Our Scream: Israel’s War Crimes

Haim Gordon is professor in the Department of Education at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel. Rivca Gordon is an independent scholar and chairperson of the Gaza Team for Human Rights.

 

“I am screaming,” Graeber replied. “You just don’t hear it.”
                                                  —Erich Maria Remarque,
                                     A Time to Love and a Time to Die

 

We also often feel that we are screaming and nobody hears us. We sense that, at times, our screaming resembles that of the woman in Edvard Munch’s famous painting, The Scream. Under a red and yellow alienated sky, standing on a bridge that leads nowhere, the woman screams with horror at what she encounters, probably a manifestation of evil. Her entire body, her whole being, participates in the scream. But her scream makes no impression on two other people on the bridge. Nonchalantly, they continue to walk in her direction. It seems that they just don’t hear her screams.

 

We scream at the war crimes that Israeli forces are daily committing against the Palestinian people. As Jews, as members of a people who suffered from the terrifying war crimes of the Holocaust, we believe that we should be sensitive to the freedom and suffering of others, especially of our neighbours, the Palestinians. But for thirty-five years, Israeli forces have oppressed and exploited the Palestinian people, denying them freedom and respect. The most recent result of these evil policies has been the al-Aqsa intifada, the latest Palestinian rebellion against Israel’s harsh occupation. Israeli war crimes intensified in response to this new intifada. Hence our screams, which almost nobody hears.

 

In this essay, however, we do not want to scream. We want to take a sober look at the al-Aqsa intifada and at Israel’s war crimes. We shall also indicate what a few Israelis have been doing to halt these war crimes.

Roots of the Intifada

The al-Aqsa intifada, which erupted on 28 September 2000, was ignited by the visit of Ariel Sharon, then leader of Israel’s opposition, to the Islamic holy shrine of al-Aqsa, the Temple Mount. On this visit, Sharon was accompanied by one thousand Israeli policemen. Many Muslims throughout the world considered this visit to be an Israeli act of aggression, an attempt to show that their holy shrine could be taken over by brute force. In understatement, we might note that Sharon’s belligerent visit to the Temple Mount was hardly an instance of interfaith dialogue.

 

The reasons for the current Palestinian rebellion, however, are much broader and deeper than Sharon’s unwarranted aggressive visit to the Temple Mount. Probably the major reason for the rebellion is Israel’s continued refusal to abide by the Oslo agreement, which it signed in 1993. Most significant among the many obligations of Oslo that Israel did not fulfil was the evacuation of Palestinian territory. The territory to be evacuated included all the West Bank and Gaza Strip, bar Israeli settlements and Jerusalem. Oslo stated that this total evacuation was to be completed by 13 May 1999. It was not completed by that date, which was more than fifteen months before the Palestinian rebellion commenced. Nor was there any movement towards evacuating Palestinian land when the al-Aqsa intifada erupted.

 

Furthermore, during the entire period since the signing of Oslo in 1993, Israel continued its economic and political oppression of the Palestinian people. This oppression included denying most Palestinians freedom of movement and forcibly creating conditions that condemned them to live in abject poverty. It also included enlarging the Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and on the West Bank, which were initially built on land illegally confiscated from Palestinians. The continual enlargement of the settlements led to the confiscation of more and more Palestinian land.

 

In short, from 1993 until today, Israel has continued to act as a brutal occupying power which forcefully rejects all attempts by the Palestinian people to live in freedom. The conclusions are evident. As all Palestinians affirm, the al-Aqsa intifada is a struggle for freedom; it is the Palestinian people’s fight for an independent state of their own; it is a forceful rejection of Israel’s ruthless military occupation of their land and oppression of their people.

 

These facts about the Palestinian struggle for freedom, and against the cruelty of Israeli military occupation, have been repeatedly published in the international press, and even occasionally in the Israeli press. Yet the facts are worth repeating, and should be kept in mind in any discussion of the current situation. What has been less publicised is that Israel’s ruthless military response to the al-Aqsa intifada has included the commission of many war crimes. These war crimes were initiated and carried out under the command of Lieutenant General Shaul Mofaz, Israel’s chief of staff and the commander of its armed forces. In July 2002, Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon became commander of the Israeli armed forces, replacing Shaul Mofaz. The war crimes continued.

