Israeli soldiers face prosecution for refusing to return to Gaza

Israel's army has warned several infantry brigade soldiers that they will face trial if they do not return to combat in Gaza, Israel's KAN public broadcaster reported on Wednesday.

The channel reported that at least 20 soldiers have refused to return to Gaza, with at least 10 having received official warnings from the army on Tuesday.

Families of some of the soldiers were quoted by Kan as saying that their relatives “are forced to conduct ground manoeuvres in Gaza or face prison”, with some offering to return to duty in areas other than Gaza.

“There are only a few soldiers left in their company who are capable of fighting... This is our time as parents to help them confront a system that does not care about them,” the families were quoted as saying.

Israel's army responded by saying that it is working to ensure that soldiers are supported in their assigned tasks, with a spokesman saying that punitive actions will not be meted out against soldiers.

More than ten months of war in Gaza has seen Israel destroy vast swathes of the enclave, including entire neighbourhoods, roads, schools and hospitals. Israeli forces have killed at least 40,602 Palestinians and wounded 93,855 since 7 October, according to Gaza's health ministry.

In the same period, at least 704 Israeli soldiers have been killed, including in Gaza and during the 7 October Hamas-led attack on Israel.

During the course of Israel's war on Gaza, several soldiers have spoken out against what they witnessed on the ground.

Earlier this month, Israeli reservist Michael Ofer Ziv told CNN that he and other soldiers were given quotas of buildings to remotely destroy each day in Gaza.

“They will tell us, today you have seven, today you have nine… you sometimes argue for more, but you will never fire less than you’re given,” Ofer Ziv said.

Another soldier who spoke to CNN, Yuval Green, recounted the scale of the destruction meted out by the army.

“They don’t really care about the lives of Palestinians… we’ve inflicted so much damage upon Gaza, something that would be beyond the imagination of any reasonable person… I can’t imagine how people would go back to living there,” he said.

Green also recalled the rhetoric of Israeli soldiers on the ground, where discussions of mass killings were normalised.

“Ideas like killing the entire population of Gaza suddenly became almost normal… suddenly hearing our commanders say that we’re not going to be merciful this time… I felt like we were going to a very bad place,” Green said.

Israel has been accused of committing genocide in Gaza, with an ongoing case filed against it at the International Court of Justice.

Judges at the International Criminal Court are also deliberating whether to issue arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, after an application by the court's chief prosecutor in May.