[rad-green] '42 Knees in One Day': Israeli Snipers Open Up About Shooting Gaza Protesters

*https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-42-knees-in-one-day-israeli-snipers-open-up-about-shooting-gaza-protesters-1.8632555
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-42-knees-in-one-day-israeli-snipers-open-up-about-shooting-gaza-protesters-1.8632555>*







*Haaretz               March 6, 2020'42 Knees in One Day': Israeli Snipers
Open Up About Shooting Gaza ProtestersOver 200 Palestinians were killed and
nearly 8,000 were injured during almost two years of weekly protests at the
Israel-Gaza border. Israeli army snipers tell their storiesBy Hilo Glazer *

I know exactly how many knees I’ve hit, says Eden, who completed his
service in the Israel Defense Forces as a sniper in its Golani infantry
brigade six months ago. For much of the time, he was stationed along the
border with the Gaza Strip. His assignment: to repel Palestinian
demonstrators who approached the fence.

“I kept the casing of every round I fired,” he says. “I have them in my
room. So I don’t have to make an estimate – I know: 52 definite hits.”

*But there are also “non-definite” hits, right?*

“There were incidents when the bullet didn’t stop and also hit the knee of
someone behind [the one I aimed at]. Those are mistakes that happen.”

*Is 52 a lot?*

“I haven’t really thought about it. It’s not hundreds of liquidations like
in the movie ‘American Sniper’: We’re talking about knees. I’m not making
light of it, I shot a human being, but still ...”

*Where do you stand in comparison to others who served in your battalion?*

“From the point of view of hits, I have the most. In my battalion they
would say: ‘Look, here comes the killer.’ When I came back from the field,
they would ask, ‘Well, how many today?’ You have to understand that before
we showed up, knees were the hardest thing to rack up. There was a story
about one sniper who had 11 knees all told, and people thought no one could
outdo him. And then I brought in seven-eight knees in one day. Within a few
hours, I almost broke his record.”

   -

*Israeli snipers on the Gaza border. UPI / Alamy*

*Seeing is believing*

The mass demonstrations on Israel’s border with the Strip began on Land
Day, in March 2018
<https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/u-s-embassy-gaza-protests-and-nakba-day-live-updates-1.6078190>,
and continued on a weekly basis until this past January. These ongoing
confrontations, in protest of Israel’s siege of Gaza, exacted the lives of
215 demonstrators, while 7,996 were wounded by live ammunition, according
to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Despite the
large number of casualties, the grim protests and responses along the fence
continued unabated for nearly two years, until it was decided to reduce the
frequency to once a month. Yet even in real time, the violent Friday
afternoon ritual provoked little public interest in Israel. Similarly,
the international
condemnations
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/un-council-israel-intentionally-shot-children-and-journalists-in-gaza-1.6979358>
–
from allegations of the use of disproportionate force to accusations that
Israel was perpetrating massacres – faded like so much froth on the waves.

Shedding light on this very recent slice of history entails talking to
snipers: After all, they were the dominant and most significant force in
suppressing the demonstrations at the fence. Their targets ranged from
young Palestinians who were trying to infiltrate into Israel or who threw
Molotov cocktails at soldiers, to prominent, unarmed protesters who were
considered to be major inciters. Both categories drew the same response: L
<http://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/MAGAZINE-in-gaza-protests-israeli-troops-aim-for-the-legs-1.6725841>ive
ammunition fired at the legs
<https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/MAGAZINE-in-gaza-protests-israeli-troops-aim-for-the-legs-1.6725841>
.

Of the dozens of snipers that we approached, six (all of them discharged
from the IDF) agreed to be interviewed and to describe what reality looks
like through their gun sights. Five are from infantry brigades – two each
from Golani and Givati, one from Kfir – plus one from the Duvdevan
counter-terrorism unit. The names of all of them have been changed. They
are not out to “break the silence
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-israel-passes-law-targeting-groups-that-support-soldiers-indictment-1.6284735>”
or to atone for their deeds, only to relate what happened from their point
of view. In Eden’s case, even the fact that he also killed a protester by
mistake doesn’t rattle him. “I believe I was on the right side and that I
did the right thing,” he insists, “because if not for us, the terrorists
would try to cross the fence. It’s obvious to you that there is a reason
that you’re there.”

