In the first anonymous testimony, a soldier claimed that when his unit responded to a suspected price tag attack in the West Bank, the IDF trackers declined to follow footprints and other signs pointing to a nearby settlement. However, according to the police report, the IDF trackers involved and even the Palestinian victims of the “price tag” attack, the IDF trackers did find the culprit in the settlement. BtS hadn’t attempted to corroborate the soldier’s testimony with anyone else involved in the incident.
Another testimony (starting at 56:30) involved a soldier’s description of the unit commander’s general instructions that after they shoot an enemy they should put their gun “between the teeth of the terrorist and shoot.” Other soldiers from the same unit interviewed by “Hamakor” had no recollection of the event. When the journalists reached the original soldier, he said he no longer remembered the incident that way.
A third soldier (starting at 57:30) claimed that an IDF officer was fined a mere 100 shekels for killing a Palestinian child. Goren and Rom determined that the false story was debunked a decade ago and was based on nothing more than army gossip.
As previously mentioned, the veracity or lack thereof could not be determined in cases in which BtS refused to reveal the soldiers’ identities to the reporters. About these unverified stories, “Hamakor” noted that BtS had previously claimed (as quoted above) that the group would only publish “serious” allegations verified by two witnesses. When the journalists asked Yuli Novak, executive director of BtS, about this claim, she clarified that the organization doesn’t insist on “two eyewitnesses” to an incident, and will publish if it has “two sources.” The “Hamakor” presenters pointed out that this practice is not compatible with accepted journalistic standards.
https://ukmediawatch.org/2016/07/18/breaking-the-silence-gets-failing-grade-in-channel-10s-fact-check/comment-page-1/
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