A veteran Israeli army drone operator, speaking anonymously to Israeli newspaper Haaretz in a bombshell interview published Thursday, has laid bare chilling allegations of widespread, unaccountable violence against Palestinian civilians in Gaza, claiming top military command has effectively marked the entire 2-million-strong Palestinian population of the enclave as legitimate targets.
The reservist, who began his military service in 2008 and told the outlet he has killed at least 54 Palestinians – including multiple unarmed civilians – by October 2023, served in an Israeli drone attack unit operating in Gaza until he left active reserve duty in July this year. He described a total collapse of established rules of engagement in the opening weeks and subsequent months of Israel’s military campaign, recalling that “in the first days, there were no rules” governing how forces interacted with Palestinian people.
One of the most graphic allegations the reservist shared centers on a March 2025 attack on a clearly marked ambulance convoy in Rafah’s Tel al-Sultan neighborhood, which left 15 Palestinian medical and aid workers dead. He recalled that even from his aerial drone position, the emergency vehicles were unmistakable, yet ground troops stormed the convoy without warning. “They shot at the first vehicle. The medical staff exited, hid behind the ambulances and pleaded for their lives, and the soldiers shot them, one after another,” he told Haaretz. Following the attack, the Israeli military initially denied any wrongdoing, only announcing an investigation after a mass grave holding the victims was uncovered. To date, no Israeli service members have faced trial or any form of legal accountability for the killings.
It was after this incident, the reservist said, that he understood the full scope of the impunity granted to soldiers operating in Gaza: “Anyone could kill whoever they wanted, as much as they wanted, and they wouldn’t be held accountable for it.”
Despite his shock at the Rafah attack, the reservist continued his tour of duty in Gaza, returning to post in late April 2025 after a five-day personal leave in Georgia. When he reported back for duty and met with an intelligence officer to upload target data to his unit’s computer, he was given a staggering directive. He recalled the officer telling him, “You have two million targets in Gaza” – a comment he confirmed referred to the entire civilian population of the enclave.
The reservist also detailed repeated, unauthorised shifts to the so-called “Yellow Line,” the ceasefire-mandated demarcation that sets the boundary for Israeli military deployments inside Gaza. He explained that senior division commanders routinely move the concrete barriers marking the line hundreds of meters west on their own personal orders, with no public announcement to alert Gaza’s civilian population to the new boundary. Commanders, he added, actively pressure soldiers and drone operators to open fire on any Palestinian who approaches the shifted line, retroactively manufacturing evidence to justify the killings after the fact. “They try to incriminate people without intelligence and without proof, retroactively, just to create a justification for an attack,” he said.
He described a normalized culture of killing within his attack cell, comparing the rhetoric to that of a cheering sports crowd. “The concept of ‘collateral damage’ quickly disappeared from consideration,” he said. “They fire at anyone they see. Just like they shout to a player, ‘Come on, score a goal’, they shout to a soldier, ‘Kill him, attack him’.”
Additional allegations include that Israeli forces routinely observe violent crimes committed by pro-Israel militias operating in Gaza from aerial positions, but never intervene to stop the attacks. The reservist said, “They burn rows of houses, and we watch them from above. Arson, looting, shooting.”
These allegations align with a prior report published by Haaretz last month, which claimed the Israeli military allows mercenaries, criminal gangs and drug traffickers to carry out war crimes in Gaza with full impunity – conduct the outlet compared to the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre in Lebanese refugee camps.
As of the latest update from Palestinian authorities, at least 73,658 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the start of Israel’s military campaign in October 2023. Over 1,300 of these deaths have occurred after the ceasefire agreement went into effect last October.