Eden says he broke the “knee record
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-a-young-gazan-s-dream-amputated-1.7414470>”
in the demonstration that took place on the day the new U.S. Embassy in
Jerusalem was inaugurated, on May 14, 2018. He did it jointly: Snipers
usually work in pairs – together with a locator, who is also a sniper by
training, and whose task is to give his partner precise data (distance from
the target, wind direction, etc.).

Eden: “On that day, our pair had the largest number of hits, 42 in all. My
locator wasn’t supposed to shoot, but I gave him a break, because we were
getting close to the end of our stint, and he didn’t have knees. In the end
you want to leave with the feeling that you did something, that you weren’t
a sniper during exercises only. So, after I had a few hits, I suggested to
him that we switch. He got around 28 knees there, I’d say.”

Eden clearly recalls his first knee. His target was a demonstrator standing
on coils of concertina wire about 20 meters away. “In that period [early
during the protests], you were allowed to shoot a major inciter only if he
was standing still,” he says. “That means, even if he was walking around
calmly, shooting was prohibited, so we wouldn’t miss and waste ammunition.
In any event, that inciter is on the barbed wire, I’m with the weapon right
at the fence, and there’s still no authorization to open fire. At one stage
he stands opposite me, looks at me, provokes me, gives me a look of ‘Let’s
see you try.’ Then the authorization comes. Standing above me is the
battalion commander, to my left is his deputy, to the right the company
commander – soldiers all around me, the whole world and their wife are
watching me in my first go. Very stressful. I remember the view of the knee
in the crosshairs, bursting open.”

*Palestinian amputee who lost his leg when he was shot by Israeli troops
during a protest on the border, Gaza Strip, *
*October 2, 2019. Adel Hana,AP*

“Roy,” who served as a sniper in the Givati Brigade until his discharge a
year and a half ago, says the hit he remembers most vividly is the one that
drew the largest audience. “There was pressure, because the battalion
commander had showed up, and everyone was on our case. There was a
Palestinian who looked like he was about 20, who didn’t stop moving around.
Pink shirt, gray pants. What they do is run-run-run, and then end up in the
concertina wire. He was really good at it. In that situation you can finish
him off or hit someone behind him. I clearly remember being worried about
missing his leg – and then feeling relief that I made a precise hit.”

Relief is also how Itay, a former Haredi who was a sniper in the Netzah
Yehuda Battalion (the ultra-Orthodox equivalent of the Nahal brigade). “I
saw a guy who was about to light a Molotov cocktail. In a case like that
you don’t do calculations. I got on the radio, described the target and got
an ‘authorized.’ The pressure is insane. Everything you learned and trained
for is distilled into that moment. You get yourself together, remind
yourself to breathe and then, boom. I shot at the knee and he fell. I made
sure everything was all right – that I hit the right place.”

*Is that sort of confirmation part of the protocol?*

Itay: “The directive is to keep watching after shooting to see whether the
goal was achieved. You only report a hit after an additional look. To look
afterward is the easy part, or more correctly, it’s the part that brings
relief. Because in this specific case, the terrorist was less than 100
meters from my buddies, and it could have ended badly.”

*And after you look a second time and you see the actual wound, is it still
easy?*

“You are not meant to see massive bleeding, because in the region of the
knee and bones there aren’t a lot of capillaries. If you see blood, that’s
not a good sign, because you probably hit too high. The regular scenario is
supposed to be that you hit, break a bone – in the best case, break the
kneecap – within a minute an ambulance comes to evacuate him, and after a
week he gets a disability pension.”

But Shlomi, a sniper from Duvdevan, says hitting the kneecap is also not
desirable: “The objective is to cause the inciter minimal damage, so he
will stop doing what he’s doing. So I, at least, would try to aim at a
fattier place, in the muscle region.”