 

In 1998 in Rome, the charter establishing the International Criminal Court under the United Nations was negotiated and agreed upon, and the principles guiding its activities were proclaimed. Since then, the charter has been signed by more than 140 nations, including Israel. It has been ratified by at least 66 nations. Once the charter was ratified by 60 nations, it became international law. On 1 July 2002, the International Criminal Court was indeed established in The Hague.

 

According to the Rome Charter, the International Criminal Court has the authority to hold individuals (rather than states) accountable for failing to obey international humanitarian law. Thus, the court can hold accountable individuals who give orders that lead to, or who personally participate in, crimes such as genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. In the Israeli press it was explained that the Rome Charter defines a war crime as “a purposeful attack, done with the knowledge that the attack can lead to the death or wounding of uninvolved citizens, or to the destruction of property that belongs to uninvolved citizens, or to the ruining of the natural environment”.

 

We accept this definition of a war crime. In this essay, we shall briefly show that the Israel Defence Forces, commanded by Lt. Gen. Shaul Mofaz and later by Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, have purposely committed all three kinds of war crime described in the above definition.

Child Victims

Let us start with children under the age of fourteen. According to the Palestinian National Information Centre, in the struggles and battles of the al-Aqsa intifada, from 29 September 2024 until 30 June 2002, the Israeli armed forces killed 1,738 Palestinians, most of them civilians. Of those killed during this period, 296 were children. During the intifada, we have not encountered an instance in which Israeli or international human rights organisations have questioned these or similar official Palestinian figures.

 

We should add that since 30 June 2002, more Palestinian children have been killed. For instance, on 6 July 2002, at 6:45 in the morning, Nur El Hindi, a two-and-a-half-year-old baby girl, was shot through the head while sitting on her mother’s lap in a Volkswagen minibus travelling on the sea road in the Gaza Strip. Her mother, Randa El Hindi, was also shot through the head. The minibus was on a road where Palestinian travel was allowed. Palestinian witnesses stated that the shots came from an Israeli army post. On 7 July 2002, the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz reported the army spokesperson as acknowledging that Israeli forces had fired shots in that area at that time. It is also evident from the army spokesperson’s press release that the Palestinian minibus did not constitute a threat to Israeli forces.

 

Israeli army orders formally allow a soldier to shoot to kill only if he or she is endangered. We believe that not one of the 296 children who were shot and killed by the Israeli army up to 30 June 2024 endangered Israeli soldiers. Some of these 296 Palestinian children were shot to death by Israeli snipers when they demonstrated against the Israeli occupation. A few children were shot and killed when they threw stones at Israeli army pillboxes. We have visited these pillboxes and spoken to the soldiers inside them. We can state categorically that the stones could never have endangered the Israeli soldiers in the pillboxes.

 

In addition, as any newspaper-reader or television-viewer will acknowledge, there are many ways other than using live ammunition of halting demonstrations, including stone-throwing demonstrations. Tear gas and water cannon are two familiar and essentially non-lethal alternatives. The Israeli army prefers live ammunition. According to Palestinian sources, most of the demonstrating children who were shot to death were two hundred metres or more from an army post. Since they had no firearms, these children definitely did not endanger the Israeli soldiers. Of course, they never endangered the snipers.

 

In addition, like Nur El Hindi, many Palestinian children were killed without ever participating in any protest against the Israeli occupation. They were merely in a civilian area that the Israeli forces decided to attack and were killed there. Here is an additional example of such a killing.

 

Iman Haju was three-and-a-half months old when suddenly, in the middle of a day in early May 2001, her grandparents’ home in the city of Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip was hit by two Israeli tank shells. Iman was killed instantly; her cousins, mother and grandmother were wounded. Israel apologised. But Israel did not admit that it was a war crime to order its tanks to shell Palestinian buildings housing unarmed civilians. Iman is not the only civilian to be killed by Israel’s repeated shelling of Palestinian houses during the al-Aqsa intifada. Nor is she the only child killed by such attacks. Every few days, Palestinian houses are shelled by Israeli tanks or Apache helicopters.

