What the videos of Israeli soldiers reveal: cheering destruction and mocking Gazans
“I stopped counting how many neighborhoods I erased,” reads the caption of the video posted to his personal TikTok, accompanied by a militaristic anthem.
Since Israel's invasion in October, soldiers have shared videos from Gaza on social media, offering a rare, unsanctioned look at operations on the ground. Some have been viewed by small circles; others have reached tens of thousands.
The New York Times reviewed hundreds of these videos. Some show unremarkable parts of a soldier's life: eating, hanging out or messaging loved ones back home.
Others capture soldiers who vandalize local shops and classrooms, make derogatory comments about Palestinians, apparently bulldoze civilian areas and call for the construction of Israeli settlements in Gaza, an incendiary idea promoted by some far-right Israeli politicians.
Some soldier posts conflict with these rules regulations of the Israeli Defense Forces restricting the use of social media by their personnel, specifically prohibiting the sharing of content that could “affect the image of the IDF and its perceptions in the eyes of the public,” or that engages in behavior that “impairs human harms dignity' .”
In a statement, the Israeli military condemned the videos filmed by soldiers in this story.
“The conduct of the force evident from the images is deplorable and contrary to the orders of the military,” the military said in a written statement. It added that the “circumstances” were being investigated.
But new videos like this one from the ground continue to appear online, a reminder of the many ways social media is changing warfare. In Russia and Ukraine, soldiers now share videos straight from the battlefield, regularly posting footage of battles, sometimes even from a first-person perspective from helmet-mounted cameras. Videos showing torture have also been posted executions.
With Israel's war in Gaza under intense scrutiny, many of the soldiers' videos recorded in Gaza have sparked criticism. A was screened And five others were also mentioned as evidence in South Africa's case before the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocide, an accusation that Israel has categorically denied.
The Times traced more than 50 videos back to Israeli military combat engineering units, showing the use of bulldozers, excavators and explosives to destroy homes, schools and other civilian buildings.
Human rights experts have expressed concern about the extent of this type of destruction in areas under Israeli military control, noting that international norms of warfare require a clear military imperative to destroy civilian property.
The videos in this story have been verified by determining the dates and locations they were shot, or by confirming that the soldiers who appeared in them and their units were in Gaza around the time the footage was uploaded.
None of the soldiers who shot and posted the videos responded when asked for comment.
More than 27,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the Israeli bombardment and invasion of the enclave began, according to Gaza health authorities. The Israeli offensive followed October 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel, which Israeli officials said killed about 1,200 people.
The basics at 'Nova Beach'
After the ground invasion in late October, the Israeli army established bases along Gaza's northern coast. The area, dubbed Nova Beach by soldiers in a reference to the music festival where 364 people were killed by Hamas and its allies on Oct. 7, is the backdrop for many of the social media videos reviewed by The Times.