*Can you be that precise?*

Shomi: “Yes, because the Ruger [a type of rifle used mainly at
demonstrations] is intended for use at 100, 150 meters. From that distance,
you see the leg even with the eye, and with a telescopic lens that enlarges
to the power of 10, you can actually see the tendons.”*Palestinian medic
Razan al-Najjar before she was shot dead at the Gaza Strip border, April 1,
2018. IBRAHEEM ABU MUSTAFA/ REUTERS**Guys with megaphones*
Who is considered a major inciter at these demonstrations? The criteria are
quite vague. “A major inciter is a major inciter,” Amir asserts simply. The
commander of a Golani sniper squad who saw action during the first wave of
disturbances along the fence, he explains that “it’s not so complicated to
figure out who’s organizing and firing up [the other protesters]. You
identify him, for example, by the fact that he has his back to you and is
facing the crowd. In many cases, he’s also holding a megaphone.”

Itay’s impression is that “major inciters are, for example, people who
stand around in the back, arranging things. They are not necessarily a
target, but to let them know that we see what they’re doing, I would shoot
in the air around them. You know, the one who arms others is not a concrete
threat to me, at least not directly, but he makes things happen. So to hit
him is a problem, but also not to hit him is a problem. That’s why the
moment he gets tired of activating others and starts to take an active part
in the chaos, he’ll be the first one we hit, because he’s the most
important in terms of the group around him. He’s the key to stopping the
flare-up.”

He adds, “You don’t hit those who whip up the crowd because of what they’re
doing. It doesn’t come from an emotional place of ‘He’s the one who’s
causing the uprising, so let’s take him down.’ This isn’t a war, it’s a
Friday afternoon D.O. [disruption of order]. The goal is not to take down
as many as possible, but to make this thing stop as quickly as possible.”

According to IDF protocol, a minor is not to be classified as a major
inciter. According to Eden, “There are borderline ages, and so you don’t go
there.”*Eliyahu Hershkovitz*

Is it really possible to tell the difference between a lean man and a
well-built teenager, in the heat of a demonstration? “You try to understand
according to their body language,” Amir says. “The way he holds the stone,
whether it looks like he’s been dragged into the situation or is leading
it. These demonstrations are a little like a youth movement, from their
point of view. Even if you don’t know their precise ‘ranks,’ you can tell
by the charisma who the group leader is.”

Roy maintains that, “in 99.9 percent of the cases, the identification is
precise. There are a lot of images of the target, and a lot of crosshairs
focused on it. A drone above, lookouts, the sniper, his commanders. It’s
not just one, two or even three people who are watching him, so there will
be no doubt.”

Shlomi is a little less certain: “Sometimes it really is hard to tell the
difference [between minors and adults]. You look at facial features,
height, body mass. Clothing is also a certain index. The younger ones are
usually wearing T-shirts. But listen, a 16-year-old can cause you harm,
too. If he presents a threat, the age parameter is not necessarily
relevant.”

Itay agrees: “The goal is not to hit minors, but a Molotov cocktail is a
Molotov cocktail, and the bottle doesn’t know whether the person holding it
is a man of 20, a teenager of 14 or a kid of 8.”

Amir recalls experiencing a similar dilemma. “For example, there was a boy
whose behavior justified a hit, but we estimated that he was 12 and we
deliberately didn’t hit him – not only because of how it would look in the
media, but because of our own substantive considerations. We decided we
would really scare him and we hit the person next to him. It was not urgent
for us. He’ll be here the next week, too.”*Palestinian demonstrators run
away from Israeli fire and tear gas during a protest at the border fence in
the southern Gaza Strip, February 15, 2019. Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters*

*No ‘shooting and crying’*

It’s been 53 years since publication of “The Seventh Day
<https://www.haaretz.com/the-seventh-day-censored-voices-from-1967-war-1.5369889>,”
a collection of testimonies from soldiers who came from kibbutzim that gave
expression to their emotional distress after seeing combat in the Six-Day
War. It is a seminal text in the way it depicts Israel as a society of
people who “shoot and cry.” More than half a century later, the lament of
soldiers returning from the battlefield is still being heard, but at least
according to the voices quoted here, their ideological and moral
foundations have turned inside out. The soul-searching over the cost in
blood has been replaced by criticism of the army’s weakness and the feeling
that it is shackling its fighters.

