Israeli Officer Promoted After He Ordered Killing of White Flag Holders in Gaza

An Israeli officer who reportedly ordered soldiers to “shoot to kill” people in Gaza holding a white flag has been promoted to the rank of battalion commanding officer, meaning that he may be directing hundreds or thousands of soldiers.

Haaretz reports that, in 2024, the unnamed officer ordered soldiers to shoot two people spotted by a drone walking toward a corridor in Gaza who were carrying a white flag and raising their hands. A commander protested, pointing out the flag and that the people may be Israeli prisoners who escaped Hamas captivity.

But soldiers said the officer, a deputy battalion commander at the time, insisted multiple times that they be killed. “I don’t know what a white flag is, shoot to kill,” he reportedly said. The two people ultimately turned around and were spared, but the commander was “berated as a coward” by his commanding officers, Haaretz reported.

This account was uncovered by Haaretz in an investigation last December, and reccounted by a soldier who witnessed the incident in an op-ed around the same time. That soldier, Chaim Har-Zahav, was apparently summoned by Israeli police to give a statement about the incident after the op-ed was published.

Officials are actively considering opening an investigation into the commanding officer over the incident — but, officials haven’t made a decision on the investigation for months, and he was promoted.

Har-Zahav said that soldiers didn’t carry out the order because it was illegal and against the military’s ethical code.

But the commanding officer’s promotion suggests, instead, that these sorts of orders are not transgressions so much as actions embraced and actively rewarded by the Israeli military’s high-ranking decisionmakers.

Indeed, Haaretz reports that the Israeli military said that the incident is “under an in-depth investigation,” but still offered unmitigated praise of the commander: “[T]he deputy battalion commander is an esteemed officer who has served lengthy tours of reserve duty during the war, for the sake of the country’s security.”

Meanwhile, despite the insistence of some of Israel’s defenders, a deluge of other reports have revealed that the Israeli military’s abuses are systemic.

Soldiers testify that illegal and immoral actions — like the abuse of prisoners, attacks on humanitarian aid, and targeting of civilians — come from the top down. The systemic nature of the military’s atrocities are also clear from the actions of soldiers across Gaza, which has been nearly completely razed to the ground in the military’s quest for the forced expulsion of all Palestinians from the besieged region.