The Israeli army is apparently about to enter urban warfare in Gaza. But what does that mean? Benzion Sanders experienced this as a soldier there in 2014.
In the summer of 2014 you fought in a special unit in Gaza. The trigger for the war was the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers. Shortly afterwards, Israelis killed a young Palestinian. This war lasted 51 days, 70 Israelis and 2,250 Palestinians died. What experiences did you have there?
The war in the summer of 2014 was a turning point for me. That was also the first time I saw a dead person. The first village we came to during our ground offensive was very poor. No asphalt paths, just sand. The Luftwaffe had already bombed it the day before. We ran from house to house, blowing open doors, throwing grenades through windows, shooting into houses. We were told that all Palestinian civilians had fled. That wasn’t true. Suddenly I saw the body of an old woman lying in a pool of blood on the sandy floor of her hut. I almost stepped on her. She was hit by shrapnel. I can’t get the images from back then out of my head.