Original subtitles

IN HEBREW:

IN HEBREW:

IN HEBREW:

EXPLOSION

CLAMOURING

IN HEBREW:

TV CREW:

IN HEBREW:

IN HEBREW:

SIREN WAILS

GUNFIRE

IN HEBREW:

I don't expect you to understand, like, but it's...

it's kind of emotional, I think,

to look at these pictures after 20 years.

It's full of dust. It's... I've never touched it.

You know, pictures from basic training, from being at the border,

people being released, like, parties of people leaving the army.

24 years and ten days since I took this picture.

It's like a ceremony in Israel, like, when you...

the first time when you come from the army

with rifle and uniform, and they take your picture.

Like, everybody has this one.

You are proud that you are a man now.

You are responsible for the safety of Israel.

So, at the time when I was enlisted, I didn't really knew about anything.

I didn't have any kind of political awareness

about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,

which is the major issue of our time, of our...

..the major thing that everything in Israel revolves around.

IN HEBREW:

IN HEBREW:

NEWSREEL:

IN HEBREW:

IN HEBREW:

SHOUTING

IN HEBREW:

MAN SHOUTS

YUVAL:

IN HEBREW:

SHOUTING

GUNFIRE

SHOUTING

REPORTER: 'They attacked by air, land and sea,

'taking Israel by surprise during a major Jewish holiday.'

YUVAL:

REPORTER: 'Hamas began a devastating surprise attack at dawn.

'The Palestinian militants launched thousands of rockets into Israel

'and crossed the border, taking soldiers and civilians hostage.'

BOOM, SHOUTING

GUNFIRE

IN HEBREW:

IN HEBREW:

ELI:

ELI:

ELI:

Israel is at war.

Hamas will understand that by attacking us,

they've made a mistake of historic proportions.

We will exact a price that will be remembered by them

and Israel's other enemies for decades to come.

IN HEBREW:

ALARM BLARES

OMER:

ITAI:

YAAKOV:

SHOUTING

IN HEBREW:

ELI:

It's an entire nation out there that is responsible.

It's not true, this rhetoric

about civilians not aware, not involved.

It's absolutely not true.

CLAMOURING

DANIEL:

NETA:

CHATTER OVER RADIO

OMER:

YOTAM:

SHOUTING

IN HEBREW:

BOOM, CLAMOURING

IN ARABIC:

CLAMOURING

EXPLOSION

The decision on what is a proportionate attack

is a decision for the military to make.

LT COLONEL B:

TV CREW:

They have military lawyers that give them consultation,

and I've had conversations with people involved in such roles.

So, what appears to be the case is that the October 7th attack

is perceived as something which was, of course, unprecedented.

But the response was,

"We need to also inflict unprecedented force

"on the other side.

"We need to act more freely as a military

"and inflict this much more pervasive - total, ultimately -

"form of destruction."

APPLAUSE

YOTAM:

ELI:

ITAI:

ELI:

GUNFIRE

ITAI:

YAAKOV:

OMER:

ELI:

YAAKOV:

TV CREW:

GUNFIRE

DANIEL:

GUNFIRE

ELI:

You're allowed to use armed force against combatants.

Sometimes, you're also allowed to use military force

against civilians who are directly participating in hostilities.

But the harm, including death or destruction

of civilian infrastructure, must be proportional

to the military advantage that is sought.

DANIEL:

There are certain attacks where we say,

"This was completely disproportionate.

"This was beyond what... the military advantage

"that any government or military could seek."

And that's where we talk about war crimes.

ELI:

SHOUTING

WHISTLING

WHISTLING

CLAMOURING

WHISTLING

REPORTER: 'Now, what began as four days of Israeli hostage releases

'is in its seventh night.

'Another eight were released this evening.

'30 Palestinian women and teenagers

'have been set free by Israel in exchange.'

YAAKOV:

# Ain't do no wrong I could clean up good for you... #

NETA:

IN HEBREW:

NETA:

There are videos of people destroying...

seemingly homes or civilian houses.

EXPLOSION

Oftentimes, then there's a kind of laughter

or celebration of this violent event.

EXPLOSION

SOLDIERS CHEER

To destroy housing

in a context where there is no military purpose of doing that,

that is completely illegal.

As a legal matter,

these videos can be enormously incriminating.

