Israel's Preparations

Israel has a duty to protect its citizens and property from threats emanating from outside its borders, whether military or civilian. This is especially so when the threats emanate from the territory of a hostile entity engaged in an armed conflict against the state, and which takes place, amongst other places, on the border shared between the parties to that conflict.

Thus, the IDF was tasked by the Israeli government with defending Israel and its population from the threats described above.

What steps did Israel take to try and prevent the threats posed by these events?

Prior to the events, Israel took steps to prevent people from encroaching on the Gaza border area in order to frustrate Hamas’s intentions and prevent other attacks.

Israel conducted a largescale media effort to convey warnings against encroaching on the Gaza border area, highlighting the danger inherent in the area due to the ongoing armed conflict with Hamas and other organizations in the Gaza Strip. These warnings were directed primarily at Hamas and at the public in Gaza. Israel also made efforts to address specific audiences, such as bus companies contracted by Hamas to transport persons to the focal sites, in an effort to bring them to refuse to cooperate with Hamas.

It has been suggested that some of the warnings and statements made by Israeli officials, military or otherwise, attest to an IDF policy of unlawfully shooting civilians. This is patently false. These messages simply constituted warnings intended to convince civilians not to encroach on the security infrastructure and do not constitute statements of the IDF’s policy regarding the use of force or instructions to IDF forces.

Israel also made statements directed to the international community regarding its intention to act against the threats emanating from these events, in an effort to create pressure on Hamas to cease its actions in creating these threats.

Israel’s efforts to avoid encroachment on the Gaza border area were not limited to before 30 March 2018 and have continued since. Israel has consistently tried different methods to achieve this. These efforts have included operational activities such as dropping leaflets from the air and laying kilometers of barbed wire inside Gaza territory in order to deter people from approaching, as well as political efforts.

By undertaking these efforts, Israel sought to avoid the threats described above without having to resort to the use of force. As noted above, Israel did not view the general congregation at the focal sites as a threat, and did not take steps to prevent these activities from occurring.

How did the IDF prepare for the events?

At the same time as the above efforts, the IDF undertook preparations commensurate to the threats described above.

The IDF substantially augmented its forces deployed on the Gaza border, diverting forces from other arenas and re-stationing them on the Gaza border.

The IDF also stationed counter-terrorism forces in residential communities in the vicinity of the Gaza border, so that they may be able to respond rapidly to infiltrations and military attacks inside Israel. Military Police were stationed throughout these areas as well in order to enforce closed military zones imposed to prevent Israeli civilians from entering areas where there existed a real risk of infiltration from Gaza.

The IDF also undertook engineering works, primarily building sand berms along the border to provide defenses for IDF forces. These berms are positioned a few meters from the fenceline, behind the security road used by the IDF to patrol the fenceline and respond rapidly to events along the border.

The IDF also dug long trenches behind these positions for the purposes of delaying crowds and vehicles from reaching Israeli civilian communities.

Trenches dug behind IDF positions to delay infiltrations into Israel, and barbed wire laid by IDF forces prior to each mass event on the border.

In addition, the IDF laid barbed wire inside Israeli territory at points where it was assessed there existed the greatest threat of mass breach and infiltrations in a further attempt to delay mobs from reaching Israeli communities.

The IDF equipped its forces with sufficient amounts of non-lethal means, including tear gas, and additional soldiers were trained and accredited in the employment of such means. All units deployed to the Gaza border area were first sent to designated IDF training bases in order to undergo specially developed trainings designed to replicate the expected elements of the Gaza border events. These trainings, which have been held regularly for all forces deployed to the arena since the events began, include operating under smoke and tear gas, and include accreditation for the use of non-lethal means according to internal IDF procedures.

Prior to the events, the IDF also conducted a process of assessment of the applicable Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), including the sections that concerned contending with largescale violent riots, in order to determine whether they provided IDF forces with the ability to contend with the threats described above. Following this process, it was determined that the already existing framework provided by the SOPs for situations of violent riots, infiltrations and attacks along the Gaza border was adequate. Thus, no substantial changes were made to the SOPs, allowing commanders the discretion to decide whether to impose further restrictions where deemed necessary and feasible.

According to the IDF’s assessment that live ammunition may be required in light of the threats presented by these events, the IDF ordered that all use of live ammunition be restricted to specially-trained snipers, in order to ensure accurate and measured use of these means (except for cases in which military attacks were conducted or other situations in which IDF forces would be required to immediately use lethal force).