Former IDF drone operator speaks out on Gaza operations

Major Nir, a pseudonym for a former Israeli Defence Forces drone operator, served for more than a decade before leaving the military after suffering severe moral injury and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), according to his account.

Nir's years of service included conducting strikes and assassinations and overseeing military operations. He initially believed that the physical distance between drone operators and their targets offered psychological protection. Over time, he said, that belief gave way to guilt, trauma and disillusionment with military accountability, reports Haaretz.

"The one sitting in the chair isn't God, but he's the one who'll decide whether to attack or not attack," Nir said.

Nir's first strike took place in August 2012, when he fired two missiles at an armoured personnel carrier breaching Israel's border from Sinai. He received a certificate of excellence for the operation, which he later described as the only strike that remained morally straightforward because of what he considered an unambiguous and imminent threat.

Over the following years, Nir said operational errors accumulated. During an ayahuasca ceremony years later, he recalled a 2014 data-entry error that resulted in the death of a Gazan farmer working in his garden.

"I saw myself as if I were the bomb... I see all the people standing there, and I feel like I'm blowing up at them," Nir said.

During a 2019 escalation with Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Nir said he asked how he should respond when children appeared in camera frames. A commander told him, "It's gray.", leaving the decision over whether to use lethal force to his conscience.

Nir later asked to move to non-combat takeoff and landing duties. He said a commander warned him: "Don't start telling stories to the pilots here and your friends, so you don't infect them... so you don't poison them."

In late 2022, Nir reviewed footage of his past strikes at an Air Force archive. He said he was shocked to hear his own eagerness during previous operations and noted that his squad had openly referred to them as "hunting missions".

"I hear myself during the operations, talking like a hunter who wants to hunt people... I couldn't believe I was hearing myself," he said.

He also said he discovered that three men he had long remembered as armed terrorists were unarmed in one video. Nir said he had effectively fabricated the memory to live with what had happened.

Service during the Gaza war

After the 7 October attacks, Nir volunteered at Air Force headquarters in Tel Aviv and served in an attack cell accompanying ground brigades operating in Gaza.

He said he observed widespread ethical and operational burnout among ground troops. According to Nir, a lack of discipline led to dangerous near-misses and incidents of friendly fire, including one that killed two Israeli paratroopers.

"The feeling was that something was broken, everyone had become cynical about death... It's not just fatigue, it's a burnout of morality, of responsibility, of the feeling that someone's still in control of the situation," Nir said.

Nir also described a case in which a division commander moved the "Yellow Line", the IDF line of control marked by concrete barriers, hundreds of metres westward into agricultural areas without higher military or political approval.

He said Palestinians who were unaware of the unauthorised shift and crossed the line were targeted, while he and other drone operators attempted to follow the original map boundaries.

Nir said consideration of collateral damage declined significantly during the war and that the criteria for selecting targets expanded.

At one point, when Nir requested computer targets at the Nahal Oz outpost, an intelligence officer responded: "You have two million targets in Gaza."

In one incident, Nir said, a multi-storey building was struck on suspicion that it housed a wanted individual. Fifteen people were killed, while the intended target was not hit.

He also described radio communications in attack cells becoming celebratory.

"The atmosphere started to be like in a soccer stadium's stands. Just like they shout to a player, 'Come on, score a goal,' they shout to a soldier, 'Kill him, attack him,'" Nir said.

Nir said he observed drone operations while militia groups engaged in arson and looting, as well as strikes involving women and people with mental disabilities who were sent towards Israeli positions by Hamas.

He described the experience of watching such events from a drone operator's position.

"You're literally sitting and watching the hardest movie you can see. You see everyone's faces. You see the children, the parents, the families, the women who come, crying, begging for help," he said.

Rafah incident

The event that Nir described as permanently breaking him occurred on 23 March 2025, in the Tel al-Sultan neighbourhood of Rafah.

From a trailer filled with screens, Nir said he watched Golani Brigade ground troops ambush a convoy of clearly identifiable emergency ambulances operating with their sirens on.

"These were clearly identifiable as emergency vehicles, even when ground fire opened on them... Without any apparent reason, the ground troops stormed the convoy. They shot at the first vehicle, the medical staff exited, hid behind the ambulances and pleaded for their lives, and the soldiers shot them, one after another," Nir said.

According to his account, medical staff left the vehicles as ground fire opened, hid behind the ambulances and pleaded for their lives before being shot one by one by ground troops.

"The trigger finger was very light. People lost their humanity," Nir said.

Radio reports initially said 15 Hamas operatives were present, before the figure was reduced to 12 and eventually to three suspects, Nir said.

The bodies were buried at the site, while the ambulances were crushed and buried by a Caterpillar D9 bulldozer.

The IDF initially described the incident as an identification error. The Military Advocate General later ordered the Military Police Criminal Investigation Division to investigate.

For Nir, the incident demonstrated that soldiers could kill without accountability.

"After this incident, I realized that anyone can kill whoever they want, as much as they want, and they won't be held accountable for it," he said.

"For me, something broke there. I felt that I wasn't just witnessing a challenging operational event, but an entire system capable of containing it and moving on as if nothing had happened," Nir said.

Trauma and rehabilitation

Nir suffered severe PTSD, anxiety attacks, psychosis and sleep disturbances. During one episode, he harmed his partner.

He said he used drugs, including cannabis, MDMA and ketamine, to numb his trauma, describing substance use as a quiet and widespread coping mechanism among reservists.

Nir said his experiences also changed how he viewed himself.

"I started to hate myself and was afraid people would hate me. I really felt like a Nazi, as if I had murdered. On a trip to Europe, I told strangers I was a murderer," he said.

During a Purim party in 2026 at the Tower of David in Jerusalem, Nir experienced a severe psychotic break. He hallucinated that the tower was a mosque in Gaza and lost track of his surroundings.

He spent four months undergoing rehabilitation at Kfar Izzun, a therapeutic facility for PTSD and addiction.

After he began sharing his experiences and filed a claim with the Defence Ministry for mental injury, Nir said former squad members cut off communication with him.

The IDF Spokesperson said: "Combatants and drone system operators receive full support in the field of mental health. All operators have undergone and continue to undergo tailored debriefing and support processes."

The spokesperson added: "The IDF calls on every soldier and service member experiencing distress to approach their commanders, share their situation and receive the necessary assistance and support."

The IDF also said it had not been provided with identifying details before publication that would allow it to address Nir's specific case.