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A bombshell new report should force Biden to reassess Israel’s human rights compliance, experts say.

by Connor Echols, Responsible Statecraft

Israeli forces in Gaza have created invisible “kill zones” near their operations in Gaza where soldiers are under orders to fire on anyone who is not Israeli military personnel, according to an explosive new report in Haaretz, a prominent Israeli newspaper.

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officials say the “kill zone” provisions only apply in cases in which a person is approaching Israeli forces, but commanders on the ground have interpreted the term “approaching” in disparate ways, leading some to demand that their troops fire when anyone moves into the zones, according to Haaretz.

calls for ceasefire and to save the lives of children in Gaza outside White House

The report provides crucial context for a recent video published by Al Jazeera in which Israeli forces attacked four Palestinians in civilian clothing who were not holding weapons. Drone footage shows an Israeli bomb killing two of the men in an initial strike before attacking the other two one after the other. All four men died in the incident.

“This kind of indiscriminate killing is illegal and falls far short of any gold standard for civilian harm,” argued Brianna Rosen, a senior fellow at Just Security.

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Militarism and Foreign Policy