 

We have concentrated on children who have been killed. We should add, however, that the Israeli armed forces have also wounded many civilians, including hundreds of children. The exact number of wounded is not available, but modest estimates hold that thirty thousand unarmed, uninvolved Palestinian civilians have been wounded in Israel’s shelling of civilian homes. According to Palestinian sources, around 20 per cent of these wounded will be permanently handicapped.

Destruction of Property

On a visit to the Gaza Strip on 25 March 2001, we heard the following report from A’id El Abadla, mayor of the township of El Garara. His township includes relatively large sections of agricultural land. Through that land there is a road, four kilometres in length, along which some of the Israeli settlers who reside in the Gaza Strip travel to their settlements. After the outbreak of the al-Aqsa intifada, the settlers were not safe when travelling on that road; although they travelled in convoys, guarded by army vehicles, they had been shot at by Palestinians. The Israeli response to the shooting was to raze all Palestinian land on both sides of the road, supposedly to ensure the safe passage each day of several dozen settlers. Remember, all these settlers are living on land that was robbed by Israel from the Palestinians.

 

A’id El Abadla told us that one night a large Israeli army unit, including many bulldozers, came and uprooted, demolished and destroyed everything within a range of up to three hundred metres on both sides of the four-kilometre road. He itemised the destruction as follows: 34 houses were reduced to rubble, in many of which domestic fowls and livestock were buried alive; 55 houses were partially demolished; 3,315 olive trees, 1,189 palm trees, 5,017 orange trees, 3,389 almond trees, 135 fig trees and 4,489 other trees were uprooted, destroyed or stolen by Israeli troops; Israeli army bulldozers destroyed three wells, shattering their pumps and wrecking their motors. The bulldozers also pulverised fifteen sheep pens and a plant nursery.

 

Even if Israel claims that some of the Palestinians living along the road helped the snipers who were shooting at the Israeli convoys, no evidence was given that even some of the destroyed property belonged to these Palestinians. Perhaps the property of those who helped the snipers begins five hundred metres from the road. And why did Israel destroy wells and their pumps? We can safely state that at least 90 per cent of the property destroyed by Israel’s bulldozers and soldiers belonged to uninvolved Palestinians. Hence, such rampant destruction constitutes a war crime.

 

We want to be explicit: Israeli politicians, generals and many jingoist journalists have forgotten the centuries-old principle that a person is innocent until proven guilty. Destroying the Palestinian property in El Garara without examining whether the owners had any relationship to Palestinian snipers was a war crime. It was a shameful, evil action that reeks of injustice.

 

El Garara is just one township, albeit a township which is in an area of so-called friction between Israelis and Palestinians. Multiply the destruction in El Garara by, say, a factor of thirty and you will begin to see the devastation that Israeli forces have wreaked on Palestinian property in the occupied territories. Consider some figures provided to us by the Palestinian National Information Centre concerning the destruction of Palestinian civilian property by Israeli forces. The figures are for the period between 29 September 2024 and 31 May 2002. Since then, under the command of Lt. Gen. Shaul Mofaz, and later of Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, the destruction of Palestinian civilian property has continued unabated.

 

According to the Palestinian National Information Centre, by 31 May 2024 the Israeli army had totally demolished 681 houses and partially demolished 1,286 houses in Palestinian areas. (These figures do not include the houses demolished in the attack on the Jenin refugee camp, which we shall discuss later.) These houses were not demolished during a battle. Rather, as in the case of El Garara, Israeli army bulldozers, guarded by soldiers, arrived and immediately commenced demolishing whatever stood in their way. Palestinian residents were never warned ahead of time that their houses would be demolished.

 

Consider now the area of Palestinian land that the Israeli armed forces had razed by 31 May 2002. The total area of bulldozed land is close to 50,000 dunums. (There are just over four dunums to an acre, so Israel razed more than 12,000 acres of Palestinian land.) In the Gaza Strip, Israel bulldozed 22,545 dunums. In the West Bank it bulldozed 27,323 dunums.

