EDITORIAL - The virtue of restraint

Speaking to CNN, a former Israel Defense Force (IDF) soldier said he quit the IDF after seeing fellow soldiers commit serious misconduct in the war in Gaza.

In the report, paratrooper medic Yuval Green said aside from looting, some IDF soldiers have destroyed Palestinians homes not out of a military or tactical advantage, but simply out of spite.

“We’ve seen a lot of destruction that was not necessarily related to military reasons. Everything tends to (get) really mix up, you know – people are destroying houses because they believe that they should (get) revenge (for) what happened on (October 7) and it mixes up with the reasons to destroy houses for military reasons,” the CNN report quotes Green as saying.

“I could tell you 100% that we’ve destroyed houses at least for reasons that … we don’t care enough about the lives of Palestinians,” he added.

Green’s revelations may just back up what many people around the world are now seeing in Gaza; that this has developed from a war against a terrorist organization into a war that is now targeting civilians who are not involved.

While the IDF insists it is doing all it can to prevent collateral damage in the war against Hamas, many of its actions are to the contrary. The IDF should appreciate the virtue of restraint; it should still bear in mind what happened last December when three Israelis taken hostage last October 7 were shot dead by IDF soldiers even as they tried to surrender to them and to tell them that they were hostages.

Our stand in this war has not changed: Hamas must be rendered impotent as a terrorist organization. But our stand regarding the civilian casualties in this war has also not changed: more care must be taken to minimize unnecessary destruction as well as casualties.

Again, the IDF must be cautioned that the more unnecessary damage and suffering they inflict upon the citizens of Gaza, especially the children, the greater chances they are just turning them into future enemies.