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Israeli soldiers massacred POWs, newspaper claims

September 16, 2016 at 3:40 pm

Israeli soldiers “murdered dozens of captives” in an incident subsequently covered up by the authorities, an article in Israeli newspaper Haaretz has claimed.

The report, by editor Aluf Benn, does not reveal details of when the mass killing was carried out, referring simply to “one of Israel’s wars”.

In 1995, Egyptian authorities announced the discovery of mass graves in the Sinai containing the remains of prisoners shot by Israeli soldiers during the 1967 war. It is unclear if this is the same incident as the one referred to by Haaretz.

The paper states that prior to the executions, the prisoners in question had “surrendered after the battle and thrown down their weapons. Some of them were seriously wounded.”

According to testimonies obtained by Haaretz, the prisoners – “soldiers in one of the enemy armies” – were “ordered to line up and turn around, before they were shot in the back.”

After they had been killed, “an army bulldozer piled the bodies into an improvised grave.”

Haaretz refers to eyewitness accounts by two army veterans who were present at the massacre. One says he refused to obey the order, the other admits to having participated in the killings.

The latter told the paper that “after shooting the captives, he approached them and shot them again from a distance of only five metres to ensure that they were all dead.”

Their testimonies match, even though “they hadn’t been in contact with each other and neither of them knew the issue had been discussed with the other.”

After the massacre, the Israeli military launched an investigation, at the end of which the company commander stood trial for murder. He was jailed for three years, but was freed after seven months.

At the time, the company commander “claimed he was ordered to kill the prisoners by his superior, who later reached a very senior position in the IDF.”

Years later, when approached by a Haaretz journalist, the commander described the matter as “classified”.

According to Haaretz editor Benn: “This murder of dozens of prisoners was one of the most serious war crimes in the IDF’s history, but the army whitewashed it and hushed it up.”