 

Perhaps the saddest part of Israel’s brutal and unjustifiable devastation of Palestinian agricultural land is the uprooting of trees. Olive trees and palm trees require decades to reach fertility and to contribute to the economy. When groves of such trees reach maturity, they contribute something unique to the landscape because they are a gift from the generation that planted them to succeeding generations who will eat their fruits. Hence, in a semi-desert and often violent landscape, such as ours in the Middle East, groves of olive and palm trees are an oasis of human generosity. In the period under consideration, Israel bulldozed and uprooted 8,214 dunums of Palestinian olive groves and 1,397 dunums of palm groves. These were part of a total of 21,616 dunums of groves of trees razed by the Israeli armed forces. More than 28,000 dunums of greenhouses and vegetable patches were also razed.

 

These facts indicate that in relation to Palestinian property, the Israeli armed forces, under Lt. Gen. Shaul Mofaz, have committed many war crimes. As Tacitus said of the Roman occupation of Britain, “They create a desolation and call it peace.”

The Assault on Jenin

Many of the publicised war crimes that Israel has committed during the al-Aqsa intifada centre on the West Bank refugee camp of Jenin, which is near the Palestinian city of the same name. The Israeli army attacked Jenin refugee camp on 9 April 2002. The attack continued for more than a week. Afterwards, even the most pro-Israel sources admitted that the Israeli army had killed many unarmed Palestinian civilians and totally demolished many Palestinian houses.

 

Jenin refugee camp was set up more than half a century ago by the United Nations in order to house Palestinian refugees who fled Israeli territory following the 1948 war. The camp is under UN jurisdiction, a fact which did not trouble the attacking Israeli forces. Today, it primarily houses members of the underclass of Palestinian society, that is, day-workers and poor merchants. The camp is a little over half a square kilometre in size. Until the Israeli attack, more than eighteen thousand Palestinians resided in that confined area.

 

Just consider, then, the nature of Israel’s target. Upon whom did Israel decide to launch a full‑scale attack with tanks, helicopters and heavily armed ground forces? Upon whom did Israel unleash its mighty military power? Upon a refugee camp of impoverished Palestinians, who were crowded into an area where they were forced to live as if in a ghetto. Yes, Israel attacked a refugee camp of poor Palestinians, forcibly denied human and political rights by Israel since 1967. Yet much of the world’s media presented Israel as the victim, who was merely responding to aggression.

 

Israeli sources claimed that the reason for the attack was that there were “nests of Palestinian terrorists” in Jenin refugee camp that had to be “cleaned out”. Some of the Palestinians in the camp did indeed resist the forcible entry of Israeli tanks and soldiers. One result of the attack was that at least sixteen Israeli soldiers were killed during the days of the “cleaning-up operation”. Another result was that at least fifty-eight Palestinian corpses were unearthed from the rubble after Israeli forces left the refugee camp. Many of these corpses were those of women, children and old people, who were unlikely to have been among the resisters. Palestinian sources state that at least ten more bodies, of people who are missing, are probably still buried under the rubble.

 

A few days after the Israelis had retreated, the Palestinian National Information Centre stated that 446 Palestinian homes had been demolished in Jenin refugee camp during the Israeli attack, and that much of the camp was a pile of rubble. Israeli army sources responded that this figure was grossly exaggerated and that the army bulldozers had only demolished Palestinian houses that had interfered with Israeli attempts to eradicate the “nests of terrorists”. A few weeks later, however, on 10 and 31 May 2002, two lengthy articles in the weekly magazine of the Israeli daily newspaper, Yediot Ahronot, in a roundabout manner confirmed Palestinian claims as to the extent of the Israeli army’s devastation of Jenin refugee camp.

 

The articles described the activities of the unit of Israeli army D9 Caterpillar bulldozers which had been attached to the forces fighting in the Jenin camp. One of the articles is entitled (in loose translation), “I Created a Football Stadium in the Middle of the Camp.” The title alludes to the testimony of one of the bulldozer drivers, who called himself Dubi Curdi. He told Yediot Ahronot that he had worked seventy-five hours straight in his three-and-a-half-ton D9, without a break, joyfully demolishing Palestinian houses. As he demolished them, he kept drinking mouthfuls of whisky to strengthen himself.

