killed when Israeli forces attacked the Nuseirat refugee camp on June 8, 2024. Witnesses say soldiers staged mass executions in the streets. An EU representative called the raid a “massacre.” Soldiers executed a 12-year old boy in front of his mother.
Other Examples of Summary Executions
Testimonies have also emerged of Palestinians being summarily executed while evacuating as ordered by Israeli troops. For example, a Palestinian-American reported the killing of his uncle, a father of seven, who was evacuating with his children when he shot, apparently for no reason whatsoever.
Witnesses and photos also testify to the killing of men, women, and children “execution-style” in and around UN schools.
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Eyewitnesses told Al Jazeera that civilians, including newborns, were sheltering inside a school in December 2023 when Israeli soldiers shot them “execution-style.” They shot displaced Palestinians, including children, women, and the elderly, at point-blank range.
Israeli forces also carried out summary executions in and around hospitals it attacked.
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In March-April 2024, as Israel attacked Al-Shifa Hospital, several reports and eyewitness accounts allege that Israeli forces executed doctors and patients. Mass graves were later found, some with the bodies of patients with medical bandages and catheters still attached. Others with hands tied and stripped of clothes. Homes in the area were also raided, and civilians indiscriminately killed.
Similar testimonies abound.
Bombing Evacuation Routes & Safe Zones
Overview
Israel has forcibly displaced nearly every single person in Gaza. From the start, it has targeted civilians on the very roads on which they were told to flee for safety, and herded them into so-called “safe zones” where they are attacked with bombs and missiles.
Killing Palestinians On Evacuation Routes
There are several examples of Israeli soldiers deliberately targeting and killing Palestinian civilians that were following Israeli orders to evacuate their homes on designated routes. Most of these are referenced in various sections above, but we gather them here as well.
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A 4-year-old girl was shot in the neck when trying to leave Gaza City with her family - as instructed - on a so-called safe route designated by the Israeli military.
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A grandmother was shot while holding her 5-year-old grandson's hand, as he waved a white flag, on an Israeli designated evacuation route.
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Israeli snipers shot and killed two young brothers in Khan Younis as tried to evacuate. The first carried a white flag and was shot. The second was shot and killed when trying to rescue his brother.
The Guardian reports that, according to a witness interviewed by Euro-Med Monitor, 14-year-old Nahedh Barbakh, was carrying a white flag to lead the way for his family, but after walking just a few steps from the house, he was hit in the leg by a bullet. As the teenager attempted to turn back home he was shot in the back and head.
20-year-old Ramez was shot through the heart when he tried to rescue his brother. The family decided it was too dangerous to recover the bodies and eventually fled the area, leaving the brothers still lying in the street. A last photograph shows Ramez stretched across Nahedh’s body with the white flag tangled between them.
Witnesses said the shots came from the rooftop of a nearby building taken over by Israeli soldiers.
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Israeli soldiers shot and killed a man waving a white flag in a “safe zone”
A few weeks after the Israeli military admitted it shot and killed three Israeli hostages waving white flags in Gaza, ITV News aired a video obtained from one of its cameramen in Gaza showing a group of men, one of whom is seen waving white flag, walking in a so-called safe zone. One of the men, Ramzi Abu Sahloul, is interviewed and says he is attempting to reach his mother and brother to escort them out of harm’s way. A drone can be heard overhead. Once the interview is complete, the cameraman walks away and the group of men continue on their way. A round of gunshots can be heard and Mr Abu Sahloul is fatally hit. ITV's video analysis and audio ballistic expert analysis contradicted Israeli denials and deflections.
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A video shows a bomb dropped on a road that Palestinians were told to use to evacuate the north of Gaza.
Attacking “Safe Zones”
Throughout Israel's onslaught on Gaza, it has repeatedly and relentlessly attacked so-called “safe zones” where it has concentrated displaced Palestinian families.
During the first six weeks of the war in Gaza, Israel routinely used one of its biggest and most destructive bombs in areas it designated safe for civilians, according to an analysis of visual evidence by The New York Times.
