![F-35 stealth fighter jets at Nevatim Air Base on December 12, 2016 [Israeli Army/Anadolu Agency]](https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/20161212_2_20659291_16929756.jpg?fit=1200%2C798&ssl=1)
A former Israeli Air Force pilot called on Wednesday for an end to the massacres in Gaza and accused Western nations of supporting the ongoing genocide against Palestinians in the enclave.
“No other force in the region has killed as many innocent civilians as Israeli pilots,” Yonatan Shapira told Anadolu. Shapira resigned from the military in 2003. He served as a squadron leader in the Israeli Air Force during the second Palestinian intifada, when Israeli warplanes were sent to Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon to kill civilians.
“I began to realise that these were acts of terrorism,” he explained. Shapira recalled an air strike in which a 1,000-ton bomb was dropped on a home in one of Gaza’s most densely populated districts at midnight, killing numerous civilians, most of them children.
“The perpetrators of these massacres in Gaza should not escape justice. They must be arrested, interrogated and sentenced to life in prison,” he insisted, pointing out that if Israeli soldiers and officers knew that they would be held accountable for their crimes, they would think twice before committing massacres.
READ: Israeli public debt increases to 68% of GDP due to war costs
Shapira criticised the global silence over Israel’s military assaults in Gaza and the indirect support that some Western nations provide by supplying weapons and fighter jets.
“Most Western and European countries are complicit in this genocide,” he said. “Their failure to stop supporting Israel is the reason it continues.” Nobody has the right to remain silent, he added. “This is how the Holocaust happened to my ancestors, and this is how the genocide in Gaza is happening now.”
Shapira noted that Palestinians in Gaza know exactly who is responsible. “They find missile fragments in the rubble and can see that they were made in the UK and the US.”
The former Israeli pilot described Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government as being “worse than any bad government” and “Nazi-like.” He also accused those normalising ties with Israel of being complicit in its crimes.
Unless otherwise stated in the article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If the image(s) bear our credit, this license also applies to them. What does that mean? For other permissions, please contact us.