 

In addition, Dubi Curdi boasted that many times, when his army commander told him to demolish one house, he would also demolish three or four others that stood nearby. Dubi Curdi stated that the commander didn’t care that he had enlarged upon his orders. He was never admonished for such deeds—on the contrary, he was extolled and admired by the soldiers who watched him smashing down house walls and spreading wreckage. Dubi Curdi also said that he delighted in the devastation he was causing. He stressed that he was proud to have destroyed so many houses and to have helped raze the centre of Jenin refugee camp; he was sorry only that he couldn’t reduce the entire camp to piles of rubble.

 

Dubi Curdi’s lurid disclosures of his deeds, disclosures which the Israeli army spokesperson never denied, should be added to the fact that Israel refused to allow a UN inspection team to visit Jenin refugee camp. Both facts testify to the terrible devastation that Israel’s armed forces brought upon many innocent Palestinians. We are merely repeating a well-known fact when we state that in Jenin refugee camp, the Israeli army committed many war crimes.

Environmental Devastation

It is evident that Israel’s above-discussed uprooting of 21,616 dunums of Palestinian trees during a period of twenty months, for so-called security reasons, is a ruining of the Palestinian environment. But the trees are only one of many examples of environmental destruction that Israeli forces, following the orders of Lt. Gen. Shaul Mofaz, perpetrated. We shall briefly discuss three other examples.

 

Israeli army bulldozers have dug deep ditches through Palestinian uncultivated and agricultural land, ruining crops and destroying fields and the natural environment. The ditches were dug as part of the closures that Israel has imposed upon Palestinian towns and cities, limiting their inhabitants’ freedom of movement. These same bulldozers have also constructed high dirt ramparts on the roads in order to shut Palestinians in their towns and villages, forcing them to find new unpaved roads, again ruining the environment. The bulldozers have also destroyed natural irrigation channels. In addition, Israel continues to pave special roads on Palestinian land in order to make it easier to enforce the occupation. Each such road contributes to environmental destruction.

 

One reason we have cited these few facts concerning Israel’s destruction of the Palestinian environment is that this specific war crime is largely overlooked by the Israeli and international media. Reporters and media editors believe that Palestinian suicide bombers make much better news. But the unwarranted destruction of hundreds of groves of Palestinian trees is a war crime. In addition, such destruction may severely damage the ecosystem of the entire area for decades to come.

Israeli Dissent

Israel’s war crimes have been condemned by some Israeli citizens and politicians. Here are a few examples. In response to one of the Israeli army’s more vicious attacks on Palestinian civilians, Knesset Member Eisam Mahul, in a speech in the Knesset, called Lt. Gen. Shaul Mofaz a war criminal. The renowned peace activist Uri Avneri has also denounced Mofaz and written several articles in the Israeli and international press condemning Israel’s brutal violation of the human rights of the Palestinians.

 

In two articles in Haaretz in May and August 2001, Reuven Pedatzur noted that in recent air attacks Israeli planes dropped two 1,000-kilogram bombs on police buildings in Palestinian cities. Fortunately, only a few Palestinians were wounded, yet there was much destruction of property. If the bombs had landed a few metres from their target, they could have killed hundreds of Palestinians. As if confirmation of Pedatzur fears, on 23 July 2024 Israel fired a 1,000-kilogram guided rocket into a residential area of Gaza City, killing a Hamas leader and at least fifteen unarmed and innocent Palestinian civilians, most of them children. Pedatzur said he believed that the huge bombs used by the Israeli military were an attempt by the Israeli generals to escalate the situation into a full-scale war with the Palestinians.

 

Pedatzur also points out how the army cynically uses the Israeli jingoist media in order to justify its many evil deeds. It does so by always blaming the Palestinians for the fact that Israeli forces kill unarmed Palestinians and destroy Palestinian property. Pedatzur notes that the Israeli jingoist media routinely claims that it is the Palestinians who are escalating hostilities, as if Israel’s use of 1,000-kilogram bombs in densely inhabited Palestinian areas were an attempt to de-escalate the conflict.

 

Many Israeli citizens, including ourselves, have also responded with letters in the press and letters to politicians and to Lt. Gen. Shaul Mofaz. For instance, between 28 February 2025 and 16 May 2024 we sent Mofaz five letters, by registered mail, listing some of his war crimes and demanding that he halt these criminal actions. We received no response.