Reuters and Al Jazeera similarly reported that Israel was bombing the places it ordered Palestinians to go.
As a result, as early as November 2023, Amnesty International declared there was “nowhere safe in Gaza.” A UNICEF spokesman called “safe zones” “zones of death” due to relentless bombing and alack of access to food, water, and shelter.
In December 2023, numerous videos emerged of utter destruction and buildings ablaze where families were told to take shelter.
This carried on throughout 2024. The following represent just a few examples.
An NBC News investigation in April 2024 revealed that Israel continued to target Palestinians in “safe zones.” The Guardian reported that craters as deep as 9 meters were created by Israeli missiles dropped in a “humanitarian zone.” In some cases, Israel did not even acknowledge the strikes until news outlets like the BBC verified them - forcing the military's hand.
Since Israel unilaterally broke the ceasefire in March 2025, it no longer designates “humanitarian zones.” Between March 18 and April 15, the UN High Commission for Human Rights “recorded at least 23 incidents of strikes on [displaced family] tents in Al Mawasi area of Khan Younis, where Israeli military orders instructed civilians to relocate, and a large percentage of overall fatalities recorded by the Office were children and women.” In 36 strikes, the only fatalities found were women and children.
In July 2025, in yet another Orwellian turn of phrase, Israel floated the idea of a “humanitarian city” on the rubble of southern Gaza. The Israeli Defense Minister ordered the military to start drawing up operational plans to initially house 600,000 people and eventually the entire Palestinian population in the far southernmost corner of Gaza. Those outside would be executed. Those inside would not be allowed to leave. This would be a prelude to their expulsion - or what Israel chillingly calls “voluntary migration” - in order to conquer and settle Gaza.
This is the very definition of a “concentration camp.” The expulsion of Palestinians is ethnic cleansing, and the killing of people outside the camp and the erasure of Palestinian life in Gaza is genocide. Even the former Prime Minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert, said the “humanitarian city” would be a “concentration camp” for Palestinians. One of Israel’s own defense lawyers in its case before the International Court of Justice is now accusing the state of war crimes and crimes against humanity, saying the population transfer orders are so illegal that soldiers have a legal and moral duty to disobey them.
Shooting on Site in “Kill Zones”
Overview
The Israeli army creates “kill zones” where it shoots to kill anyone who crosses an arbitrary, invisible line – including unarmed men, women, children, and the elderly. Often they are simply looking for food or trying to get home. It then labels them “terrorists” – even if they are children.
These testimonies by Israeli soldiers, officers, and defense officials confirm that the Israeli military isn’t distinguishing between combatants and civilians - a stark violation of the laws of war.
In short, Israel is routinely “shooting on sight" in large swathes of Gaza, and falsely reporting the victims - including children - as combatants.
Israeli Soldiers Speak Out
These testimonies come directly from Israeli soldiers and officers who served in Gaza, speaking with primarily Israeli news outlets and organizations - including Ha'aretz, +972 Magazine, and Breaking the Silence.
We delve into them below.
A Policy of Ethnic Cleansing
These kill zones are an integral part of a broader goal of ethnic cleansing. As early as October 2023, the Israeli army announced that if any Palestinians remained in northern Gaza, it would identify them as terrorists. The majority of Gazans are refugees who were expelled or fled from their homes in what is now Israel during the 1948 war. Israel has never allowed them to return. With this memory, many refused to leave. Others – such as the elderly, sick, disabled, and those who care for them – could not leave.
Kill Zones: “Everyone is Shot”
A reservist from another division described:
watching a drone feed showing “an adult with two children crossing the forbidden line.”
Kill Zones: Civilians are Branded “Terrorists”
“We’re killing civilians there who are then counted as terrorists.”
