An
Israeli occupation soldier gives a thumbs-up to the camera as he drives a
bulldozer down a street in Beit Lahia, in the northern Gaza Strip, pushing a
battered car toward a half-collapsed building.
اضافة اعلان
“I
stopped counting how many neighborhoods I have erased,” the caption reads on
the video posted to his personal TikTok, accompanied by a militaristic anthem.
Since
Israel’s invasion in October, soldiers have shared videos from Gaza on social
media, offering a rare, unsanctioned look at operations on the ground. Some
have been viewed by small circles of people; others have reached tens of
thousands.
The
New York Times reviewed hundreds of these videos. Some show unremarkable parts
of a soldier’s life — eating, hanging out, or sending messages to loved ones
back home.
Others
capture soldiers vandalizing local shops and school classrooms, making
derogatory comments about Palestinians, bulldozing what appear to be civilian
areas, and calling for the building of Israeli settlements in Gaza, an
inflammatory idea that is promoted by some far-right Israeli politicians.
Some
of the soldiers’ posts violate regulations of the Israel Occupation Forces that
restrict the use of social media by its personnel, which specifically forbid
sharing content that may “affect the image of the IOF and its perceptions in
the eyes of the public” or that shows behavior that “harms human dignity.”
In
a statement, the Israeli military condemned the videos filmed by soldiers that
the Times writes about in this story.
“The
conduct of the force that emerges from the footage is deplorable and does not
comply with the army’s orders,” the military said in a written statement. It
added that the “circumstances” were being examined.
But
new videos like these from the ground continue to appear online, a reminder of
the many ways social media is changing warfare. In Russia and Ukraine, soldiers
now share videos directly from the battlefield, frequently posting footage of
combat, at times even giving a first-person perspective from helmet-mounted
cameras. Videos have also been posted showing torture and executions.
With
Israel’s war in Gaza under intense scrutiny, many of the soldiers’ videos shot
in Gaza have fueled criticism. One was screened and five others were also cited
as evidence in the case that South Africa brought to the International Court of
Justice accusing Israel of genocide, a charge Israel has categorically denied.
The
Times traced more than 50 videos back to Israel’s military combat engineering
units, showing the use of bulldozers, excavators, and explosives to destroy
what appear to be houses, schools, and other civilian buildings.
Human
rights experts have raised concerns about the scale of this type of destruction
in areas under Israeli military control, noting that international standards of
warfare require a clear military necessity to destroy civilian property.
The
videos discussed in this story have been verified by determining the dates and
locations where they were recorded or by confirming that the soldiers appearing
in them and their units were in Gaza around the time the footage was uploaded.
None
of the soldiers who shot and posted the videos responded when asked for
comment.
More
than 27,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since an Israeli bombardment
and invasion of the enclave began, according to health authorities in Gaza. The
Israeli offensive followed the October 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel.
The base at ‘Nova Beach’
After
its ground invasion in late October, the Israeli military established bases
along the northern coast of Gaza. The area, called Nova Beach by soldiers, a
reference to the music festival where 364 people were killed by Hamas and its
allies on October 7, is the backdrop for many of the social media videos
reviewed by the Times.
Before
the war, the area was made up of homes belonging to Palestinian families,
vacation properties, greenhouses, and agricultural fields. A damaged house in
Gaza on what is now a coastal Israeli base is the setting for a video posted in
November by a reservist who is also a DJ.
The
clip was paired with a parody version of the Israeli song “This Was My Home,”
which was featured in an Israeli comedy sketch and has spread online in recent
months among Israeli social media users making fun of Palestinians.
“This
was my home, without electricity, without gas,” the song goes as a soldier
makes himself at home in the rubble of the damaged house before heading to the
window and gesturing at a scene of destruction outside. The house was destroyed
in late December, satellite imagery shows.
“It
is heartbreaking, inhumane,” Basel al-Sourani, an international human rights
lawyer with the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, a nonprofit organization
based in Gaza City, told the Times, “and just demonstrates that the Israelis
want you basically out of your home, the Gaza Strip.”