“I’ve seen inciters who got across the fence and I couldn’t do a thing,”
Roy says. “They would jump over it and provoke us, and then go back. Of
course, you don’t get authorization to shoot them. Why? Because, once they
are within Israel proper, they’re not considered hostile if they’re not
holding a knife or a rifle. The restraints
<https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/.premium-palestinians-await-israeli-snipers-with-burning-tires-at-gaza-border-1.5976996>
on
us are shameful. You have to understand: Even if there’s a 20-year-old
across from me who’s inciting others and setting tires on fire, I only have
a second to hit him, otherwise he’ll disappear. But the moment he’s in my
sights, I must first inform the company commander, who informs the
battalion commander, who speaks to the brigade commander, who speaks with
the division commander. There were some ridiculous cases. During that time,
the target has already moved or gone into hiding.”

Amir depicts the chain of command in this way: “For every sniper there was
a commander at a junior level [a non-com], like me, and also a senior
commander – a company commander or a deputy company commander. The superior
officer would request authorization to fire from the sector’s brigade
commander. He would get on the radio to him and ask: ‘Can I add another
knee for this afternoon?’”

The impression gleaned by Daniel, a lone soldier who immigrated from the
United States and served in the Givati Brigade, is that the procedures were
more flexible than that. “Like everything in the IDF, it wasn’t completely
clear, at least not in my time. But in general, you had to request
authorization for shooting from your superior officer and he requested
authorization from the company commander or the battalion commander. If it
worked like it’s supposed to, it could take less than 10 seconds. The
commanders were not particularly stingy with shooting authorizations. They
would trust you when you said you had identified a justifiable target.”

According to Eden, the threads of the command chain have loosened over
time. “If you look back at the first demonstrations, four or five years
ago, before the wave of the past two years, you’ll find that it was very
hard to get authorization. Back then they said that every knee was a really
big deal. In the period when the protests really heated up, it became
easier to get a green light. In my time it came from the level of battalion
commander or company commander, depending on the situation.”

Did the requirement to get authorization for every sniper shot from the
brigade commander have an impact on the number of Palestinian casualties?
The data indicate that the number of those killed fell sharply only after
the transition to the Ruger, about a year after the weekly disturbances
erupted. The Ruger is considered less lethal than other rifles. Eden, a
veteran of the Gaza sector, says he used M24 and Barak (HTR-2000) rifles:
“With the Barak, if you shoot someone in the knee, you don’t incapacitate
him – you detach his leg. He could die from loss of blood.”

Last July, after 16 months of confrontations at the Gaza fence, the IDF
revised its guidelines for snipers in an attempt to reduce the number of
fatalities. One senior officer explained the changes in a report by the Kan
Broadcasting Corporation’s military correspondent, Carmela Menashe: “At
first we told them to shoot at the leg. We saw that you could be killed
like that, so we told them to shoot below the knee. Afterward, we made the
order more precise and instructed them to shoot at the ankle.”

Eden confirms this. “There was a stage when the order really was to aim at
the ankle,” he notes. “I didn’t like that change. Believe in your snipers.
To me it felt like they were trying to make our life harder for no
reason.”*Israeli
snipers on the Gaza border, April 13, 2018. Eliyahu Hershkovitz**How so?*

Eden: “Because it’s clear that the surface of the body between the knee and
the sole of the foot is much larger than that of the ankle and the sole.
It’s the difference between grabbing 40 centimeters [16 inches] and
grabbing 10 centimeters.”

