The Israeli soldiers refusing to fight
26:31 Share

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.

Hello, I'm Azadeh Mashiri from the BBC World Service. This is The Global Story. Before we get started, I should say that this episode contains graphic descriptions of violence, which some people may find upsetting. Today, the Israeli soldiers refusing to fight in Gaza.

When Hamas attacked the country on October 7th in 2023, many Israelis felt a duty to serve. The brutal attack killed 1,200 people, and Hamas, which is designated a terrorist organisation by several Western governments,

...also abducted more than 250 people But the ongoing Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip which followed... ...has drawn international condemnation Israel's military has killed more than 44,000 Palestinians Some members of the army now no longer want to fight Just try to imagine chaos, try to imagine like an apocalypse You look to your right, you look to your left... ...all you see is destroyed buildings Those turning their backs on the military are very much in the minority

But what does their decision tell us about how Israeli society views the war? And can the pressure they're putting on the government lead to any change of strategy?

So with me today is the BBC's special correspondent, Fergal Keane. Fergal, you've been speaking with a number of reservists in Israel, but I'd like to talk about one in particular, Yuval Green. Let's start on October the 7th. What was that day like for him? Like so many Israelis, a cataclysmic day, a day of shock. You wake up to the news.

of something unimaginable, the country under attack. Now, you know, many, many people in Israel have a lived experience of rocket fire, particularly those living in what's called the Gaza envelope, those Israeli communities around and near to Gaza. People have also in the north of the country experienced shell fire, rocket fire from Hezbollah. This was something very different. It became clear listening to the radio, switching on television.

People getting texts from friends and neighbours, talking about, I'm surrounded, they're attacking us, I'm trying to get through to my father, I can't reach him. It was on a very different scale. And Neuval was seeing all of this coming in. And here's a young man who comes from a pretty left-of-centre background.

In other words, in Israeli terms, that means for him opposing the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, of the Palestinian territories. He's not someone who would be sympathetic to that at all. Someone who also, you know, would have supported the demonstrations that took place against what anti-Netanyahu campaigners called a judicial coup, the attempt to change the Supreme Court, to make politicians more powerful. So Yuval is sitting there. He's from that mindset.

But he suddenly realises this is huge. It's not a few rockets. This is a full-scale invasion of the territory around Gaza. And he, you know, like so many others that I've spoken to, not just objectors or refusers, thinks this is an existential moment.

I've got to go in. I know at least three people that were brutally murdered in the 7th of October. Israel is a small country. Everyone knows each other. You know, I don't think there is even a single person in my platoon that didn't know someone who died in the 7th of October due to the attack. And the things that happened there was just horrible. You've got to remember how small the country is.

And that's true. You know, I had that experience talking to producers who work with me there, talking to friends of mine who live in Israel. Everyone knew someone. And so what does Yuval do in response? He turns up. He's a combat medic. He's also training to be a doctor. And he immediately reports for duty with his unit and says that he is going to take part in the protection of Israel. That's the prime...

the primary aim on that morning. You know, streams of people coming, guys on hang gliders coming through. If you're someone like Yuval Green or any other reservist, your first instinct is to go and stop that happening, to protect the people who are being attacked. And that's what he did. His first experiences were of going into the Israeli communities that had been attacked. And he describes very vividly that sense of shock, of looking at

what had been done by Hamas and then what the Israeli army was having to do to try and push them back out of those communities, the kibbutzes particularly, but also the town of Sderot, which is very close to Gaza. I've been to the towns that were damaged from the attack. Just trying to imagine your hometown being destroyed, seeing dead bodies on the streets.

cars punctured by bullets, seeing the roads completely destroyed because of tanks. Now, if you're living in the occupied territories, that'll be something familiar to you. But for most Israelis, to see the marks of tanks on their streets is something very, very unusual. He also saw bullet-riddled cars, bodies on the streets. All of that kind of imagery, the familiar, grotesque imagery of war was there. Right.

