I spoke with Nadav Weiman, former soldier in the Israeli special forces and current director of Breaking the Silence, an organization of Israeli military veterans who document and expose human rights violations committed by Israeli forces in the Occupied Territories.
Weiman described a system of control and violence that, in his words, is not the result of individual excess or battlefield confusion, but a deliberate policy, implemented and sanctioned at the highest levels of the military and political establishment.
Among the most serious claims is the use of Palestinian detainees as human shields. According to testimonies collected by Breaking the Silence, and corroborated by Weiman himself, detainees have been forced to wear IDF uniforms and sent ahead to search buildings or tunnels, often while fitted with cameras. Others have been compelled to clean military positions, all while blindfolded, unarmed, and unprotected.
Weiman, who served in a sniper unit, also addressed the increasing number of reports from medical teams in Gaza who have documented gunshot wounds in children — single, high-precision shots to the head, chest, or abdomen. He explained that through a sniper’s scope, there is no ambiguity: “It’s not possible to mistake a child.”
He stressed that these actions are not deviations from protocol. They are the product of an evolving military doctrine — known informally as the Dahiya Doctrine — that seeks not just to neutralize threats, but to impose widespread devastation as a form of deterrence and punishment. The logic is not one of proportional response, but of overwhelming force directed at the civilian population.
Weiman also described a growing ideological shift within the army, with increasing numbers of officers coming from religious-nationalist backgrounds, particularly from settlements in the West Bank. This, he argued, has reinforced a command culture in which restraint is no longer a value and civilian protection is no longer a priority.
In the West Bank, he said, settler violence continues to escalate with official cover. Homes are torched, families displaced, and attacks carried out with near-total impunity. In practice, there are now two legal systems: one for Jewish settlers and another for Palestinians. Weiman did not hesitate to call it what he believes it to be: a state-backed system of criminality.
What’s unfolding in Gaza today, he emphasized, did not begin on October 7. It is the result of decades of occupation policy under governments of various stripes — now accelerated and radicalized under the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right coalition. The goal, he said, is no longer territorial control, but removal — the systematic displacement of Palestinians from their land.
And all of it, he added, is carried out with international complicity: the military aid, the diplomatic cover, the rhetorical evasions that allow the machinery to continue operating.
“I’m Jewish,” he said. “I know our history. And I know that what is being done now is being done in my name.”
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