Roy, who completed his service before the instructions were updated, says
he usually aimed lower in any case. “During my time you were allowed to
shoot anywhere from the knee down, but I aimed at the ankle, so as not to
hit higher, God forbid, or all hell would break loose. I preferred it that
way. I didn’t have pity on the inciters, but that I knew I wouldn’t be
backed up by the army. I didn’t want to be a second Elor Azaria [the
so-called Hebron shooter, who served a jail term after being convicted of
killing an incapacitated Palestinian assailant]. I gave less thought to the
target and more to myself and my family, so they wouldn’t have to go
through the same thing Elor’s family did.”

Amir adds: “If you mistakenly hit the main artery of the thigh instead of
the ankle, then either you intended to make a mistake or you shouldn’t be a
sniper. There are snipers, not many, who ‘choose’ to make mistakes [and aim
higher]. Still, the numbers aren’t high. [In comparison,] there are days
when you collect 40 knees in the whole sector. Those are the proportions.”*A
Palestinian amputee walks on crutches with another holding a Palestinian
flag as they head toward a demonstration near the border with Israel, east
of Gaza City, March 30, 2019. Anas Baba/AFP*

In Amir’s view, the discussion over where to shoot – thigh, knee or ankle –
misses the point. “Let me tell you a story. One day there was a big to-do,
real chaos. A soldier of mine wanted to take down a major inciter who met
all the criteria. He requested authorization, but the company commander
refused, because the guy was too close to an ambulance. The slightest
deviation, even if he had just hit the headlight, and there would have been
a media report that the IDF shot at an ambulance. My soldier heard the
refusal, but fired anyway. He hit the ankle, like you’re supposed to, a
precision shot, surgical. So on the one hand he violated an order, but on
the other hand he fulfilled his mission.” (The soldier was later
disciplined and assigned to menial labor.)

*And you understand his thinking?*

Amir: “Obviously. For a soldier like that, that shot is his purpose, his
self-definition. These are kids of 18, mostly from a pretty poor
socioeconomic background. The fact that you put them through a sniper’s
course doesn’t mean you turned them into mature, sensible people. On the
contrary, you turned them into a machine, you made them think small, you
reduced their possibilities of choice, diminished their humanity and their
personality. The moment you turn someone into a sniper – that is his
essence. So now you want to take that away from him, too? This might sound
radical, because I’m a commander, but there’s a place inside me that says,
‘Hey, you disappointed me, true, but you came out a man, you proved that
the function [of sniper] works.’”

Amir, who majored in theater in high school and calls himself a “boy scout
from the north,” describes another case of deviating from the rules that
occurred in his company.

“Even when there is no demonstration and everything seems calm, they rush
you to the fence with the patrol when shepherds approach it. You have to
understand, these are not innocent shepherds, they work for Hamas and
Islamic Jihad in order to drive you crazy. They cross the line to get a
response from you. Will you take a vehicle and go threaten him? By the time
you get there he’s gone. Will you shoot into the air? He couldn’t care
less. And because of that nonsense you don’t sleep and a whole company
becomes the shepherd’s puppets,” Amir says.

“One day, one of the noncoms said to me, ‘Enough, we can’t go on like this,
let’s take down one of his sheep, it’s worth a few thousand.’ Think about
what leads a soldier, a musician from a good high school, the last kind of
guy you’d say is out for blood, to get on the radio with the lookout and
say, ‘Do you see a sheep, to the north? You’re going to see it fall.’ After
that, the shepherd didn’t return. What’s the conclusion? The deterrence
worked.”

Amir says that those two incidents must be understood in light of the
nature of his battalion’s activity on the Gaza border. “Even before the
demonstrations started, we were in an ambush that lasted two months
straight,” he relates. “We observed a squad that managed to improvise a
bomb and stick it on the fence. There was some sort of defect with it, the
device didn’t explode, and we had intelligence that they were coming to
pick it up. But it went on and on. Every day they approach it, and even
when the squad leader was standing right above the bomb, we didn’t have
authorization to shoot. Why? Only because of the media sensitivity. As long
as he wasn’t actually holding the device, it was impossible to prove beyond
a doubt that he had anything to do with it – so then go figure what kind of
narrative Hamas will build around that. Think how frustrating that is for
the soldiers. We lay there in the rain for two months and did nothing.”