What moments does he describe that really stayed with him when it came to just the horror of the war itself? Yuval told me that there were several moments. He described seeing human remains in the road in Gaza and of trying to put a kind of cordon around it and then being on guard duty later and seeing cats eating the remains. You know, to me...

It's obviously a very shocking image. I've seen a lot of that in war. It's what happens. It's one of the most grotesque, fearful things that you will see. It's a kind of terrible level of dehumanization. And I think he found that incredibly shocking to see that in Gaza. He talked about seeing what he termed an apocalypse. Just try to imagine chaos. Try to imagine like an apocalypse. You look to your right, you look to your left. All you see is destroyed buildings,

buildings that are damaged by fire, by missile, everything. That's Gaza right now. And as he witnesses this destruction, it brings him to a point of no return, as it were. It's a gradual process and he gets an order one day. His unit is given an order to blow up a house and he goes to his commander and asks. And Yuval told me the reasons I was given were not good enough.

and he refuses the order. And as he says to me, that was my last day in Gaza. The turning point was when they told us to burn down a house. And I went to my commander and asked him, why are we doing that? And the answers he gave me were just not good enough. I wasn't willing to burn down a house without reasons that make sense, without knowing that this serves a certain military purpose or any type of purpose. So

So I said no and left. And that was my last day in Gaza. So before we look into that a little bit more as well, he seems very clear-sighted at the beginning of why he's entering this war. How does he get on with his fellow soldiers, his platoon? Do they share the same views as him? I suspect most don't, was the impression that I got from him. But he is a person who is loyal to his comrades. And I think the decision-making

to leave was quite a painful one, especially if you're the combat medic. If you're one of the people who's in charge of trying to save people's lives when they're wounded, it's a very difficult decision to say, no, I'm not going back, I'm leaving.

By and large, I think the view around people refusing to serve is a minority view in the army. Now, that is not to say that everybody who's fighting in Gaza believes the war should go on and on and on. Clearly, a lot of people don't feel that. But I suspect the majority reject the notion of refusing to serve and reject it quite strongly. And we'll come back to that.

I wonder, even before he gets to that pinnacle moment you talked about where he's ordered to burn down a house or his platoon is ordered to burn down a house,

There were moments, weren't there, when he was watching the way the war was being carried out in Gaza that bothered him? I think what bothered him a lot and what he said to me was the kind of language that people were using. People were speaking about killing the entire population of Gaza, speaking about as if it was some type of an academic idea that makes sense.

and saying, all right, this is the just solution. Now, I think you don't have to go very far to understand that there is no way this could be justified. In the early days of this campaign, and actually it's continued, you've had people making statements about levelling Gaza and other talking about dropping a nuclear bomb. And these are, you know, senior figures in Israel who've been using this kind of language.

a language of absolute destruction. And he and other people like him found that to be the language of those who were intent on revenge rather than rescuing the hostages and protecting Israelis. I go back again to what he saw as his core role and that was first to protect those Israeli communities and to push Hamas out of them and then to try and achieve through military pressure the release of the hostages.

And he says after a certain period, after several months, it became obvious to him. Now Netanyahu, the Prime Minister, would reject this view, has rejected it. But in Yuval's view, it wasn't about getting the hostages home anymore. It was prolonging the war for the benefit of the Israeli Prime Minister, political benefit. And when he was in Gaza, he also talked, didn't he, about big moments and small moments, things like seeing graffiti on the walls. Why did those sorts of...

things strike him during that period? What did they mean to him? The expression he used, you know, soldiers do a lot of beep. Mm-hmm, right. Go online and have a look at what has been collated by many Israeli soldiers posting messages

It's soldiers saying very derogatory things about Palestinians, about Arabs. It's people pledging vengeance and destruction. It's things which might look frivolous but are incredibly insulting if you're a Palestinian, if you're someone who's lost their home, lost their property. For example, soldiers dressing up in women's clothes that they've stolen. And all of that has a huge impact. And I think he was very conscious of that level of...