An Israeli soldier recounted shooting dead a 16-year-old in a hail of bullets:
“People around me were shooting and laughing.” An intelligence officer collected the items, and hours later, the fighters learned the boy wasn't a Hamas operative - but just a civilian. “That evening our battalion commander congratulated us for shooting a terrorist…When someone pointed out he was unarmed and looked like a civilian, everyone shouted him down.”
Kill Zones: An Arbitrary, Invisible Line
How Palestinians would know they were crossing an invisible line was not made clear to them, the soldiers said. Even soldiers manning ambush positions say they weren't always clear where these lines were drawn. The “kill zone” boundary shifted constantly - “500 meters here today, 500 meters there tomorrow,” said one fighter.
There is no visible designation of where these zones are. They do not exist in any official military order. Soldiers in the field call it the “line of dead bodies.” People are meant to “learn through blood.” That is, if enough people die, soldiers say, people will stop going there. “How they know is a really good question. Enough people died or got injured crossing that line, so they don’t go near it.”
Killing for Competition, Killing for Revenge
An Isreaeli officer told Ha'aretz:
“The IDF spokesperson's announcements about casualty numbers have
turned this into a competition between units. If Division 99 kills
150 [people], the next unit aims for 200.”
Another officer told The Guardian: “A lot of us went there, I went there, because they killed us and now we’re going to kill them,” they said. “And I found out that we’re not only killing them – we’re killing them, we’re killing their wives, their children, their cats, their dogs. We’re destroying their houses and pissing on their graves.”
A Closer Look at Two Kill Zones:
The Perimeter of Gaza and the Netzarim Corridor
These kill zones are not small. They include a wide, unmarked perimeter of Gaza, constituting ~16% of the entire territory, and the Netzarim Corridor, a 7-kilometer-wide strip of land.
The perimeter is significant because it contains 35% of the strip’s entire agricultural land, at a time when Israel is forcibly starving Palestinians in Gaza by blocking the entry of food. The Guardian reports:
Despite shoot-to-kill orders, a warrant officer stationed in northern Gaza said Palestinians kept going back to the area “again and again after we fired at them.”
The officer said the Palestinians appeared to want to pick edible plants growing in the area. “There was hubeiza [mallow] there because no one went near there. People are hungry, so they come with bags to pick hubeiza, I think.”
Increasingly, All of Gaza is a “Kill Zone”
Even in the remaining 14%, people are being massacred on a daily basis by Israeli soldiers and American mercenaries at so-called “humanitarian aid” distribution sites set up by the United States and Israel under the guise of the “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.” Just the other day, another young boy was shot and killed by a sniper as he searched for food in Gaza's parched north.
Bombing Civilian “Power Targets”
Overview
An investigation by +972 Magazine and Local Call, also reported in The Guardian, revealed that Israel is intentionally bombing places that are full of civilians and vital to Palestinian life in Gaza—like universities, banks, hospitals, high-rise residential towers, and more—even though it knows they serve no military purpose. Israel calls these “power targets.” According to Israeli intelligence sources, Israel’s goal in bombing them is to terrorize Palestinian civilians in the hopes they will exert pressure on Hamas.
This kind of purposeful targeting of civilians is known by one word: terrorism. Terrorism is subject to varying definitions, but is often most widely understood to be “the calculated use of violence to create a general climate of fear in a population and thereby to bring about a particular political objective.”
Bombing Civilian Targets to “Create a Shock”
In November 2023, +972 Magazine and Local Call published an investigation based on conversations with Israeli intelligence sources. Israeli forces, they said, were fully aware they were attacking and killing civilians and knowingly obliterating residential buildings in order to “create a shock” among Palestinians and exert “civil pressure” on Hamas. The Israeli army called these “power targets.” They included high-rises and residential towers in the heart of cities, and public buildings such as universities, banks, and government offices.
The army would find the thinnest of pretexts to serve as “an excuse that allows the army to cause a lot of destruction in Gaza.” According to the +972 investigation:
In the first 5 days of fighting, power targets accounted for a staggering 1,329 targets – half of all the places Israel bombed. They included the Islamic University of Gaza, the Palestinian Bar Association, a UN building for an educational program for outstanding students, a building belonging to the Palestine Telecommunications Company, the Ministry of National Economy, the Ministry of Culture, roads, and dozens of high-rise buildings and homes.