*And the frustration justifies rebelling under other circumstances?*

Amir: “No, but that case illustrates the paradox of the rules of
engagement. A terrorist who deserves to die is standing opposite me, but
because we have to justify ourselves to Haaretz or to the BBC, he gets out
of it without a scratch. Cowardice is created that trickles down. So
instead you go and take out knees in demonstrations. Not only does that not
have an effect, these people also don’t deserve to lose their knees. I
really identify with what [former IDF Chief of Staff] Ehud Barak once said
– that if he were a Palestinian he would have become a terrorist. It only
resonated for me when I was in the territories. You look at small kids
crying when you pummel their father, and you say to yourself: Hey, I
wouldn’t expect anything else from them.”Palestinian protesters, climb over
the border fence during a protest on the beach at the border with Israel,
October 15, 2018. Khalil Hamra, AP

Sports connection

Are there snipers who have found it difficult to get on with their life
after their discharge? Tuly Flint, a mental health officer in the reserves
and a clinical social worker who specializes in trauma, has treated snipers
who took part in curbing demonstrations in Gaza during the past two years.
Snipers, he says, manifest singular characteristics when it comes to
post-traumatic stress.

“If I am one of 30 soldiers who is in the area and fires a volley, I don’t
necessarily know that I did the killing,” he says, whereas the sniper knows
when he’s hit his target. “The second trait derives from the fact that the
sniper is required not to turn his gaze. Through the telescopic lens, he
sees the person he’s shooting and the impact of the hit, and that can
fixate the picture in his memory.”

Flint describes a sniper from an elite unit who aimed at a demonstrator’s
knee but hit too high, and the demonstrator died from loss of blood. “That
soldier, a sniper who was very dedicated to his mission, describes watching
the demonstrator bleed to death. He can’t forget the man’s screaming not to
be left alone. He also remembers vividly the evacuation [of the body], and
the women who wept over him. From then on, that’s all he thinks about and
all he dreams about. He says, ‘I wasn’t sent to defend the state, I was
sent to murder.’ Thoughts of the girlfriend of the person he killed also
continue haunting him. The result is that he breaks up with his own
girlfriend of two years. ‘I don’t deserve to have one,’ he says.”

Daniel has sharp memories of his buddies after they made an exact hit.
“People look sick or shocked. The meaning of it doesn’t hit home at that
instant. A second ago I shot someone, and a minute later, I’m eating matza
with chocolate? What the hell is going on here?”

He adds: “There are awful, dreadful stories about soldiers who aimed at a
demonstrator and hit someone else. I know someone who took aim at one of
the leaders of a demonstration, who was standing on a box and urging the
people to keep marching ahead. The soldier aimed at his leg, but at the
last moment the man moved and the bullet missed him. Instead, he hit a
little girl, who was killed on the spot. That soldier is a wreck today. He
is being watched 24/7, so he won’t commit suicide.”

Snipers burdened with experiences like that are the minority. For his part,
Amir says the kind of feelings most snipers have are completely different,
reminiscent of the world of sports. “The arena of the disturbances is like
a sports arena, a situation you can sell tickets for,” he says. “Group
versus group, with a line down the middle and an audience of fans on both
sides. You can totally tell a story of a sports encounter here.”

