‘I Killed a Lot of Children’: Israeli Soldiers Confess to Gaza Massacres

September 16, 2025 News
Intense nighttime airstrikes on Gaza City resulted in dozens of deaths, including children. (Photo: Social Media, via AJA)

Haaretz exposes widespread PTSD, a sharp rise in suicides, and testimonies from Israeli soldiers openly admitting to massacres, including the deliberate shooting of Palestinian civilians and children.

Thousands of Israeli soldiers’ service in the army has been halted due to psychological trauma, many of them never to return, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

The Hebrew newspaper published the results of a months-long investigation in which soldiers recounted their experiences of psychological pressure imposed by Israel’s ongoing military operation in the Gaza Strip, Al-Jazeera Arabic reported.

A soldier in the Nahal Brigade – identified by the newspaper only as Yoni, who served in an engineering security force in the Beit Lahia neighborhood of Gaza – recounted how he opened fire one day last May after a soldier yelled “Terrorists, Terrorists!” believing they had come under attack from Resistance fighters.

“We went into a frenzy, and I immediately go up with the Negev (a kind of machine gun), and start spraying, firing hundreds of bullets,” Yoni stated.

‘It Was a Mistake’

Yoni said they stormed forward after opening fire, only to realize “it was a mistake.”

“I saw two bodies of children, maybe eight years old, maybe ten, I have no idea,” he recounted. “Blood was everywhere… I felt like vomiting, but the officer told me coldly, as if it were not about humans: ‘They’ve entered the forbidden zone. It’s their fault. That’s how war is.'”

Yoni, who was later transferred to a non-combat role, said, “Their faces still haunt me. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forget them.”

Haaretz spoke to several combat soldiers who felt they were no longer capable of performing combat roles. They attributed this to exhaustion or psychological pressure, but some also said their consciences could no longer accept what was happening, the Al Jazeera report added.

The newspaper said that the testimonies do not indicate marginal numbers. Rather, according to sources in the Human Resources Department, thousands were discharged from regular service, some of them from the army entirely due to deteriorating mental health, while a relatively small number were transferred to logistical roles or to work on the rear lines.

Figures Higher than Army Claims

According to other officers who spoke to the newspaper, the number of those suffering from mental disorders is higher than the army is reporting.

An officer in an infantry battalion said that dozens of soldiers in his unit wanted to leave combat, and “although the phenomenon is not new, it has never been on this scale.”

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Another officer serving in an armored battalion said, “Hardly a day goes by without a soldier requesting a transfer.” But transferring to non-combat roles isn’t always enough to heal the wound.

‘Cat and Mouse Game’

This was the case for Benny, a sniper in the Nahal Brigade who was responsible for “securing” humanitarian aid in northern Gaza, protected by drones and armored forces.

Benny recounted how the army would draw an imaginary line known only to him and shoot anyone who crossed it, as if it were a “cat and mouse game” with the population.

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He said, “I fired 50 to 60 bullets a day. I stopped counting, and I don’t know how many I killed. I killed a lot of them… a lot of children.”

Although Benny often didn’t want to open fire, he claimed, he felt he had no control over his decision. “The commander would shout at us over the radio, ‘Fire! They’re advancing! The situation is dangerous!'”

He added, “The officers didn’t care if children were killed or not, nor did they care what it did to my soul either. For them, I’m just another tool.”

‘Stench of Corpses Everywhere’

Benny recounted how these scenes haunted him to the point that he could smell the stench of corpses everywhere, urinate on himself at night like a four-year-old, and even dream that he was exterminating his family, the report stated.

“You have to understand that a sniper, unlike a pilot, sees his victims through the scope of a rifle,” he says.

Desperate to leave the army, Benny said, “I can’t stay for another minute… I did what I did because I thought I was protecting my friends and family, but it was a mistake.”

He reportedly added, “I don’t trust the commanders or the government.”

‘Do You Want to Betray Israel?’

Another soldier, Aharon, recounted the feelings he felt as he walked through the vast ruins of Beit Hanoun, where “all you could see were packs of dogs… after we were told that everything there had been destroyed.”

Aharon said he was terrified by any sound, even a child’s scream, due to the psychological trauma caused by an explosion during one of the operations. The force he was with mistook it for an attack by al-Qassam fighters, but it turned out to be an accidental explosion from an IED planted by the army to destroy a building.

He said, “I started to hide in my room and cry… I didn’t understand what was happening to my body.”

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The mental health officer in Aharon’s unit ignored him when he asked to meet him to request a transfer to a non-combat role, mocking him: “What’s wrong with you? It’s just a small explosion. Do you want to betray Israel?”

“I felt humiliated,” Aharon told Haaretz.

‘I was Terrified’

Aharon didn’t give up and insisted on a transfer. Two weeks later, he was assigned to the psychological support unit, but not before being asked to return to Gaza to fight again.

“I was terrified, but I didn’t want my friends to see it. I even urinated on myself once when someone fired a gunshot near me,” he added.

The army is reluctant to release data on regular soldiers who are no longer fit to fight, but “even when they do provide such data, they manipulate it,” according to a former officer in the human resources department, cited by Al Jazeera Arabic.

This officer said, “We don’t know not only the extent of the phenomenon, but also how they handle it.”

No Unified Policy

The army claims there is no unified policy governing the treatment of soldiers who request to be transferred to non-combat roles.

While officers are required to implement the Health Department’s instructions when the department determines that a soldier is no longer fit to perform combat duties, the decision is left to the discretion of each officer in other cases.

An officer in the Kfir Brigade told Haaretz that he would not send a soldier into battle who did not want to fight, and other commanders, according to the newspaper, do not care about their soldiers’ wishes and insist on sending them into battle against their will.

One soldier told Haaretz that his company “mistakenly” killed a woman and her two children when they crossed an imaginary line drawn by the army, but his commander refused to transfer him and two of his comrades to non-combat roles.

Sharp Rise in Suicides

Haaretz reported last month that there has been a sharp rise in suicides among Israeli soldiers. In July alone, seven soldiers committed suicide after “after prolonged reserve duty in Gaza.”

The paper cited Israeli Ministry of Defense data indicating that nearly 19,000 wounded soldiers have begun receiving care from the Rehabilitation Department – around 10,000 of them suffering from psychological trauma.

On Monday, the Anadolu news agency reported that according to the Defense Ministry’s Rehabilitation Department, some 56% of the wounded have developed PTSD or other mental health disorders, underscoring the psychological toll of the ongoing conflict.

The ministry added that nearly 45% of the cases involve physical injuries, while 20% of the soldiers are battling both mental and physical conditions.

Over 81,000 Veterans Treated

It said 99 soldiers required prosthetics after amputations, 16 were paralyzed, 56 classified as suffering disabilities exceeding 100%, and 24 listed with full disability.

The ministry noted that around 64% of the 20,000 cases were reservists, with approximately 1,000 new wounded soldiers being treated each month, in addition to hundreds of requests related to past wars.

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In total, the rehabilitation system is now treating over 81,000 veterans, of whom 31,000, nearly 40% are grappling with psychological trauma. The ministry projects that by 2028, nearly 100,000 veterans will be in its care, with at least half expected to suffer PTSD and related disorders.

The Israeli army has killed nearly 65,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, in Gaza since October 2023.

(PC, AJA, Anadolu)

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