For example, on October 25, 2023, the 12-story Al-Taj residential building in Gaza City was bombed to the ground without warning, killing the families living inside. About 120 people were buried under the rubble, according to the testimonies of residents. Six days later, on October 31, the 8-story Al-Mohandseen residential building was bombed without warning. Journalists estimated that over 150 people were killed in the attack. One baby was found alive, without his parents.
Despite Israel's ban on foreign journalists in Gaza, independent investigations by human rights groups and the United Nations have identified numerous strikes where there was no evidence of any military target, corroborating +972's reporting.
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An Amnesty International investigation in October 2023 found that on October 9, Israel shelled at least three multi-story buildings, as well as an open flea market on a crowded street in the Jabaliya Refugee Camp, killing at least 69 people. “The bodies were burned … I didn’t want to look, I was scared of looking at Imad’s face,” said the father of a child who was killed. “The bodies were scattered on the floor. Everyone was looking for their children in these piles. I recognized my son only by his trousers. I wanted to bury him immediately, so I carried my son and got him out.” The Israeli army said that the attack on the market area was aimed at a mosque “where there were Hamas operatives.” However, according to Amnesty, satellite images do not show a mosque in the vicinity.
It's in this light that one begins to understand Israel's repeated bombing of UN schools and hospitals where civilians seek shelter and some small semblance of safety during a genocide.
Forcibly Starving the
Entire Civilian Population
Overview
From October 7, 2023 to today, Israel has used starvation as a weapon of war - in stark violation of international law. It has blocked all food and water into Gaza for months on end. When it does allow in aid, it limits it to a trickle - far below what is needed. At the same time, it has razed agricultural fields, bombed bakeries, and destroyed greenhouses and water treatment plants. This is all described in detail on the Starvation page of this website. Here, the key point is simple: Israel's starving of Gaza is a clear example of how it targets the entire civilian population.
The Starvation of Gaza
On October 9, 2023, Israel’s Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, stated in no uncertain terms: “No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. We are fighting human animals and we will act accordingly.” A day later, he said he “removed every restriction” on troops, and said that “Gaza will never go back to what it was. We will eliminate everything.”
Israel did exactly this - blocking all humanitarian aid into Gaza, including food, water, electricity, and medical supplies, for weeks. For a society that was already dependent on such aid due to a 17-year blockade by Israel, this was catastrophic. When aid was periodically allowed in, it was a trickle - ensuring the civilian population faced slow starvation, and remained perpetually on the brink of famine. As 45 U.S. doctors who volunteered in Gaza wrote in an open letter:
In an essay in The New York Times published in December 2023, the heads of six major humanitarian organizations wrote: “as the leaders of some of the world’s largest global humanitarian organizations, we have seen nothing like the siege on Gaza.” Human Rights Watch (and numerous other organizations and experts) declared Israel was using starvation as a weapon of war.
In January 2024, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to allow Palestinians in Gaza access to food, water, fuel, shelter and medical aid. Israel responded by letting in even less food, water and other aid.
Since then, Israel has blocked all aid for weeks and months at a time, most recently from March -May 2025, when Israel blocked all aid for 3 months when the people of Gaza were already on the brink of starvation. All the while, thousands of trucks of food sat lined up for miles on the border, spoiling.
Deliberately Targeting Civilians
There can be no question that starving the entirety of Gaza for months and years on end is quite obviously targeting every single civilian. The argument that Israel was just trying to destroy Hamas - and not the Palestinian people - was null and void the moment Israel decided to cut water, food and electricity off to Gaza on the first day of its attacks. These actions in no way help Israel “defeat Hamas” — they are genocidal acts against an entire population. Add to that the fact that Israel has bombed civilians in areas it ordered them to evacuate to, bombed nearly every single hospital, and murdered over 18,500 children. Not to mention the catalogue of atrocities that this website documents. This one fact alone proves that any claim that Israel is only targeting Hamas is a lie.
