Rugs, cosmetics, motorbikes: Israeli soldiers are
looting Gaza homes en masse
Soldiers describe how stealing Palestinian property
has become totally routine in the Gaza war, with minimal pushback from
commanders.
By Oren Ziv
February 20, 2024
https://www.972mag.com/israeli-soldiers-looting-gaza/
Israeli soldiers fighting in Gaza have not been shy
about posting videos on social media gleefully documenting their wanton
destruction of buildings and humiliation of Palestinian detainees. Some of these clips were even exhibited in South
Africa’s presentation at the International Court of Justice last month as evidence of genocide. But there is another war crime being readily
documented by Israeli soldiers that has garnered less attention and
condemnation despite its prevalence: looting.
In November, the Palestinian singer Hamada Nasrallah
was shocked to discover a TikTok of a soldier playing the
guitar that his father had bought him 15 years earlier. Other videos uploaded
to social media in recent months show Israeli soldiers boasting about finding wristwatches; unboxing someone’s collection of soccer shirts; and stealing rugs, groceries, and jewelry.
In a Facebook group for Israeli women comprising
nearly 100,000 users, someone wondered what to do with the “gifts from Gaza” that her
partner, a soldier, had brought back for her. Sharing a photo of cosmetic
products, she wrote: “Everything is sealed except for one product. Would you
use these? And does someone know the products or are they only in Gaza?”
Indeed, since the start of Israel’s ground invasion in
late October, soldiers have been taking whatever they can get their hands on
from the homes of Palestinians who have been forced to flee. More than an open secret, the phenomenon has been
widely — and uncritically — reported in the Israeli media, while rabbis
from the Religious Zionist movement have been answering soldiers’ questions
about what is permissible to loot according to Jewish law.
Soldiers who returned from fighting in Gaza confirmed
to +972 Magazine and Local Call that the phenomenon is ubiquitous, and that for
the most part their commanders are allowing it to happen. “People took things —
mugs, books, each one the souvenir that does it for him,” said one soldier, who
admitted that he himself took a “souvenir” from one of the medical centers that
the army occupied.
Another soldier, who served in northern and central
Gaza, testified that soldiers “took rugs, blankets, [and] kitchen utensils,”
and explained that there was no briefing on the matter from the army either
before entering or while in the field. “There was zero talk about it from the
commanders,” he said. “Everyone knows that people are taking things. It’s
considered funny — people say: ‘Send me to The Hague.’ It doesn’t happen in
secret. The commanders saw, everyone knows, and no one seems to care.”
The soldier offered his explanation for why the
phenomenon is so widespread: “There is something about this reality in which
the house is already [in ruins] that allows you to take a plate or rug. In one
of the operations, in a destroyed house, there was a cupboard with antique
kitchen utensils, special plates, special mugs. I saw them being looted,
unfortunately.”
“[The commanders] didn’t really talk to us about it,”
another soldier testified. “They didn’t say you couldn’t take things. And most
people felt the need to take a souvenir.”
The soldier noted that the looting was no secret;
indeed, some of their seniors were doing it too. “The company sergeant major
distributed Qur’an study books that he found and gave to whomever wanted them,”
he said. “Another soldier took a set of coffee mugs, a serving tray, and a pot.
Another unit, whom we met after they returned from a tour, brought a
motorcycle, like the Nukhba [Hamas special forces] motorcycles. One of the
soldiers declared that it was his. They [the soldiers] talked about renovating
it.”
Another soldier who served in Gaza told +972 and Local
Call that soldiers took “prayer beads, spoons, glasses, coffee pots, jewelry,
rings. Whatever is easy and accessible is taken. Not everything, but people
felt like the lords of the land.” He noted also that “maps from children’s
textbooks were taken to show how they are taught there.”
In contrast to the others who testified, this soldier
said that it was clear to him that looting was forbidden. “In my experience, of
course, it’s a big no no,” he explained. “They emphasized this issue, but no
one supervises the reservists. The most common thing [to steal] is ‘local
souvenirs’ [i.e. quintessentially Palestinian or Arab items]. Once, they kicked
out a soldier who stole money.”
The soldier added that he and his team tried, with
varying degrees of success, to persuade other soldiers to leave behind the
items they had stolen in Gaza. “They [soldiers] would come back with things; we
told them it was better to leave them [inside the Strip, near the fence], it’s
better to throw them away than to take them.”
‘From the ruins of Khan Younis, in the classic Gazan
style’
In a communique this week to commanders in charge of units
fighting in Gaza, IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi urged soldiers “not to take
anything that is not ours.” But this letter comes after several months in which
looting has become completely routine.
