More than 70,000 killed; even more wounded; destruction without end: Ten Israeli soldiers speak about feelings of revenge, orders to shoot and “collateral damage.”
DER SPIEGEL spoke to 10 Israelis who served in the Gaza Strip after the Hamas terror attack of October 7, 2023, remotely piloted drones or selected targets for airstrikes. The Israeli organization Breaking the Silence , which collects testimonials from soldiers about misconduct and crimes committed by the military, facilitated contact with some of them. DER SPIEGEL checked all the statements as thoroughly as possible, cross-referencing them with other accounts and with independently verifiable information, and considers them credible.
All the soldiers except one chose to remain anonymous. Their units and personal details cannot be disclosed either because of the potential negative consequences. Most refuse to serve in Gaza again, though one was recently redeployed there just a few weeks ago. A ceasefire has been in effect in Gaza for a year, but the Israeli military still occupies around two-thirds of the territory and regularly strikes targets in Gaza.
David served as a reservist in an infantry unit and was deployed in central Gaza and Khan Younis for several months from October 2023 onward.
I knew from the start that this war was going to be bad. But I couldn’t imagine how bad. And I couldn’t imagine how long it would last, either. A month at most, I thought. That this war would go on for years – that seemed impossible. And then there was the scale of the destruction. From the perspective of an individual soldier, it even makes sense. Is one building the tallest in our sector? We destroy it because it could pose a threat. But then the next-tallest building becomes the tallest, and so it goes on until everything is destroyed. At first, we were told to destroy individual buildings. Later, we were assigned an entire area.
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When I returned to Gaza in 2025, there was nothing but rubble for miles. Officially, the aim was to create a "buffer zone.” But once I heard senior officers say: The Arabs have to be punished. They have to understand that we are taking more and more of their land and pushing them farther and farther back.