On the front line, he continues, “are the inciters: They mark the starting
line from which people burst out in sprints, alone or in groups. Everything
is coordinated and planned in advance. There are these pits in the terrain
[for hiding], and this lets them play with us. They can run 100 meters
without my being able to take off their foot. They are also skilled at
zigzagging. Two of them pop up, they hide, one throws a stone so the other
one can move forward. They use diversionary tactics on you. It’s a kind of
game, you know.”*Ilan Assayag**What is the purpose of the game?*

Amir: “To get points. If they succeeded in putting the flag on the fence,
that’s worth a point. A booby-trapped flag is a point. Throwing back a
smoke grenade is a point. Even just touching the wall, I mean the fence, is
a point. There’s a battle going on here, but it’s not certain when it will
be decided, no one has a clue how you win the cup, but in the meantime both
sides continue to play the game.”*A game for the record. The forces aren’t
exactly equally matched.*“True. And we’re not even using a quarter of the
force we could wield.”*In other words, we could beat them by a knockout,
but we prefer to win on points?*

“We’re not even winning on points. After some time there, in a debriefing,
I said: ‘Let me just once take down a kid of 16, even 14, but not with a
bullet in the leg – let me blow his head open in front of his whole family
and his whole village. Let him spurt blood. And then maybe for a month I
won’t have to take off another 20 knees.’ That is shocking mathematics on
the brink of the unimaginable – but when you don’t use your capabilities
it’s not clear what you’re trying to do there. You ask me what my mission
was? Walla, it’s hard for me answer you. What was considered a success from
my point of view? Even the number of knees I took out wasn’t dependent on
me, it derived from the number of ‘ducks’ that chose to cross the line.”

*But to kill a kid at random? Do you really think that’s the solution?*

“Obviously, we shouldn’t liquidate kids. I was saying that to make a point:
that if you kill one you might be sparing 20 others. If you were to take me
back to that two-month stakeout and let me act, I would have taken down
that son of a bitch who was standing above the bomb, even if it meant that
he would come to me in my dreams afterward. The reality today, that there
are five to 10 people who will be invalids their entire lives, to whom my
name is connected somehow, is also shit. And not only in the sense that it
is or is not weighing on my heart. Think about it: There’s a whole
generation of children there who won’t be able to play soccer.”*Palestinian
amputees compete in a local run racing in the Gaza Strip, December 5,
2019.  IBRAHEEM ABU MUSTAFA/ REUTERS*

*Just teenagers*

It seems that the presence of children at demonstrations stirs the most
powerful emotional response among the snipers.

“One day there was a girl, I think she was probably 7, who was holding a
Hamas flag and she just ran toward us,” Shlomi from Duvdevan says. “I made
sure through the lens that there was nothing suspicious on her, that her
blouse wasn’t sticking out, that there was no sign of wires or bombs, and
we shouted to deter her. Fortunately, she got scared and ran away. It was
clear to me that I wouldn’t shoot even if she had crossed the line, but I
remember thinking: I really hope she doesn’t keep going.”

Daniel: “From the guard post, you observe a Hamasnik, his face is opposite
you, and you think to yourself: I really hope he does something, so I can
shoot him. But with demonstrators, the picture gets complicated, because
lots of them are only teenagers. They’re thin, they’re small, you don’t
feel threatened by them. You need to remind yourself that what they’re
doing is dangerous.”

Like some of the other interviewees, Daniel emphasizes the soldiers’ anger
at the parents. “A mother who brings her child to a demonstration like that
is a terrible mother,” he says.

Amir says he can understand the children: “They make a living from it, and
I don’t have to tell you how bad the economic situation is in Gaza. But
their parents I don’t understand. What are you dragging him there for? Send
them to sneak [into Israel] secretly and work in construction, topple the
Hamas government, whatever, just not this.”

Roy, who identifies himself as right-wing, agrees that “it’s not them we
need to be fighting, but Hamas, the terrorists, the ones who organize the
buses to bring people and toss them a few dollars so they’ll burn tires. I
pity them [the children], they really are unfortunate. They remind me of
the kids in the neighborhood who play with firecrackers. I was like those
kids, too, so in that sense I identify with them.”

But while expressing objections to wholesale shooting, Itay, from Netzah
Yehudah, still thinks that the number of Palestinians wounded by live fire
at the border over almost two years actually demonstrates that the soldiers
were not trigger-happy. “Every Friday there are thousands of
demonstrators,” he notes, “and if you multiply that number by 52 and then
double it, you’ll get to hundreds of thousands of people. Out of them,
8,000 is a tiny fraction.”