When you have a form of admission recorded,

your criminal defence lawyer

will have a much harder time defending you.

IN OWN LANGUAGE:

IN HEBREW:

YAAKOV:

EXPLOSION

DANIEL:

ITAI:

ELI:

YAAKOV:

SOLDIER CHUCKLES

NETA:

ITAI:

YAAKOV:

ELI:

DANIEL:

INTERVIEWER:

YAAKOV:

DANIEL:

YAAKOV:

Human shields is an illegal practice.

But within the context of the war in Gaza,

this has cropped up once again

as almost a kind of normalised process

in the ranks of infantry soldiers in Gaza.

YAAKOV:

INDISTINCT CHATTER

EXPLOSION

DANIEL:

NETA:

SHOUTING

CHEERING, CHANTING

NEWSREADER: 'A long-awaited ceasefire between Israel and Hamas

'has finally began in Gaza after 15 months of war.'

SOBBING

THEY CHEER

ELI:

YUVAL:

NEWSREADER: 'March 23,

'15 rescue workers were shot dead by the Israelis.'

GUNFIRE

ELI:

A consumer of Israeli media and TV

mostly will see our great heroes

endangering their life when they go into these destroyed places in Gaza.

Endangering their lives for the rest of the... of the Israelis.

You rarely see killed children or killed women,

or not at all at the beginning, not at all.

You see very, very, very, very selected footage

about the hell that we turned Gaza into.

YAAKOV:

ELI:

YAAKOV:

The only thing which I knew about Gaza

was what I'd seen in the news in Europe.

But it became apparent very quickly

that it's worse than what is portrayed.

We'd quite often see people sprinting cos they were...

they were often kind of like, getting into the best...

into the best possible positions to get aid.

Cos the aid, once it was opened up, the site,

there would only be about 30 seconds where you had to kind of grab a box.

We were kind of arriving at this site around one...

around 1am, midnight.

There was just a couple of, like, men that you could see running.

There was some shouting.

They might have been teenagers, and they were just like, uh,

they were, like, just sprinting away.

And you could just see two soldiers run after them.

They'd drop onto their knees,

and they'd just take two shots,

and you could just see the two heads snap backwards and just drop.

YOTAM:

GUNSHOTS

SAM: On site four, you've got a company of tanks there

that were IDF, and they were there constantly,

and, like, they were shooting quite often

from the main barrel of the tank.

We were leaving the aid site,

and there was a regular car - it's just like a normal car,

there was nothing special about it, like any guns on it.

And there were just four normal people sat inside it,

and then, all of a sudden, there was just a very loud bang...

..that makes you feel like your internal organs are shaking.

And that's when you kind of saw this vehicle with occupants inside

just kind of go up in a big explosion.

YAAKOV:

ITAI:

ITAMAR: When you're in a revenge campaign,

if you're not attacking in order to get a military advantage,

you're... you're trying to kill Gazans because you feel

that they have killed you and they still want to kill you.

I think, myself, that there is a genocide

against the Palestinian people in Gaza.

YUVAL:

PROTESTER CHANTING

OTHER PROTESTERS RESPOND

YOTAM:

YAAKOV:

DANIEL:

MAN: Wow! Wow!

WOMAN: Yo-ho-oh! Fucking A!

MAN SHOUTS IN OWN LANGUAGE

ELI:

A few weeks ago, I got a phone call and they told me,

"Listen, we're going to hold the...

"the borderline of north side of Israel.

"Do you want to come?"

I thought about it a bit, and it became clear to me

that the right decision would be to help them to...

Because in a way, it connects to... to me as a young soldier

because this is the thing that I was trained for -

to protect, to serve as a soldier, protecting the borders of Israel.

And I can't allow myself to say,

"Ah, it's not important" because I'm refusing to go to Gaza.

This is... This separation works for me.

I truly understand if people would say that I'm a hypocrite...

..but this is my decision.

YOTAM:

AMJAD AL-SHAWA:

ELI:

EXCITED CRIES

LAUGHTER

CHANTING

We paid a high price for this war,

but our enemies now understand

just how powerful and just how determined Israel is.

And this, Mr President,

is the indispensable foundation of peace.

Peace through strength.

SHOUTS IN OWN LANGUAGE

YOTAM:

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