D9Yehuda Vach — Brig. Gen., Commander of IDF Division 252 (Netzarim corridor)
- Drew an “imaginary line” in Gaza: anyone who crossed it was shot.
- “There are no innocents in Gaza,” he told his troops — per Haaretz.
- His own soldiers exposed him; the international press barely printed his name.
Haaretz investigations based on testimony from soldiers and officers of Division 252 (December 2024–June 2025) reported that Vach told troops "there are no innocents in Gaza," enforced an unmapped, shifting "imaginary line" in the Netzarim corridor beyond which any Palestinian who crossed was shot regardless of threat — with bodies left uncollected, a zone troops called "the line of dead bodies" — ordered the unauthorized demolition of a Gaza hospital, and instituted the use of live fire to disperse civilians at aid distribution points. No international proceeding names Vach individually, but after the June 2025 Haaretz exposé Israel's Military Advocate General ordered the army's Fact-Finding Assessment Mechanism to examine the shootings of aid seekers as possible war crimes; the IDF rejected the allegations against Vach as false, and Netanyahu and Katz denounced the report as "blood libel."
The record — 8 sources
Date, publication and headline for each source, as the source itself published them. Sorted by publication date. 8 of 8 dated; a blank means the publisher's page didn't expose it, and we don't guess.