IDF soldiers should refuse orders that may be war crimes, Israeli ex-security adviser tells BBC

As personification who served 4 Israeli premier ministers and was lawman caput of nan country’s National Security Council, Eran Etzion’s judgement was trusted astatine nan highest levels of nan state.

A longstanding professional of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he is besides personification whose years of nationalist work earned him wide respect.

But now Mr Etzion, a erstwhile worker himself, is informing that Israel’s subject - nan Israel Defense Forces (IDF) - mightiness beryllium committing warfare crimes successful bluish Gaza. And he is suggesting that officers and troops should cull forbidden orders.

“They should refuse. If a worker aliases an serviceman is expected to perpetrate thing that mightiness beryllium suspected arsenic a warfare crime, they must refuse. That's what I would do if I were a soldier. That's what I deliberation immoderate Israeli worker should do,” he tells me.

We are sitting connected nan pavilion of his location successful Shoresh successful cardinal Israel.

Here location is nan quiet sunshine of an autumn morning. A serene neighbourhood wherever immoderate builders are moving connected location improvements.

Less than 40 miles down nan roadworthy is nan Gaza neighbourhood of Jabalia.

As Mr Etzion and I are speaking, doctors and aesculapian unit astatine nan Indonesian Hospital successful Jabalia are sending hopeless sound notes to nan world organization begging for aid.

One elder caregiver - successful a connection heard by nan BBC - speaks successful an exhausted sound of relentless privations allegedly imposed by nan Israelis besieging Jabalia.

“My friend, I’m truthful so tired,” he says. “I can’t explicate really tired I am. The h2o is empty. We don't person water. We contacted nan Israeli unit to let america to complaint h2o to nan tank, but they don't judge that.... And we don't cognize what will hap tomorrow. The business is very very bad.”

Another caregiver says: “I americium sorry for my language, I cant talk well. I americium very fatigued and dizzy. I haven't eaten since yesterday. We effort to springiness nan nutrient that we recovered to nan patients and families and we don't eat ourselves.”

Tens of thousands of group are now fleeing Jabalia arsenic nan Israeli service continues its violative against what it says is an effort by Hamas to regroup.

Mr Etzion is worried for nan civilians of Jabalia and his country. “There is simply a very vulnerable erosion of norms. There is simply a very wide consciousness of revenge, of rage,” he says.

This is because, Mr Etzion says, Israel is successful nan grip of trauma aft the 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks successful which astir 1,200 Israelis were killed and much than 200 taken hostage into Gaza.

“The will to revenge could beryllium understood. It's human, but we're not a gang, we're not a panic organisation, and we're not a militia. We're a sovereign country. We person our history, we person our morals, we person our values, and we must run nether world rule and nether world standards if we want to proceed to beryllium a personnel of nan world community, which we do.”

He is speaking retired arsenic a erstwhile soldier, arsenic personification whose children served successful nan IDF, and whose family and friends still serve. “I'm conscionable a concerned national trying to raise my voice. So that's what I'm doing. I want to make judge that nary worker is progressive successful thing that could beryllium constituted arsenic a warfare crime.”

Israel has faced mounting world disapproval complete its behaviour during nan war. The United States has threatened to trim arms shipments if Israel does not surge assistance into Gaza.

The UN has accused nan Israelis of many times blocking aliases impeding nan transportation of aid, astir precocious into bluish Gaza.

The IDF has consistently rejected allegations that it is implementing a deliberate argumentation of starvation to unit residents to fly from Jabalia. Israel has agelong accused Hamas of utilizing nan civilian organization arsenic quality shields, launching attacks from schools and aesculapian facilities.

“Hamas does not hesitate to maltreatment Gazans, utilization them, bargain assistance from them, and forcefully forestall them from evacuating erstwhile it is basal for them to do so,” nan IDF said successful May.

One of Britain’s astir salient warfare crimes lawyers, Prof Philippe Sands KC, told maine that that while Israel had a correct to aforesaid defence aft nan 7 October attacks, it was now violating world law.

“It has to beryllium proportionate. It has to meet nan requirements of world humanitarian law. It must separate betwixt civilians and subject targets.

"It doesn't let you to usage famine arsenic a limb of war. It doesn't let you to forcibly deport aliases evacuate ample numbers of people.

"So it's intolerable to spot what is going connected now successful Gaza, arsenic it's intolerable to spot what happened connected 7 October, and not opportunity crimes are screaming out.”

Prof Sands has led nan genocide lawsuit against Myanmar, and nan lawsuit for Palestinian statehood astatine nan International Court of Justice successful nan Hague.

His book East West Street: On nan Origins of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity won nan Baillie Gifford Prize for non-fiction. The book besides specifications his ain Jewish family’s acquisition of nan Holocaust.

I inquire if nan situation successful Gaza makes him interest astir nan endurance of world law.

He points to nan truth that nan charismatic of nan International Criminal Court (ICC) is seeking apprehension warrants for Israel’s premier minister, defence curate and nan IDF main of staff.

The charismatic besides sought warrants for 3 Hamas leaders. All three, including Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, are now dead.

"It [international law] is not moving connected nan crushed successful narration to Russia and Ukraine. It's not moving connected nan crushed successful narration to Sudan. It's not moving connected nan crushed successful narration to Palestine and Israel.

"There's conscionable nary ifs and buts. We conscionable person to, we person to admit that. But that is not a logic to tear up nan full system.

"If you inquire yourself what nan replacement is, which is fundamentally nary pieces of insubstantial pinch nan words Treaties written connected it, you're backmost to nan 1930s, and astatine slightest what we person now is simply a strategy of rules which allows group to guidelines up and say: ‘This is simply a usurpation of a treaty'.”

We asked nan IDF for an question and reply but they said nary spokesperson was disposable today, and referred america to an earlier connection which says: “The IDF will proceed to act, arsenic it ever has done, according to world law.”

And coming nan Coordinator of Government Activities successful nan Territories (COGAT), nan army’s humanitarian alleviation wing, said it was their argumentation to facilitate nan entranceway of assistance into Gaza “without limits”.

This is Israel’s narrative. But arsenic scenes of civilian suffering proceed to look from Jabalia it is being wide challenged.

With further reporting by Rudabah Abbass, Haneen Abdeen and Alice Doyard