Ever since the ceasefire started on Sunday, this government, through the IDF and its allies in the settlements, has been doing everything in its power to make sure Israel doesn’t reach the 2nd phase of the deal. Suddenly, Trump says he’s “not confident” the ceasefire will hold 🧵 Netanyahu said last week that Trump and Biden both gave “full backing to Israel’s right to return to fighting if Israel concludes that the negotiations on the 2nd phase are going nowhere.” Yesterday, the IDF began a massive operation in Jenin. They know this jeopardizes the deal.

The past few days since the ceasefire announcement have seen a depressingly predictable amount of IDF strikes in Gaza. 8 Gazans were killed today, before it went into effect. Why predictable? Well, read these soldier testimonies from before the Israel-Gaza ceasefire of 2014 🧵 "Before the first ceasefire they told us we were going in [to Gaza] to take down a house [...] they said, ‘We want to make a big boom before the ceasefire.’ Like that, those were the words the officer used, and it made everyone mad."

Northern Gaza | 2014
breakingthesilence.org.il/testimonies/da…

Yesterday we were all finally allowed a moment to breathe. After over a year, a ceasefire and hostage deal has been signed. People who have been through hell can finally begin a long process of healing and rebuilding. This was always the only solution, but it’s a fragile one 🧵 The deal that was eventually signed is almost identical to one proposed by the US nearly 8 months ago. One of the deal’s appendices even calls it "The May 27th Agreement." But it's not really the same deal. Countless innocents have been killed since May. That includes hostages.

Is the IDF fighting efficiently in Gaza? If you only measure the number of targets bombed - absolutely. But looking at any other measure reveals the IDF’s target bank to be unreliable, strategically flawed and as such, deeply immoral.

A quick look at the IDF’s target bank 🧵 Last month soldiers told @yanivkub that the IDF’s “target bank” isn’t being updated regularly. "An active building will always remain an active building, even if the terrorist there was killed 6 months ago," one officer said. A senior officer confirmed his comments, explaining >>

Without the hostages' permission, the Israeli govt publicly released the report it had submitted to the UN detailing the hostages' abuse in Hamas captivity. A week later, it blocked the UN investigation. The victims’ wounds, forcibly reopened for propaganda, but not for justice🧵 After a year of demanding the UN work to condemn and investigate the issue more quickly, suddenly the govt has gone quiet. Foreign Minister Katz once demanded Hamas be added to the sexual violence blacklist, now Israel could be added to it instead, for blocking the investigation.

On Monday, the IDF admitted that it used a vehicle disguised as a civilian ambulance to transport soldiers during a raid on the Balata refugee camp in the West Bank, last month.

And so - a quick thread on military exploitation of civilian infrastructure🧵
As the IDF knows well, medical transport vehicles lose their protected status under international law if they’re used for the purpose of attacking an enemy

And this isn’t even the first time the IDF has concealed attacking soldiers in an ambulance. Here’s a testimony from 2002 >

When we say military pressure kills hostages, we’re not just basing that on a hunch. We’re relaying what the IDF itself has shown us, both in its words and in its actions, since October 7, 2023. The army knows these two goals contradict each other.

Let’s look at a few examples🧵 "It's a very thin line - both being aggressive and offense-minded and also protecting the lives of the hostages." Lt. Col. Oz Meshulam, who commands IDF infantry battalion 931, said last month. "I try not to let the fighter get involved in this at all."
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Over 45,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Oct 7. That’s 15,000 more than the IDF estimate for total Hamas members who were alive before then. A rate of death outpacing the wars in Myanmar, Ukraine and Iraq. And Hamas still stands.

The IDF has placed pace above accuracy🧵 The @nytimes and @washingtonpost recently dropped 2 huge investigations interviewing over 100 soldiers. One details how the IDF let go of its few remaining brakes, permitting a massive increase in civilian deaths. The other analyzes the IDF’s disastrous overreliance on tech.

On Christmas Eve, the IDF's "Gazafication" of the West Bank was on full display, as 8 Palestinians, including two innocent women, were killed by drone strikes in Tulkarm, and bulldozers destroyed infrastructure in the Nur Shams refugee camp.

This is not an isolated incident 🧵 The IDF returned to routine airstrikes in the West Bank, a practice which was reserved mainly for Gaza for decades until this govt came to power in early 2023. And more firepower means more “collateral damage.” Last night, 9 Palestinians were injured, including a 10-year-old boy.

"The forces in the field call it 'the line of dead bodies'" a commander in Division 252 told @yanivkub of @haaretzcom. The line he’s describing is invisible, constantly shifting, and for any Gazans north of the Netzarim corridor, it’s the very border separating life from death.🧵 In a chilling collection of testimonies, soldiers detail the everyday realities of an IDF “kill zone,” north of the IDF corridor which bisected Gaza. Unarmed civilians posthumously labeled as terrorists by the hundreds, all while restrictions on shooting are near nonexistent.
haaretz.com/israel-news/20…

What can we learn from IDF spokesperson responses? Let’s take, for example, a recent report by @haaretzcom, which detailed a rapid rise in the amount of IDF airstrikes on IDF-declared safe zones. Each line of the response is a masterclass of whitewashing - let’s break them down🧵 A quick recap:
In less than a month, the IDF bombed the al-Mawasi Humanitarian Zone in northern Gaza at least 8 times. The IDF has bombed safe zones before, but this is a rapid and brutal acceleration. For comparison, from late May to Sept 10, al-Mawasi was bombed 5 times.