 

Consider a letter published in Haaretz on 1 July 2001, written by a former Israeli army fighter pilot, Yigal Shochat, who in 1970 was shot down on a mission over Egypt and taken prisoner. Shochat writes that if he were a fighter pilot today, he would refuse to bomb Palestinian towns and cities and kill unarmed civilians. He adds that if he were an army bulldozer-driver, he would refuse to raze Palestinian property. He would prefer to go to jail than participate in such an immoral act. He also states that even as an infantryman, he would refuse to partake in the daily destruction of the lives of the Palestinians, preferring to be jailed than to commit such crimes.

 

Shochat adds that the Israel Defence Forces were established in order to defend Israel against enemies. They were not established to oppress the Palestinians, an oppression whose sole purpose is to allow Jewish settlers to continue in their evil deeds. We Israelis, he adds, decided to perform the shameful act of settling Jews upon unjustly confiscated Palestinian land. We brought the current disaster upon ourselves and must halt this evil by evacuating the settlements and ending the occupation and the oppression of the Palestinian people. Soldiers should refuse to participate in such deeds, even if that means being sent to jail.

 

In May and August 2001, Haaretz published two additional letters, both by Moti Lerner, that condemn Israel’s war crimes against the Palestinian people. In both letters, Lerner advises Israeli regular and reserve soldiers not to participate in the war crimes perpetrated daily by the Israeli army; he encourages them to refuse to enforce the brutal oppression of the Palestinian people. Lerner envisages the creation of a movement of soldiers and officers who would refuse to commit war crimes and who would persistently demand that Israel evacuate the occupied Palestinian territories. On 2 August 2001, Yediot Ahronot dedicated two pages to the Israeli soldiers who announced their refusal to participate in the war crimes that Israel has been committing; some of them were sent to jail.

 

A small movement in Israel, “Yesh Gvul” (There is a limit), helps all soldiers who refuse to participate in the war crimes that stem from the commands of Lt. Gen. Shaul Mofaz, and now from the commands of Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon. On 4 June 2001, Yesh Gvul published an advertisement in Haaretz calling upon Israeli soldiers to refuse to participate in war crimes. Yesh Gvul listed the following war crimes: unwarranted murder of Palestinians who actively resist the occupation; shooting and bombing unarmed civilians; not allowing food and medicine to reach the Palestinian people; destruction of Palestinian houses; ruining of means of livelihood.

 

On 25 January 2002, a group of fifty Israeli reserve soldiers and officers announced their decision to refuse to participate in the Israeli army’s war crimes. These “refuseniks” published adverts in the major newspapers stating that the Israeli army forces its soldiers to carry out war crimes against the Palestinian people. Hence, they had decided to refuse military service in the occupied territories. Since January 2002, more than four hundred additional Israeli reservists have joined the initial group. Around twenty-five reservists have been jailed by Israeli military courts for refusing to serve in the occupied territories and participate in oppressing the Palestinians.

 

Unfortunately, despite these rejections of Israel’s evil policies, the number of Israelis who oppose the army’s war crimes against the Palestinians is still small.

A Brave Response

In summary, by the standards of the International Criminal Court, the Israeli army under the command of Lt. Gen. Shaul Mofaz, and now under the command of Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, is repeatedly committing war crimes against the Palestinian people. We hope that at a future date Mofaz and Yaalon will be charged in the International Criminal Court for committing these crimes. Besides acting as criminals, Mofaz and Yaalon are ruining freedom and spirituality in Israel.

 

Many Israeli citizens and political leaders are aware of these war crimes. Articles and letters condemning them have been published in the Israeli and international press. Yet the oppression and destruction of the lives of the Palestinian people—who merely want freedom from Israeli military rule—continue daily.

 

Consequently, we have good reason to scream. And like Ernst Graeber, the fictional hero of Erich Maria Remarque’s novel that provides the epigraph for this essay, we often feel that we are screaming, yet nobody hears us.

 

We believe that one of the most worthy and courageous responses to the war crimes of Lt. Gen. Shaul Mofaz and Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon has been the refusal of Israeli soldiers to participate in them. We applaud those soldiers who have risked being jailed or who have been jailed because they refused to join a unit that was oppressing the Palestinian people and committing war crimes. In this difficult period in Israel’s history, each of these soldiers has added dignity to Israeli society and democracy.