He adds, however, that “the power you have when someone comes into your
sights, the knowledge that it depends on you whether he will be able to
walk or not, is frightening. From my perspective, it is not intoxicating
power. I don’t like it, but it’s impossible to ignore it. It’s there all
the time. After my discharge, I realized that it’s something I didn’t want
to feel anymore. So I went right into university straight off and not into
some security job that I could have landed because of my combat
background.”*View
of a March of Return protest in Gaza and Israeli snipers in the foreground,
March 30, 2018.  Ilan Assayag**‘It’s your destiny’*
Not everyone succeeds in restraining his feeling of intoxication. A video
clip that circulated in 2018
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-video-shows-palestinian-shot-by-israeli-sniper-to-sound-of-cheers-1.5988677>
showed
a Palestinian approaching the fence and being shot by a sniper, as the
soldiers celebrated the direct hit with shouts of “Right on!” and “What a
fab clip!” Roy says the soldiers’ response there attests to a lack of
professionalism and too much enthusiasm, although he saw nothing similar in
his squad.

“On the other hand, I think it’s human,” he says. “When you have a certain
goal, even if you are shooting arrows at a target, obviously there’s joy at
the hit. The soldiers’ mistake was in their behavior. Let them laugh
somewhere in the back, but don’t make a clip of it. There’s such a thing as
appearances, too.”

Amir, too, distinguishes between personal satisfaction and public
manifestations that don’t look good on film. “The snipers in the squad we
replaced were legends. They were IDF champions and they had two or three
super-cool Xs [on their rifles] from manning the line in Gaza. We heard the
story about the Xs, and we wanted them, too. It’s your profession, your
destiny, the essence of your being from the moment you get up until you go
to sleep. Obviously you want to display your capabilities.”

*Do you have to celebrate? Isn’t there some other way?*

Amir: “No. Take the most baboonish guy you know – and that’s what the IDF
does, transforms kids into baboons – and try to stop him from telling about
his first time. It’s chaos there, everyone is shooting, making hits – you
expect that he won’t open a bottle of champagne? He has fulfilled himself
just now, it’s a rare moment. Actually, the more he does it, the more
indifferent he’ll become. He will no longer be especially happy, or sad.
He’ll just be.”

*The army comments*

The IDF Spokesman’s Office provided this statement to Haaretz: “The
operational response to the violent disturbances and the hostile terrorist
activity with which the IDF has been coping since March 2018, is adapted
appropriately to the threat posed by these incidents, amid an effort to
reduce as far as possible the injury to those causing the disorder, as well
as the use of live ammunition. For the past two years, the operational
response has been influenced by the intensity of the events, by changes in
the violence of those disrupting the order, by the smoke they have spread
and so on.

“In light of the change that has occurred in the nature of the
disturbances, it was decided to equip the forces also with the Ruger
bullet, which causes less damage. As to the use of M24 rifles, we note that
this is a standard sniper’s rifle. In general, within the framework of the
events in question, use was not made of the Barak sniper’s rifle. We have
been made aware of exceptional, specific use of the latter, which was
reported and investigated. The findings were conveyed to the military
advocate general’s unit for further examination.

“The statements attributed to a senior officer concerning the rules of
engagement do not reflect IDF operational policy. The officer intended to
explain that when there were reports of unintentional shooting injuries
that were not below the knee, the sector commanders decided to toughen the
rules of engagement in certain circumstances, and to instruct the snipers
to aim for the ankle.

“As to the case in which a fighter fired at a major disrupter, even though
he did not receive authorization from his superior officer, the shooting
was done in accordance with the rules of engagement with the exception of
this deviation. The case was dealt with at the command level and was not
passed on to the military advocate general’s unit for handling.

“Similarly, in the case where improper shooting at a sheep took place, that
incident was dealt with at the command level and was not sent to the
military advocate general’s unit for handling. The company’s deputy
commander was tried for breaching military discipline and sentenced to
seven days’ detention.”

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