The impact of Israel starvation campaign could not be more stark. In March 2024, 13 babies died in a single week at one hospital due to malnutrition. Babies have frozen to death due to lack of shelter and supplies. Most recently, Israel has even blocked the entry of baby formula, to catastrophic effect.
Massacring Civilians at
US & Israel-Backed “Aid” Sites
Overview
After nearly 3 months of a total blockade on food, water, and medical aid - pushing Gaza to the brink of famine - in May 2025 Israel dismantled the independent humanitarian aid system in Gaza and replaced it with its own, Orwellian “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.”
The GHF is described in detail on the Starvation page of this website. This section provides a short summary to highlight this as yet another way in which Israel has deliberately targeted and killed Palestinian civilians.
Indeed, it is one of the most cruel. Israel has not only deliberately starved Palestinians, but it has used their desperate hunger to lure them to crowded “aid” sites in the far south of Gaza as a way of ethnically cleansing the majority of the Gaza Strip. There, it distributes meager quantities of food (far below what is necessary to actually feed the people of Gaza) while massacring them on a daily basis. This is not conjecture - it is documented. In large part, it is even admitted - by Israeli leaders and soldiers themselves.
What is the “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation”?
For nearly 3 full months, from March to May 2025, Israel implemented a total blockade on food, water, and medical aid - pushing Gaza to the brink of famine. Under mounting pressure from the international community, Israel finally agreed to allow a “minimum” amount of aid in - but only through a newly-created, shadowy organization dubbed the “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation” or GHF. It dismantled the independent, UN-led humanitarian aid system - which involved numerous highly-regarded, international nonprofit organizations - with 400 sites across Gaza and decades of experience, and replaced it with the GHF.
The GHF's origins are murky. The name itself is a euphemism so cynical it recalls Orwell's Ministry of Truth. Backed by Israel and the United States, it is a privatized, militarized operation with only 3-4 sites for 2 million people, almost all concentrated in the south of Gaza. Ha'aretz reported that the circumstances of the foundation's establishment and its funding are shadowy: it is known to have been set up by Israel in coordination with U.S. evangelicals and private security contractors. A France24 investigation revealed the shadow network of ex–CIA operatives, evangelical Trump allies, and private military contractors running the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. An Israeli politician has alleged it is funded by Israel’s Ministry of Defense and the Mossad. On the eve of its launch, Jake Wood - the ex-Marine sniper leading the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation - resigned, saying “It’s not possible to implement this plan while also strictly adhering to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence, which I will not abandon.”
This is Not Humanitarian Aid
It quickly became clear that the true intent of the GHF was not to provide real aid to Palestinians. Israeli leaders said it themselves. Netanyahu told Israelis:
In short, this “minimal” aid would be used first to concentrate Palestinians in the southernmost corner of Gaza (in order to facilitate their ethnic cleansing and ultimate expulsion) and second to silence criticism in order to complete the Gaza genocide.
Indeed, the amount of food is paltry. There is no medicine, no baby formula, no meat or dairy, no fresh fruits or vegetables. It is a drop in the ocean. Just enough to tell the world Israel is not starving civilians in Gaza, while continuing to starve civilians in Gaza. This is precisely what is happening.
Over 170 charities, including Oxfam, Amnesty, and Save the Children, have demanded the immediate shutdown of the GHF. Various humanitarian officials have called the GHF the “weaponization of starvation,” the “militarization of aid,” a “death trap,” “engineered scarcity,” and “surveillance based rationing that legitimates a policy of deprivation by design.” What it is not is humanitarian aid.
Daily Massacres: Gaza's “Hunger Games”
Worse still, from its very first day, Palestinians have been subjected to daily massacres at GHF food distribution sites. These chaotic, dystopian scenes have been likened to the “Hunger Games.” Former UN Humanitarian Aid Chief Martin Griffiths stated: “Food has become an opportunity for killing. I never heard of such a thing in the past.”