Using
another popular meme, the same soldier also posted a video in mid-November to
the sounds of a remix called “Shtayim, Shalosh, Sha-ger,” or “Two, Three,
Launch.” In the widely shared clip, soldiers dance on camera, and when the word
“launch” is heard, the video cuts to a shot of a building being blown up.
Shortly
after the Times asked TikTok about the videos featured in this story, the clips
were removed from the platform. A representative from TikTok said the videos
violated company guidelines, including its policies around hate speech and
behavior.
Meta,
which owns Facebook and Instagram, did not respond to a request for comment.
A window into demolitions
Some
of the most active accounts reviewed by the Times belonged to soldiers from
units of the Israeli military’s Combat Engineering Corps, which uses heavy
machinery, including bulldozers, to clear pathways for the military, discover
and destroy tunnels, and raze structures. The Times recently documented
controlled demolitions carried out by engineering units throughout Gaza.
In
a video filmed on the outskirts of Khan Younis in southern Gaza in early
January, combat engineering soldiers can be seen smoking hookah pipes before
explosions take down residential buildings in the background. They then raise
glasses to toast one another.
In
some of the combat engineers’ videos, Israeli soldiers mock Palestinians as
they destroy structures and property. In others shared widely on social media,
soldiers dedicate the destruction of buildings to victims of the October 7
attacks and family members. In one TikTok video, soldiers dedicate the
bulldozing of a building to Eyal Golan, an Israeli singer who has called for
the destruction of Gaza.
South
Africa cited this video as evidence of what it called “genocidal speech by
soldiers” in its case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.
As
the bulldozer drives into the remaining walls of a partially destroyed house in
Khan Younis, soldiers shout, “Eyal Golan, our dear brother, we love you,” and
add, “This house is for you.”
A destroyed landscape
One
combat engineering soldier shared a photograph on December 12 to his TikTok
account with three armored bulldozers and a destroyed landscape near the
Israeli base on the northern coastline of Gaza.
“This
is after a lot of work — the whole place was covered in greenery and houses
until we got there,” the caption reads.
About
1.6 kilometers south along the coast, similar destruction can be seen in
satellite imagery captured in late December, showing that at least 63
buildings, including homes, had been cleared within a quarter-mile of the base.
At the time, the area was about 2.4 kilometers from the boundary of
Israeli-controlled territory, according to maps published by the Institute for
the Study of War.
The
visible building rubble is consistent with clearing methods used by combat
engineering units seen in videos filmed elsewhere in Gaza and analyzed by the
Times. Israel has used bulldozers to clear vast amounts of land and property
throughout Gaza since late October.
The
Times sent the coordinates for each of the 63 structures to the Israeli
military and asked for comment on the military necessity for their destruction.
In a written response, the military stated that Israel “was currently fighting
a complex war” and that “there are difficulties in tracing back specific cases
with a specific coordinate at this time.”
Four
legal experts reviewed the social media videos and satellite imagery near the
base and said the imagery could be used to show unlawful destruction, a
violation of the Geneva Conventions.
Dr.
John Quigley, a professor emeritus of law at Ohio State University specializing
in international human rights law, said in an email that “the scope of
destruction of residential buildings in Gaza suggests that the IOF is using a
standard for protection of private property that does not comply with
international standards for warfare.”
In
response to questions about soldiers’ bulldozing of civilian homes, an Israeli
military spokesperson, Maj. Nir Dinar said that the military acts upon
“operational necessity” and follows the laws of war. “The houses that are being
dealt with are buildings that pose a threat to forces operating, or they are a
military target of some sort,” he told the Times by phone. “Every target that
is being eliminated, there is a good reason for that elimination.”
Israel
is also conducting controlled demolitions along the length of Gaza’s
57-kilometer land border to create a “buffer zone.” Legal experts have
questioned the legality of these demolitions, noting that it is unlikely that
all of the destroyed buildings posed an immediate military threat.
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