TEHRAN - Zionists have perpetrated heinous crimes against Palestinian people since their arrival in Palestine. 

To create the Israeli apartheid regime, Zionist forces attacked major Palestinian cities and destroyed hundreds of villages. 

When Israel was established in 1948, more than 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes. This was the climax of the Zionist ethnic cleansing of Palestine. 

After Israel’s creation, the regime not only persisted in its brutalities against Palestinians but also seized more Palestinian lands. 

Israel’s war on Gaza which began in October last year, has further exposed the regime’s true colors. Over the past 14 months, the brutality of vicious Zionists has snowballed into cold-blooded savagery. 

Since then, the Israeli army has slaughtered more than 45,000 Palestinians, including 17,000 children in Gaza.

Harrowing reports have also shed light on the inhumane torture of Palestinians in Israeli jails in particular in the Sde Teiman prison. 

Haaretz essay: “An Israeli commander grabbed a little 4-year-old Palestinian boy playing in the sand in his yard, broke his arm at the elbow and stepped on his stomach three times and left, saying these kids need to be killed from the day they are born.”Yoel Elizur, emeritus professor of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (al-Quds), has researched Israeli soldiers' experience with brutalization. He wrote an essay that appeared in the daily Haaretz newspaper.

His essay describes gruesome details of the crimes committed by Israeli military forces. 

Elizur, also a psychologist, refers to a group of ruthless soldiers, who confessed to violence before the draft. He said the power they received in the army is intoxicating: "It's like a drug ... you feel like you are the law, you make the rules. As if from the moment you leave the place called Israel and enter the Gaza Strip, you are God." 

Elizur, who was the chief supervisor of the Israeli army’s Rear Rehabilitation Centers (RRCs), addressed several serious offenses committed by Israeli soldiers.

"I have no problem with women. One threw a slipper at me, so I gave her a kick here (pointing to the groin), broke all this here. She can't have children today."
"X shot an Arab four times in the back and got away with a self-defense claim. Four bullets in the back from a distance of ten meters ... cold-blooded murder. We did things like that every day."

"An Arab just walked down the street, about 25 years old, didn't throw a stone, nothing. Bang, a bullet in the stomach. Shot him in the stomach, and he was dying on the sidewalk, and we drove away indifferently."

Elizur cited an instance to illustrate how junior Israeli officers instigate atrocities.

"A new commander came to us. We went out with him on the first patrol at six in the morning. He stops. There's not a soul in the streets, just a little 4-year-old boy playing in the sand in his yard. The commander suddenly starts running, grabs the boy, and breaks his arm at the elbow and his leg here.

He stepped on his stomach three times and left. We all stood there with our mouths open. Looking at him in shock ... I asked the commander: "What's your story?" He told me: These kids need to be killed from the day they are born. When a commander does that, it becomes legit."

In reference to the Israeli crimes since the start of the Gaza war, Elizur said the Israeli cabinet’s rhetoric of hatred and revenge has led to the mass killing of civilians in Gaza. 

Palestinian prisoners released by the Israeli army have also described severe physical and psychological torture they experienced behind bars. 

Israel claims to be the only democracy in the Middle East (West Asia). At least Elizur’s essay has taken the lid off Israel’s self-proclaimed democratic status.