Israel carried out a series of aid massacres in early 2024 - the most infamous became known as “the flour massacre” - when Israeli soldiers opened fire on crowds of people seeking food aid. It was an atrocity that shocked the world. Now, these massacres are happening at GHF sites on a daily basis.
In just over a month, the UN recorded over 600 killed and 5,000 wounded at GHF sites. Israeli soldiers had fired on starving civilians with tank shells, machine guns, and drones. “Aid” had been used as a guise for killing.
British surgeon Nick Maynard volunteering in Gaza says the pattern of gunshot wounds is disturbing, suggesting Israeli soldiers were using Palestinian children as "target practice": “One day they come in with gunshot wounds to the head, another day they come in with gunshot wounds to the neck, the other day we admitted 4 children all of whom had been shot in the genitals.”
Israeli soldiers and American contractors admit they fired on unarmed civilians
Israeli soldiers and officers told Ha'aretz that they were ordered to fire on unarmed crowds at GHF sites, even when no threat was present. One soldier called it “a killing field.” He continued: “I'm not aware of a single instance of return fire. There's no enemy, no weapons.”
Behind each of these massacres are stories of people - mothers, children, fathers, grandparents - desperately seeking food. People with full hearts, exhausted by genocide, traumatized and desperate for peace, freedom, and a normal life. The Guardian reported on a mother who walked six hours with her children through rubble to a food hub in Gaza before being shot in the forehead while rehearsing with her family what to do if they got separated; her 20-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son crouched beside her corpse for hours as Israeli gunfire rained down. A young boy, beloved by his family, was killed waiting in line for food. These are the innocent people whose lives are being cut short by an ongoing genocide.
The High Proportion of Civilian Deaths
All of this has led to an incredibly high percentage of civilian - and child - deaths, which is yet more evidence that this is not a normal “war.” Most telling, perhaps, was the revelation in a U.N. report that the age group most killed in Israel's destruction of residential buildings in Gaza was 5-9 year olds. The report decried the “unprecedented level of killing and injury of civilians” as a “direct consequence of the Israeli Defense Forces’ (IDF) failure to comply with fundamental principles of international humanitarian law.” Nearly 70% of those killed in Gaza are women and children. That doesn't even account for the elderly and men who are not militants.
From a November 2024 UN Report on the Human Rights Situation in Gaza, showing that the most killed age-group in residential buildings in Gaza was 5-9 year olds.
In January 2024, Oxfam declared that Israel was killing civilians at a rate not seen in any 21st century conflict. The Norwegian Refugee Council called Gaza the “worst humanitarian crisis faced by any civilian population this century.”
Doctors accustomed to serving in war zones testified they had never seen anything like what was happening in Gaza.
~ Dr. Adam Hamawy, who worked in Iraq
~ Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, trauma and critical care surgeon
~ Asma Taha, pediatric nurse practitioner
“Gaza was the first time I held a baby’s brains in my hand. The first of many.”
~ Dr. Mark Perlmutter, orthopedic and hand surgeon
CONCLUSION:
Intentional Killing of Civilians
There is only one conclusion:
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From the open declarations by Israeli leaders and soldiers of their desire and intent to kill, their contempt for Palestinian civilians, and their belief that “there are no innocents in Gaza”
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To the daily sniping of children in their heads and chests
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To leaving newborns to die alone and decompose in a hospital the Israeli army forcibly evacuated
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To deliberately targeting the elderly, writers, and people who try to rescue the wounded
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To precision-targeting playing children, pregnant women, people with special needs, civilians waiving white flags, and unarmed people simply walking in open areas, trying to find food or return home
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To driving tanks and bulldozers over Palestinians – dead and alive
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To storming family homes and summarily executing parents and children
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To bombing the roads on which Palestinians were ordered to flee, and bombing the “safe zones” where they are encouraged to seek shelter
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To shooting on sight anyone who steps into an invisible, arbitrary “kill zone”
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To bombing civilian “power targets” for the sole purpose of terrorizing the population
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To forcibly starving the entire civilian population of Gaza, creating desperate hunger, and causing children and newborns to die of starvation
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To daily massacres of starving people seeking aid for themselves and their families
This is an intentional and deliberate Israeli policy and practice. This is the systematic killing of civilians. This is genocide.
