Gaza war lacked restraint, some Israeli troops say

By Douglas Hamilton

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel rejects charges by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and U.N. agencies that its January invasion of the Gaza Strip inflicted civilian death and destruction on an unjustifiable scale.

Now, some of the Israeli soldiers who took part say they were urged by commanders to shoot first and worry later about sorting out civilians from combatants. Accordingly, they say, the force went into Gaza with guns blazing.

In print and video testimony published on Wednesday by the activist group Breaking the Silence, the 30 soldiers say the Israeli army's imperative was to minimise its own casualties to ensure Israeli public support for the operation.

"Better hit an innocent than hesitate to target an enemy," is a typical description by one unidentified soldier of his understanding of instructions repeated at pre-invasion briefings and during the 22-day operation, from Dec. 27 to Jan. 18.

"If you're not sure, kill. Fire power was insane. We went in and the booms were just mad," says another. "The minute we got to our starting line, we simply began to fire at suspect places.

"In urban warfare, anyone is your enemy. No innocents."

Israel's Operation Cast Lead had the declared aim of forcing Islamist Hamas fighters to stop firing rockets at towns in southern Israel.

A Palestinian rights group says 1,417 people were killed, 926 of them civilians. The Israeli army put the death toll at 1,166 and estimated 295 dead were civilians. Israel said 10 of its soldiers and three civilians were killed.