"In one of the houses that we had been in, we had the big territory. This was the closest to the citizens' neighbourhood, with people inside. And there's an imaginary line that they tell us all the Gazan people know it, and that they know they are not allowed to pass it," he said. "But how can they know?"

People who crossed into this area were most often shot, he said. "It was like pretty much everyone that comes into the territory, and it might be like a teenager riding his bicycle," he said.

The soldier described a prevailing belief among troops that all Gazans were terrorists, even when they were clearly unarmed civilians. This perception, he said, was not challenged and was often endorsed by commanders.