In statements to the radio station The Voice of Palestine, the director of the institution, Shawan Jabareen, said that the newspaper revealed more evidence about the systematic violations in the territory. He estimated that these leaks barely represent a small part of the reality in the coastal enclave.
Jabareen announced that the Foundation is working to document all these Israeli violations to present evidence to international human rights organizations and the UN.
This week Haaretz denounced the systematic killings by Israeli soldiers against Palestinian civilians in the vicinity of the so-called Netzarin Corridor, which cuts the Gaza Strip in two. An investigation by the newspaper revealed that all Palestinians who approach are considered a threat and therefore eliminated.
A commander of the 252nd Division told Haaretz that there is “a line of corpses” there because after shooting, the bodies are not collected and the dogs come to eat them because Palestinian relief agencies are not allowed to evacuate the corpses.
From the division’s point of view, the death zone is the range of a sniper’s vision, another officer from the unit recounted.
“There is an imaginary line. Whoever crosses it dies, even if he is not carrying a weapon, or those who get lost, even cyclists,” one of the soldiers said. Such a line is not drawn on any map and is not mentioned in any official set of orders, and IDF commanders would probably deny its existence if asked but in the heart of the Gaza Strip, north of the Netzarim axis, nothing is more visible, he said.
One soldier revealed that an unarmed 16-year-old Palestinian was shot dead near the corridor, to which the squad leader replied: “For me, anyone who crosses the line is armed. There are no exceptions.”
“Saying that we are the most moral army in the world is an attempt to justify our actions. We know very well what we are doing there. We are in a place where there are no laws, where human life is worthless,” said one reserve commander, while another officer noted that “sometimes the IDF acts like an armed militia, with no clear laws.”
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