I guess that lack of feeling, that lack of respect that I think I could definitely say hurt him and was something that he wanted to separate from himself. And what he did say to me, he says, you know, I fought that hard. He fought against it hard. But I guess there's only so much one individual can do in a particular unit. I mean, just for my friend's

They were taking souvenirs off the houses all the time. There's something I was trying to fight, but it was just too difficult to fight everyone. He gets to that point where he sees the house and he gets this order from his commander. What is it about that specific order that bothered him? He couldn't see any reason for it. He's looking at a house and he's saying to himself, I don't see why we have to demolish this. But I think it's right to see it as the kind of culmination of

of a process and go back to those words that he uses about seeing like an apocalypse, buildings levelled everywhere. That's what takes him there. If you're a commander and you have someone refusing that order, you can't function in military terms. So it was very clear it was going to be his Yuval's last day. What does he do afterwards in response? So he leaves Gaza and Gaza doesn't leave him. And this is true of whether you're a

a refuser or you're an ardent fighter, the kind of things that you see in war and the things you do in war, they come after you. They live with you. And in Yuval's case, it was about trying to give some practical expression, some tangible expression

to the feelings that he had, the feeling that the war was being prolonged unnecessarily and that the aim of the war was not to bring the hostages home anymore. And he decides with another reservist that he will invite other reservists to sign a letter rejecting duty in Gaza or in the cases of some threatening to reject. Not everybody, you know, it's

It's nuanced. Until such time as there is a ceasefire deal to bring the hostages home. Some time afterwards, that letter comes out. And clearly he wasn't the only one with that point of view. What were the other reasons that people decided to leave? Because he's not the only one you spoke to. No, he's not indeed. I think at the latest count around 165 people

So these are guys who already experienced, they've been on duty in Gaza, they've been on duty in the West Bank and have said, no, we're not going back or unless there's a deal, we refuse to serve anymore. And I think that's the core thing to understand. At the root of all of this is this kind of simmering resentment of the politicians and this belief that soldiers are being sent in there

And I can't stress enough how much Netanyahu rejects this and how much those who are close to him politically reject this. But that this is being done to prolong the war so that Mr. Netanyahu gains politically, that he doesn't have to, as it were...

face the consequences of the failures of October 7th, that were significant failures, and that it would end with a great victory over Hamas. Yuval and others say that is not what we signed up for. And so you make the point that given the fact that they're reservists, these aren't your typical conscientious objectors to war, and...

They are clearly a minority. I mean, it's a small fraction. Right. But what I would say is that the kind of views they express, principally this desire to, you know, have a ceasefire and get the hostages home. That is something which you see in recent opinion polls, a majority of Israelis wanting. It's not that their kind of their stance is,

To improve ethnicism, look at the Red Cross.

You know, so it's become possible to articulate views about the conflict in Israel that you would not have heard certainly in the months just after October 7th. And when I say that, I'm not talking about people, you know, from the left, but those like the former defence minister, but also a man that I met, Eran Etzion, who was

a deputy chief of the National Security Council. He's retired now. But him saying IDF soldiers who are given orders that they believe could amount to war crimes should refuse them. Now, he was criticised for that, but that kind of debate is out there. So you mentioned that Benjamin Netanyahu, his government, would deny a lot of the reasons, a lot of the elements of this letter. But I wonder, once Yuval leaves, what...

What happens to him? How does the military respond? So far, as he told me himself, they've let us go quietly because prosecution would probably just bring more publicity to the case. And I should point out that that is very different from what's happened to, I think it's around eight conscientious objectors who haven't yet served. So they're not reservists yet, but they're 18 year olds about to do their military service and saying, no, we're not going to do it.

They're refusing to do it. And they have had to do prison time. And what about the other soldiers in his platoon? What's their reaction after he leaves? I messaged him after the interview to ask about that. And he replied, here it is, a lot of disappointment, angst.

anger, pain. A few words, but I think you can read a lot into it. Yuval is part of a small minority of Israelis refusing to serve. So how do Yuval's troop mates respond to his decision? And what do these stories tell us about attitudes towards the war in wider Israeli society? That's next.

