What is Israel’s “most moral army” doing in Gaza?

The Israeli military, known for styling itself as the “most moral army in the world,” is facing accusations of routinely committing war crimes in Gaza, according to analysts in Israel and doctors who have worked in the region.

A long process of dehumanization, the infiltration of far-right ideologies in the army, and a lack of accountability have led to a scenario where Israeli soldiers can act with impunity, without even needing an operational reason.

Erella Grassiani, a researcher at the University of Amsterdam who has written on the moral “numbing” of Israeli soldiers, notes that while killings, beatings, and arbitrary arrests of Palestinians are not new to the Israeli army, the current situation is distinct.

“Previously, there were some kind of rules of engagement, even if they were loosely followed, but they were there,” she said. “What we’re seeing now is completely different.”

Accusations of casual brutality by Israeli soldiers in Gaza and the occupied West Bank are longstanding. There are accounts of soldiers shooting civilians for “target practice” or simply to stave off boredom.

In early August, the media outfit investigated the cases of Israeli soldiers killing children in Gaza, finding that 95 out of 160 children had been shot in the head or chest – shots that could not be claimed as “intended to wound only.”

The situation at aid distribution sites run by the self-styled Gaza Humanitarian Forum (GHF) is particularly dire. British surgeon Nick Maynard, who returned in July from his third trip to Gaza since the war began, described the GHF sites as “death traps.”

“They’re compounds containing enough food for a family to eat for a few days, but not for all of the thousands of people they keep waiting outside,” he said. “They then open the gates and let the chaos, fighting, and even rioting happen, which they then use as a justification to fire into the crowd.”

Maynard recounted his experience working at Nasser Hospital, where he operated on a 12-year-old boy who had been shot at one of the GHF sites.

The boy later died. Maynard noted that he and other medics had seen repeated and strong patterns of wound grouping, suggesting that Israeli snipers were either playing or using civilians to improve their aim.

An investigation by the Israeli magazine +972 in July 2024 painted a bleak picture of Israeli soldiers with no restrictions on their ability to shoot at civilians in Gaza.

One soldier described “total freedom” to shoot, with no need to explain or justify their actions. The soldier said, “If there is [even] a feeling of threat, there is no need to explain – you just shoot … it is permissible to shoot at their centre of mass [their body], not into the air.”

The lack of accountability within the Israeli military is stark. According to a study by Action on Armed Violence (AOAV), of the 52 probes that the Israeli army said it carried out into crimes it has been accused of committing in Gaza or the West Bank between October 2023 and June 2025, 88 percent were stalled or were closed with no action taken. Only one had resulted in a prison sentence against the accused.

The dehumanization of Palestinians is a process that has been ongoing for decades, according to Grassiani. “We’ve seen incredibly cruel acts from the first day to now, with Israeli soldiers seeking revenge for [the Hamas-led attack of] October 7,” she said.

Haim Bresheeth, author of An Army Like No Other, a book about the Israeli military, notes that the violence is ratcheting up, with no end in sight. “It’s like a snowball running down a hill to which there’s no bottom,” he said.

“Every year, the violence is ratcheted up. The idea of using civilians as target practice is the logical outcome. It’s a new sport, a blood sport, and these sports always develop from the bottom up. It’s twisted, murderous, and it’s sick.”