The soldiers who were arrested had asked to make the journey a few hours earlier, while it was still dark.
Four soldiers in the IDF’s Nahal Brigade were imprisoned for 10 days after they had refused to drive an unprotected Hummer through an area in Gaza City that the military had not completely taken over, Israeli public broadcaster KAN News reported on Wednesday.
The purpose of the mission was to bring in workers who would take engineering tools into the Gaza Strip.
The soldiers who were arrested had asked to make the journey a few hours earlier, while it was still dark.
‘Last of the forces in Gaza City’
“We’re the last of the forces in Gaza City, there are no forces behind us, we were asked to travel on a very dangerous route surrounded by buildings that the IDF has not yet destroyed,” one of the soldiers told KAN. “Such missions are done either in a tank or an armored vehicle, or at night. We have done countless such missions in the dark, never in daylight.
“During the day, we’re like ducks at a shooting range. It’s easy to be shot by a sniper or a rocket-propelled grenade. This is a real threat to our lives. These are things that have already happened; the IDF should’ve learned this by now.
Documentation of the activities of Nahal Brigade fighters in the operation in West Bank (credit: IDF)
“I don’t even mind getting killed if I’m saving my friends,” he continued. “We feel like we’ve been spat on in the face.”
The KAN report interviewed a mother of one of the arrested soldiers, who also said that the military “spat in the faces of the soldiers.”
The commander of the soldiers’ battalion responded to critics of the order, stating: “I am the battalion commander, making decisions about human lives every minute. I have the discretion regarding the risk to my soldiers in relation to the values of the mission. A red line has been crossed here, of refusing to carry out a very legitimate mission.”
