For more than two months now, a bloody conflict has shaken the Gaza Strip. In response to the major Hamas terrorist attack of October 7, Israel mobilized its army in the Palestinian enclave with the avowed aim of “eradicating” the Islamist movement, causing numerous civilian victims in its wake. The duty spoke with two young Toronto fighters and a veteran from the Jewish state to try to understand how the conflict is being experienced on the ground.
“ [Justin Trudeau] has not done enough to support Israel. » Canadian-Israeli Zack Weiss, who fights in Gaza for the Israeli army, is “undeniably disappointed” with Ottawa’s decision to call for a cease-fire.
“I’m ashamed to be Canadian,” confides to Duty Samuel, also a volunteer in the Israel Defense Army. He preferred not to give his last name for security reasons. “While I was in Gaza, on the front line, I worried about my family in Canada,” he adds, citing the anti-Semitic acts that occurred in the country starting in October.
Last week, Ottawa declared itself for the first time in favor of a ceasefire in Gaza by supporting a resolution to this effect at the United Nations General Assembly. Only the Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre, opposed it.
From the base where he is based, on the border of the Palestinian enclave, Zack is skeptical: “Most [des cessez-le-feu] end up broken anyway. » Especially since he has the conviction to fight for a just cause. “We are putting our lives on the line so that Jews and Palestinians can live together in peace, not in terror. »
A veteran of the elite Douvdevan unit, specializing in anti-terrorist operations in the West Bank, Zack, like Samuel, was recalled to fight in October as a reservist. Enlisted as lone soldiers – an official title given to soldiers who have no immediate family in the country – in the Israel Defense Army, the two Canadian-born fight in regular battalions.
Today, they are increasing the number of “missions” inside the Gaza Strip, looking for mines, tunnels, “terrorists to neutralize” or even wounded soldiers to transport to a hospital.
“Finish what you started”
Like several of his comrades, Zack is preparing to spend “two weeks to a month” in Khan Younes, a town in southern Gaza that has become the epicenter of the fighting. “We started in the north. […] We’re heading south to finish what we started. If we want to destroy Hamas, we must go there. »
At the start of its response, Israel called on Gazans to evacuate from the north to the south of the enclave, and the noose is now tightening on the civilians crowded into Rafah. Zack, however, asserts that the Gaza Strip — which extends over 365 km², an area smaller than that of the island of Montreal — is a “very vast territory” within which civilians can find refuge.
Samuel therefore starts from the principle that “there should be no civilians in areas where [l’armée israélienne] operates”, since they were warned several times that they had to leave, he maintains.
According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, more than 85% of Gazans have been displaced since October 7. Many civilians were killed while trying to reach the south of the enclave. A refugee camp and hospitals have also already been targeted.
Samuel admits to having encountered civilians in combat zones. “If someone helps a terrorist group, do you still consider them a civilian? Personally, no. » “Everything can’t go well. It’s not pretty, it’s war. »
Zack and Samuel, however, maintain that the Israeli army has “very strict rules” for differentiating civilians from terrorists. However, they are not infallible. As proof, last week, three hostages were killed “by mistake” while they were brandishing a white flag, the Israeli army admitted.
“No one wants to be in a situation where you have to, in a split second, determine who is a hostage, who is a civilian, and who is a terrorist, because… your life is on the line,” says Zack.
In this conflict, where “the enemy uses humans as shields”, it is difficult to fight “without causing civilian casualties”, underlines Maxwell Berger, from Toronto. According to the former lone soldier, “99% of Palestinians are innocent.” When asked if it was worth killing thousands of “innocents” to “eradicate” 1% of the population, he replied: “Was it worth it for the Americans and the British to go defeat the Nazis? »
Priority to tunnels
Today, the priority of Israeli forces is to “destroy the tunnels” of Hamas, says Zack, because “it is its most dangerous weapon.” No regular soldiers enter these “trapped” underground corridors, he says.
Several media outlets reported that Israel had begun flooding these tunnels with seawater to destroy them. This information has neither been confirmed nor denied by the Israeli army. “I heard it was a success, so we might start doing it [dans notre unité] “, says Samuel. “We have to find creative solutions,” says Zack. “Hamas has plans [de ces tunnels]. We don’t have a chance, we have to be smarter — whether it’s flooding them, sending robots, trying to shut them down and blow them up. »
Creativity, however, has its limits, he believes, saying he is against the use of biological weapons.
“We have a job, we have families. If we could snap our fingers and end the war, no one would stay [sur ce terrain] hostile,” assures Zack, who got married only a month before the conflict began.