Thread by @Beltrew

Exclusive: "Serious structural problems" in #Israel's military mean "masses of targets" in #Gaza are bombed without proper intelligence evaluations killing&maiming civilians, personnel told me. They said intel is often old,there's no visual check before (1)independent.co.uk/news/world/mid…

2. The #Israel airmen told me a culture of “destroy, destroy, destroy” rewards personnel for identifying fresh targets in #Gaza rather than checking the validity of 1000s already in the database, known as the “bank”. Sometimes the intelligence is over a year old. #Gaza

3. #Israeli airmen said if the targets in #Gaza run out, as happened during the 2014 war, the air force is told to “simply keep dropping bombs”. It got to the point in 2014 where personnel were questioning why the operation was continuing "because the target bank was finished"

4. The #Israeli airmen said while moving targets in #Gaza, (such as militant leaders) are watched by Israeli aircraft prior to the strikes, static ones are usually not. "At a systematic level, masses of targets are being bombed without visual check as there aren't enough drones.”

5. Another concern is over proportionality. Airmen said if the threat level against #Israel's army increases in one part of #Gaza - & so the accepted level of civilian casualties is raised - that's applied to the entirety of Gaza regardless of the level of threat in other areas

6. The IDF didn't comment on specific allegations but said: “The army has a detailed organisational structure in which decisions are made”. On its website it says "it does everything it can to prevent unnecessary killings in Gaza". In the past it's denied its strikes are illegal

7. The piece looks at a specific Israeli strike in #Gaza on 14 November, which nearly wiped out an entire family killing 9 people including 5 children. @HRW said last week it was likely unlawful. Israeli army claimed report was "biased" denies the claims
independent.co.uk/news/world/mid…

@hrw 8. @BtSIsrael founder Yehuda Shaul said “People think #Israel has precise weapons, with precise intelligence led by technology that's clean but a dive into this exposes that this is a complete misunderstanding of what is going on. We believe the problem in Gaza is systematic."

@hrw @BtSIsrael 9. Together with @Btselem - another #Israel rights group - they urged for an external probe into military protocol. B'tselem's Yael Stein said the Israeli army’s insistence on only conducting internal reviews is part of a “whitewashing mechanism” to reduce scrutiny from outside.