Relatives wait near the bodies of Palestinians killed at Kuwait junction by Israeli forces in Gaza City on March 31, 2024. (Photo by Anadolu Agency)

Tel Aviv, April 1 (RHC)-- Israeli officers and soldiers have admitted to killing unarmed Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip while labeling them as “terrorists.”   “The Israeli army says 9,000 terrorists have been killed since the Gaza war began,” the Israeli newspaper Haaretz said in a report.

The newspaper, however, cited officers and soldiers who have taken part in the ongoing war, as saying that “these are often civilians whose only crime was to cross an invisible line drawn by the Israeli army.”

“We were explicitly told that even if a suspect runs into a building with people in it, we should fire at the building and kill the terrorist, even if other people are hurt,” one soldier said.  According to testimonies by Israeli officers and soldiers, the regime’s troops open fire at anyone entering the “kill zone” that the regime’s army has defined.

“In practice, a terrorist is anyone the army has killed in the areas in which its forces operate,” a reserve officer said.

“They ask you how many, and I give a number based on what we see and understand on the ground, and we move on. It’s not that we invent bodies, but no one can determine with certainty who is a terrorist and who was hit after entering the combat zone of an Israeli force,” he added.

Israel waged its genocidal war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian Hamas resistance group carried out Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the usurping entity in retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.

Since the start of the offensive, the Tel Aviv regime has killed 32,782 Palestinians and injured nearly 75,298 others.

Meanwhile, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved “operational plans” for an invasion of the southern city of Rafah, despite international warnings that such an attack would be a catastrophe.  “We have approved the operational plans to invade Rafah,” Netanyahu said at a press conference before undergoing hernia surgery on Sunday evening.

He claimed: “We will enter Rafah and eliminate Hamas, and without that, there is no victory.”

The announcement comes while Israel’s allies and critics warned Netanyahu against the invasion of Rafah, where more than half of the territory’s population of 2.4 million has been forcibly displaced, fearing mass civilian casualties. 

Tens of thousands of Israelis thronged central al-Quds on Sunday in the largest anti-regime protest since he launched the Gaza invasion in October.  Deep divisions over Netanayahu’s leadership long predate the war.