This is not a technical error, a mistake made in the fog of war, or a one-off deviation from protocol. Israeli soldiers have said it themselves, over and over again.
And we know it too. Because when you look at what's happening, it's obvious, it’s common sense.
As Israeli journalist Gideon Levy said: “How can it be a mistake when the cars [of humanitarian aid workers] are clearly marked? There are 100 journalists being killed, so many medical teams, people with white flags were shot dead. … It’s a policy.”
Nor can Israel credibly trot out the fig leaf of “Hamas” to blame it for the deaths of civilians. Or claim, almost always without evidence, that Hamas is to blame because it uses civilians as human shields.
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How can this justify sniping children in the heads and chests on a daily basis?
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How can this justify summarily executing unarmed people in their homes?
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How can this justify starving an entire population - banning baby formula, incubators, and anesthetics?
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How can this justify knowingly shooting unarmed civilians for simply walking or children for playing because they went searching for food or tried to return to their homes in an unmarked “kill zone”?
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How can this justify driving bulldozers and tanks over elderly people and children?
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How can this justify purposely bombing civilian “power targets” or bombing UN schools with no military target, particularly when Israeli intelligence sources themselves say the primary intent is “to harm Palestinian civil society”?
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As Israeli soldiers themselves testified about the now daily massacres at GHF sites, there is never any return fire. The bullets are always in one direction – towards Palestinians. They are being ordered to shoot at unarmed civilians.
In a 300-page report, Amnesty International investigated Israel’s claims that it was simply targeting Hamas, finding that “these claims are not credible,” particularly in light of the unprecedented level of destruction and the complete denial of aid.
This isn’t the first time Israel has brutally attacked Gaza with utter disregard for the lives of Palestinian civilians. After Israel's 3-week assault on Gaza in 2008-2009, an independent UN Report concluded:
“The repeated failure to distinguish between combatants and civilians appears to the Mission to have been the result of deliberate guidance issued to soldiers, as described by some of them, and not the result of occasional lapses. . .”
~ Report of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict established pursuant to Human Rights Council resolution S-9/1 of 12 January 2009 (25 September 2009).
But this time is the most extreme, the most prolonged, the most cruel. Over 60,000 dead (with some estimates as high as 377,000). Over 150,000 injured. Countless thousands buried beneath the rubble. The highest concentration of child amputees in the world. The entire population pushed to the brink of starvation for nearly two years. Kill zones. Missiles dropped on children playing. 2000-pound bombs dropped on displaced family tents in “safe zones.” Snipers killing children every day with bullets to the head. Daily massacres of starving people at “aid” sites. Children, frail and weak, dying of starvation.
And still, the Israeli army promotes the officer who ordered troops to “shoot to kill” two Palestinians waving a white flag. Israeli ministers openly say they will annihilate Gaza. The vast majority of Israeli society believes there are no innocents in Gaza.
This isn't a lapse - this is a policy.
If October 7th can't be justified by 75 years of dispossession, killing, and oppression by Israel - as well as over 50 years of illegal military occupation and a 17-year blockade, then October 7th cannot justify the wholesale death machine that Israel has unleashed upon the civilian population of Gaza. The deaths of 36 Israeli children on October 7th cannot justify killing over 18,500 Palestinian children since October 7th.
As journalist Tom Stevenson wrote in the London Review of Books:
As another commentator put it: “No crime, no matter against who, by who or where on earth it happens, justifies the killing of people who had nothing to do with it, let alone thousands of people who had nothing to do with it. Thousands of kids have been blown to bits. Shame on anyone trying to distract from this.”