Israel occupation forces drone killed ex-soldier who crossed into Gaza

A former Israeli soldier who crossed the nominal border into the besieged Gaza Strip in late October was killed by an army drone, Haaretz has reported. The drone operator identified the man as a Palestinian.

Avihu Mori, 29, a former soldier who had not been re-enlisted to fight in Gaza, left his home in the settlement of Nir Akiva in southern Israel on 23 October and disappeared. He is believed to have crossed the border fence and walked for 500 metres unchallenged until he was killed by the Israel occupation forces drone.

According to Haaretz, the army has confirmed the details of the shooting, but so far none of its officials have communicated with Mori’s family members, who are still waiting for answers. The newspaper quoted his sister, Dganit, as saying that he left home around 8:30am, then, “as if the earth had swallowed him up,” he disappeared.

“My mother thought he might have gone to a friend’s house to get some peace of mind and to relax from the violent bombings the night before or that maybe he had gone somewhere to help the soldiers and prepare food,” she added. However, after four days went by without being able to contact him, the family reported him to the police as a missing person. His sister noted that the former soldier could not accept the fact that he was not re-recruited to fight in Gaza.

This is not the first case where Israelis have been killed by their own army. Since Israel started its devastating offensive against the Palestinians in Gaza on 7 October, multiple incidents have been reported by the occupation army where soldiers and hostages taken by Hamas have been killed in so-called friendly fire.

A report published by Haaretz in November revealed that an Israeli army helicopter opened fire on festival goers near Kibbutz Re’im on 7 October in the belief that Palestinian fighters were among them. Under the Israeli army’s Hannibal directive or protocol, soldiers are allowed to use maximum force to prevent Israelis from being kidnapped. Israel is believed to have invoked the directive multiple times since 7 October, killing many of its own people including soldiers and civilians who were taken by the Palestinian resistance fighters.

Israel has mounted a relentless military offensive against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip since the cross-border attack by the Islamic Resistance Movement. The apartheid state has killed at least 24,000 Palestinian civilians and wounded more than 60,000 others, according to the local health authorities. Around 1,200 Israeli soldiers and some civilians are believed to have been killed during the Hamas attack, many of them by tanks and helicopter gunships of the Israel Defence Forces. Around 240 Israelis were taken hostage by Hamas. Around 130 were exchanged for some of the thousands of Palestinians held in Israeli jails during a temporary pause in the bombardment in late November.

READ: Hamas says 2 Israeli hostages killed in Gaza bombardment