Hamas and Fatah recently agreed to jointly manage Gaza after the war ends. Today, Defense Minister Israel Katz said Israel would fully control the strip after the war, “Just like in Judea and Samaria.”

As always, Israel does the same thing, expecting different results 🧵 A reminder: In 2012, we were told that the blockade of Gaza was part of the "separation policy" aimed at "putting pressure on the Hamas govt and assisting the PA." This was a lie. The policy did separate Palestinians, but it worked to thwart any and every move by the PA.

A confession: we don't want to talk about settlers. Really. Not because they aren't significant, they are. But they're only part of the problem..

Because alone, the settlers are powerless. Their power comes from state institutions - all of them: from local councils to the IDF🧵 There's no way to discuss IDF missions in the oPt without mentioning settlers, and it's impossible to speak on settler violence while omitting the IDF. Sanctioned settler leader Daniella Weiss recently said she enters Gaza weekly, guarded by soldiers, to scout new settlements.

A cynical word of advice for Ya'alon: if you want to say the IDF is ethnically cleansing northern Gaza without angering the Israeli right, all you have to do is endorse the horrific acts you're describing. Minister Bezalel Smotrich did exactly that last week 🧵

https://twitter.com/BtSIsrael/status/1862917750072500402

“We can occupy Gaza and decrease the population by half within two years,” Smotrich told the heads of West Bank local councils. No one there called him delusional, no one called him a traitor. When Minister Avi Dichter called for a second Nakba, the PM told him to "be sensitive."

When a Palestinian attacks a soldier, consequences are usually quick and overwhelming. They could be shot, or arrested. The IDF could demolish their home, blockade their village, arrest their family members.

So what happens when a settler does the same? 🧵 Over the weekend, dozens of settlers attacked the IDF's Central Command chief and other soldiers in Hebron, while others threw rocks at an IDF force near Nablus, punching one soldier in the face. Only a few assailants were arrested - but the vast majority of them walked free.

The US deadline to improve humanitarian conditions in northern Gaza has expired, and the IDF's mass bombing and starvation campaign to expel its residents has worsened. The IDF clearly stated - residents won’t be allowed to return

In other words: ethnically cleansing the area 🧵 After the IDF already split Gaza in two with an ever expanding Netzarim corridor (named after a settlement evicted from Gaza in 2005), it built another corridor in the north, cutting Gaza City off from Jabalya, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia. A siege within a siege within a siege.

"You went into Gaza for revenge. As much as possible. Women, children, anyone in sight."
The funeral which sent shockwaves through social media, the jarring quotes that nearly all major Israeli news outlets chose to omit, and what they say about the IDF’s policies on the ground🧵 A recap: IDF reservist Shuvael Ben Natan was killed in Lebanon last week. During his funeral, his brother said he entered Gaza to take revenge on women and children. A fellow soldier said he became the platoon's "jokester" when he torched a house without approval "for the vibes."

About 100 people were killed on Monday in an IDF strike on Beit Lahia in northern Gaza. The IDF said the building was bombed after 4 soldiers were killed by an IED nearby, and a “lookout” was detected on its roof. A 5-story building, around 200 people - bombed for a “lookout” 🧵 About 20 of those who died in the bombing were children. Dozens were trapped under the rubble, some of whom were taking shelter after being driven out of the bombed areas of Jabaliya and Beit Hanoun. For a lookout. But what does the IDF mean when they say someone is a “lookout”?

Yesterday, as thousands were fleeing from northern Gaza under threat of starvation and bombing in what is in all likelihood an implementation of the "Generals' Plan," Netanyahu's Likud Party held a "Gaza resettlement conference" nearby, overlooking the charred houses of Be'eri 🧵 The conference area was designated a “restricted military zone,” and protesters against it, many of whom are the still-displaced residents of Be’eri and families of hostages, were blocked from entering. They want a ceasefire and a hostage deal - that’s why they were pushed aside.

This weekend, the IDF bombed a hospital in Jabalya and a residential complex in Beit Lahia, killing at least 120 in those two strikes alone, including many women and children.

But again, they utter the magic words “precise munitions,” trying to justify another mass killing 🧵 Unsurprisingly though, the dead don’t seem to care how “precise” the weapons were. And while the army may have considered them “acceptable collateral damage,” basic moral norms say otherwise. Especially when the list of “acceptable” targets includes humanitarian safe zones.

Soldiers have been testifying to us for years about the ambiguous and unofficial authority that settlers (mostly Civilian Security Coordinators - CSCs) hold over IDF soldiers. Cementing this authority as official policy is just more proof of our govt's messianic-settler agenda.

https://twitter.com/hagar_shezaf/status/1848271641056252246

"the CSC said, 'I am the commander on the field, I give the orders, when the army arrives I direct it.' The message, at the end of the day, is that during an incident it’s the CSC who directs the army, not the army that directs the CSC"
Hebron area | 2013
breakingthesilence.org.il/testimonies/da…