In an interview with the BBC, aired July 25, U.S. soldier Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Aguilar, a special forces veteran of the U.S. Army Green Berets, offered a firsthand witness account of the situation in Gaza. He says that he left the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation after seeing American soldiers and the IDF killing civilians.
Below are Anthony Aguilar’s direct quotes from the interview with the BBC.
"I witnessed the Israeli Defense Forces shooting at the crowds of Palestinians."
"I witnessed the Israeli Defense Forces forces firing a main gun tank round from the Merkava tank into a crowd of people, destroying a car of civilians that was simply driving away from the site."
"I witnessed mortar rounds being fired at the crowd of people to keep them controlled."
"In my entire career, I have never witnessed the level of brutality and use of indiscriminate and unnecessary force against a civilian population. An unarmed, starving population"
"I’ve never witnessed that in all the places I’ve been deployed to war. Until I was in Gaza at the hands of the IDF and U.S, contractors. "
"Without question, I witnessed war crimes. I witnessed Israeli forces using mortar rounds, artillery rounds, firing tank rounds into unarmed civilians."