The Israeli army is facing a moral deterioration playing out among soldiers amid a high state of fear, a reserve officer said, as Israel continued its war in the Gaza Strip, Anadolu reports.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to write about the hardship of repeated reserve duty or about the damage it does to one\u2019s body and soul, even though these important topics should be discussed more often,\u201d the officer, who did not give his name, said in a letter published by Haaretz newspaper.<\/p>\n
\u201cRather, I want to discuss values, a problem I\u2019m regrettably contending with as I witness a moral deterioration playing out within the army. Morality is the essence of our human nature and of our link to the divine.\u201d<\/p>\n
The officer, who identified himself as a commander of a unit doing reserve duty in Gaza, said the army is fighting \u201can ongoing battle of trench warfare that is never satiated.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe objective of our mission is no longer clear, not even defined, leaving us no criteria with which to measure success,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause we are on a defensive mission, there is a high state of alert and fear of an enemy that might catch us by surprise. This mindset leads to many moral dilemmas.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Israeli officer said the state of alert since the Oct. 7 events caused the soldiers to shoot any Palestinians who approached them.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes the shooting is justified, sometimes less so. In any event, opening fire happens because the individual soldier on the front line feels threatened or insecure,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe blazing sun, the fatigue and the futility augment these feelings even when they are baseless. Even if it\u2019s easy to judge them harshly while sitting in an air-conditioned office at the headquarters in Tel Aviv, one must recognize that these feelings exist.\u201d<\/p>\n
The officer admitted that killing so many unarmed people is taking its toll on the soldiers.\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b \u201cIt\u2019s taking a toll on mine,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Since October 2023, the Israeli army has killed more than 73,000 people in Gaza and injured over 173,000 others in a deadly war that has left the entire territory in ruins.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow, everything is permitted, and we have light fingers \u2013 too light \u2013 on the trigger,\u201d the Israeli officer said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe unrestricted rules of engagement guarantee that no Gazan will reach the border fence, but they\u2019re taking an increasing toll on us, on our values and on our mental state.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Israeli army is facing a moral deterioration playing out among soldiers amid a high state of fear,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":529866,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":["post-529865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=529865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/529866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}