This is The Global Story. We bring you one big international story in detail five days a week. Follow or subscribe wherever you listen. With me is the BBC's special correspondent, Fergal Keane. As you've made very clear, not all soldiers, in fact the majority, wouldn't agree with what Yuval and other reservists who were refusing to return to the war have told you. You spoke to one person, Major Lipsky, who is far more representative of the army's views. What did he tell you?

It was interesting. I went to see him at his home. Sorry about that. It's just to sync up the sound and the two cameras. We were talking. His two young children were asleep in the room next door. We were drinking coffee. And he took the view that, like Yuval, you know, the morning that the October 7th attack happened, it was his duty to act. His view is that this is a war of survival and of Hamas aren't destroyed anymore.

then, you know, the war has not succeeded. If we're not going to finish these guys off and make sure that there is no threat anymore from the Gaza Strip, then why did we go in? We could have just bombed the hell out of them from the sky and not gone in, not lost any more soldiers. He wants the hostages back, but in his view, not at any price. And that does highlight a pretty stark divide now in Israeli society.

The other thing that Sam said to me, Sam Lipsky said, was, look, I don't have to be a Netanyahu fan, and he's not, to regard what the refusers are doing as wrong. And he thinks that they are putting politics first before the safety of the country. They would reject that, absolutely. But it does highlight for you the kind of divide that exists. There's no way to fight a war and to prosecute a military campaign without these images happening.

You can't mow the lawn without grass flying up. It's very tragic.

And that can be true while also saying that it is completely the fault of the terrorist regime that rules the Gaza Strip. It's really important to remember when you look at Israeli society that it is not monolithic. What is a uniting force at the moment is this fear, which was compounded profoundly by the events of October 7th. You also have right-wing national religious parties and politicians like...

the Minister for Public Security, Itamar Ben-Gavir, like the Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich. They are the most radical and ardent proponents of the settlement movement in the Palestinian territories. And

And for them, this is the war in which Israel has the chance to destroy all chances of Palestinian statehood. It's the defining war. We've talked about the way war has changed the views of some of these countries.

reservists, but broadly, how have you seen the army changed by a lot of what's going on? Over the last 20 years in particular, growing numbers of people from what they call the national religious, so people who would be very strongly religious

believers in Israeli settlements in the West Bank but also in Gaza. People who have a notion of not just being Jewish but being religiously Jewish as the central component of the Israeli state.

And that has kind of moved and moved and become more prominent in the IDF as more people from that background join up, particularly going to officer school and begin to gain more senior positions in the military. If you talk to reservists from a kind of secular background and particularly left-wing,

they will all tell you that they're worried by that phenomenon. And so broadly, when we're talking about divisions and the fact that none of these entities, whether it's the military or society are monoliths, how are you seeing that manifest in society? Very simply, look at the number of protests.

You go to Tel Aviv most weekends and there are thousands of people out demanding the return of the hostages. I went to a rally myself near the Knesset in Jerusalem and you had hundreds of people standing there demanding the release of the hostages, calling for an end to the war.

You can hear there the voice of Prime Minister Netanyahu. It's coming from a large screen and the crowd are responding with whistles, with klaxons. This is a man they definitely, definitely want to see leaving power.

And I'm wandering around there and there's lots of ex-soldiers there, former servicemen and current reservists who were there at this demonstration. And then I walk across the square and there's a tent. And I notice people in much more, let's say, traditional, people who look like settlers. And I went into the tent and on the wall were photographs of soldiers who'd been killed in the conflict in Gaza. And I went to one young man there and I started asking him about...

you know, what he felt about the people outside. You know, there was no kind of, how shall we put it, nastiness in what he was saying, but he clearly disagreed. You know, there was a vehement disagreement about people calling for an end to the war. Then I moved on to the question of what he felt about people in Gaza. I said, you know, what about what's happening to civilians? And he said, well, you know...

