The Kill Zones in Gaza.
If we identified someone in our area of operation who was not part of our forces, we were told to shoot to kill,' a military source told Haaretz
The Israeli army has established “kill zones” in Gaza and anyone entering them becomes a legitimate target, according to a report in Israeli newspaper Haaretz citing military sources.
A reserve officer quoted by the newspaper said that Israel Defence Forces (IDF) commanders have broad latitude to designate areas with loose rules of engagement where soldiers do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
The report suggests the practice may have contributed to the killing of Palestinian and Israeli civilians.
“In every combat zone, commanders define such kill zones,” the source said. “This means clear red lines that no one who is not from the IDF may cross, so that our forces in the area are not hit.
“As soon as people enter it, mainly adult males, orders are to shoot and kill, even if that person is unarmed.”
Another soldier said that superiors ordered troops to shoot at suspects even at the risk of high collateral damage.
“For our commanders, if we identified someone in our area of operation who was not part of our forces, we were told to shoot to kill,” they said.
“We were explicitly told that even if a suspect runs into a building with people in it, we should fire at the building and kill the terrorist, even if other people are hurt.”
A third military source said: “The feeling we had was there weren’t really rules of engagement” and soldiers were not expected to account for incidents in which they killed Palestinians.
The sources suggest that the “kill zones” policy contributed to recent deadly incidents captured on film, such as the killing of four Palestinians in Khan Yunis through multiple air strikes despite them appearing to be unarmed.
The IDF explained the killings by saying they took place “in an active combat zone”.
The Haaretz report suggests that the use of “kill zones” could be a contributory factor to the rocketing death toll in Gaza, which recently passed 32,000, according to the Gaza health ministry, a department under the Hamas government whose data has been deemed reliable by the UN.
The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its published figures. Israel claims to have killed more than 10,000 Hamas fighters, without supplying evidence.
Israeli military sources have previously said that the army is using looser rules of engagement in this war than in previous rounds of conflict.
Former IDF general and national Security adviser Yaakov Amidror told i in November: “In the past, if there was opposition in a building we made research three hours before to find how many civilians might be in the house. Today, we destroy the building.”