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Around one hundred reserve soldiers and officers in Israel have signed a letter claiming that several incidents during the war show a “decline in the values of the Israeli army,” including what they described as the erosion of the army’s “purity of arms” principle.

According to Israel’s public broadcaster KAN, the letter, addressed to Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir, was signed by reservists with ranks up to lieutenant colonel. The signatories raised serious allegations about the conduct of Israeli forces in the field and the harm caused to civilians across various fronts during the war.

In the letter, the soldiers described what they called “a collapse in the values of the Israeli army,” writing: “During the fighting in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon, there have been, and still are at times, incidents that do not reflect the spirit and values of the Israeli army—values on which we were raised and have educated those who serve under us.”

The reservists added: “Now, as the war draws to an end, we call on you to work to strengthen the moral values of the Israeli army and to firmly eliminate any conduct that contradicts the law, the army’s ethical code, and the procedures and directives issued over the past two years.”

Toward the end of the letter, they stressed: “Our military experience also proves that in many cases where discipline and adherence to the army’s values have collapsed, the operational effectiveness of our soldiers and our ability to win the war have also been damaged.”

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This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.