So normalized is the phenomenon that in a recent segment on Israel’s public broadcaster, Kan, soldiers
presented reporter Uri Levy with a mirror they had brought back from Gaza.
“From the ruins of Khan Younis, in the classic Gazan style,” Levy jokes,
without asking the soldiers where they found the mirror or why they stole it.
In a column on Ynet, Nahum Barnea quotes a soldier who said
he saw the looting of “phones, vacuum cleaners, motorcycles, and bicycles.”
Channel 13 also reported on the phenomenon earlier this month. Rather
than condemning it, however, the presenters simply noted that the videos are
being shared around the world to “shame” Israeli soldiers. (The segment also
included an interview with the soldier who filmed himself with the wristwatches
he found inside a Palestinian home, who claims that he did not steal them:
“They see me holding watches, not looting, nothing … My intention was to show
that the Hamas leadership lives there at a high level.”)
Another sign of how widespread the phenomenon has
become is the fact that rabbis from the Religious Zionist movement have been
receiving questions from soldiers on the issue. In a Q&A uploaded to YouTube, Rabbi Yitzchak Sheilat of
the Ma’ale Adumim Yeshiva in the occupied West Bank noted that looting is
forbidden.
“This is a very serious issue, in two respects: in
terms of halacha [Jewish law] and military law,” he said. “Halacha permits
looting only food or perishable things from the enemy … taking objects is
strictly prohibited. According to halacha, all the spoils must go to the king,
that is, the army commander … It would be a shame for someone to be caught and
have to pay a heavy price.”
One of the soldiers asked the rabbi if it is
permissible to take things from a house before it is demolished. “It is
forbidden to take things,” Sheilat answered. “If you take something, it must be
handed over to the chief of staff.” “And if a commander approves taking things
for the company?” a soldier asked. “No, that’s exactly the problem, that there
are commanders who don’t know military law, or don’t want to know, and suddenly
they allow guys [to do] things they shouldn’t allow,” Sheilat replied.
However, Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, the chief rabbi of the
northern city of Safed, offered a different perspective on the issue in a Q&A of his own. He explained that because the “Arabs
in Gaza do not observe international conventions, we are not obliged to abide
by any of the rules of war. Nonetheless, we are very careful, because we want
to preserve the image of God within us.”
And you shall eat the riches of all the nations’
Alongside the looting of Palestinians’ belongings,
Israeli soldiers are also routinely eating the food they find in Gaza’s
abandoned homes. “After two or three weeks, soldiers use whatever they find,
clean it, and disinfect it,” a soldier told +972 and Local Call — though,
according to him, soldiers are not supposed to use food found in Palestinian
homes in case it is contaminated. Others said that no precise instructions were
given regarding how to behave while staying in houses, many of which are set on fire or blown up by the army once they are no longer of use.
In a recent Haaretz article, Israeli soldiers described their “experiences” of
cooking in Palestinian homes using the ingredients they found there. “Gazan
cuisine, from what we’ve seen, is full of spices,” one soldier said in the
article. “In every house you’ll find a lot of ras el hanout style mixes. There
are also plenty of lentils, so at first we made a lot of stews …. Every house
we stayed in had olives that [Palestinians] make, which we tasted … Olive oil
is also present in every home, in gallons, and it helps a lot to upgrade any
food. They also have a great spicy sauce.
“Sometimes you encounter special things — suddenly
there’s garlic and then you go all out on pasta with tomatoes and garlic,” the
soldier continued. “I also came across this carob sauce that we added to the
porridge and it was excellent.”
Last month, a letter published by the military rabbinate detailed
instructions on how to keep kosher when using food and utensils found in homes
in Gaza. The letter, signed by Rabbi Avishai Peretz ends with the biblical directive: “And you shall eat the riches of all the nations.”
Rabbi Sheilat also addressed the issue of whether it
is permissible to eat food found in Palestinian homes in his Q&A. “With
regard to non-kosher foods, there is a difference between what happens when you
find food in enemy homes, where the law is that if you find food that you don’t
have, and you want that food, even if it’s not essential, say sweets … it’s
permitted to eat them without worrying whether it’s kosher or not.”
In a statement to +972 and Local Call, the IDF
Spokesperson said: “The IDF views with severity any case in which soldiers act
contrary to the spirit of the IDF, including cases of unlawful taking of
property. IDF commanders in various units conduct an ongoing dialogue on the
subject throughout the fighting. Every report received on the subject is
examined and dealt with individually. In relevant cases, an investigation is
opened by the military police, and in some cases suspects are detained for
interrogation purposes. The IDF operates in accordance with international law
and will continue to do so.”