Yes, there are civilians, but what about the civilians who cook food for them? What about the civilians who run with messages for them? You know, and he clearly believed these people were legitimate targets. Same thing, I was down on the border near Storot, and there's a hill from which you can see Gaza. You stand up there and we could see the smoke from airstrikes. On the same day, there was a party of settlers, and they were going around making statements that

that soon, when the war was won, they were going to establish Jewish settlements there. There were children with them who were blowing bubbles, others looking down these permanent binoculars that are there and you can look into them and they were looking down at what was happening in Gaza. And I approached one of the leaders of the settlers, a young woman, and I said, what do you feel about the people inside in Gaza? And she said, do they care about me? When somebody comes into your house and tries to rob you and kill you,

Do you care about them? It was one of those times you ask the question, you listen to the answer, and you kind of feel that there's not much more to say. You've covered the region and you've covered war for years. I wonder what your takeaway is from this reporting. I think sadness.

I'm glad that's the question you asked me because I have forever people asking me, particularly when I come back, what's your opinion? And let me tell you, you know, there are many things in this world that might be approved by Fergal Keane's opinion. But the conflict in the Middle East is not one of them. And it strikes me that at the moment there is endless amounts of people who are offering opinions, not many solutions. Yeah, you'd have to feel immense sadness. And

No sign that I can see at the moment of any movement towards peace and a just peace. Not any kind of peace, not a short-term peace that buys another few years before the whole thing erupts again. And so you then wonder what are the external events that might take place which could, you know, lead the parties to a position of realism. And realism really is the knowledge that you cannot go on forever. You can't go on forever.

with something as profoundly unstable

as the situation in Israel and in the Palestinian territories. There must be a just solution. In the meantime, all these struggles that you've reported on are continuing between friends, family, platoon mates, and of course, that's not even to mention what's going on to civilians who are in harm's way. Well, absolutely. I mean, you know, most of my reporting over the last year has been about civilians in Gaza. For me as a journalist, it's

It's really important to understand what people on all sides are thinking and what they're feeling and to try and go behind the sloganeering and the platitudes and the political statements, which really tell you very little, except maybe something about the egos of the people who are making them. To go and actually sit in people's sitting rooms and listen to them, whoever they are,

That is one way of, I won't say humanizing the story because people are human. It's a gift. But it is a way of understanding before judging.

Fergal, thank you so much for sitting in my sitting room. Thank you so much. Goodbye. And thanks so much to you for listening. If you want to get in touch, you can email us at theglobalstory at bbc.com or you can send us a message or even a voice note on WhatsApp. Our number is plus44 330 123 9480. You can find those details in our show notes. Wherever you're listening in the world, this has been The Global Story. Thanks for having us in your headphones. Bye for now.

Yoga is more than just exercise. It's the spiritual practice that millions swear by.

And in 2017, Miranda, a university tutor from London, joins a yoga school that promises profound transformation. It felt a really safe and welcoming space. After the yoga classes, I felt amazing. But soon, that calm, welcoming atmosphere leads to something far darker, a journey that leads to allegations of grooming, trafficking and exploitation across international borders. ♪

I don't have my passport, I don't have my phone, I don't have my bank cards, I have nothing. The passport being taken, the being in a house and not feeling like they can leave.

You just get sucked in so gradually.

And it's done so skillfully that you don't realize. And it's like this, the secret that's there. I wanted to believe that, you know, that whatever they were doing, even if it seemed gross to me,

was for some spiritual reason that I couldn't yet understand. Revealing the hidden secrets of a global yoga network. I feel that I have no other choice. The only thing I can do is to speak about this and to put my reputation and everything else on the line. I want truth and justice.

And for other people to not be hurt, for things to be different in the future. To bring it into the light and almost alchemise some of that evil stuff that went on and take back the power. World of Secrets, Season 6, The Bad Guru. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.