An Israeli investigation revealed testimony that an officer executed a sick, elderly Palestinian woman during her evacuation from Rafah in 2024
Reposted from The Palestine Chronicle, September 21, 2026
Key Takeaways
- Soldiers testified that an Israeli officer removed a sick, elderly Palestinian woman from a military vehicle and shot her dead in Rafah.
- The woman was reportedly bound and blindfolded and posed no threat when the officer received a phone call and stopped the vehicle.
- The officer reportedly told shocked soldiers he had acted on orders from Major Menachem “Mendi” Lasri, previously implicated in a human-shield case.
Elderly Woman Taken for Evacuation
An Israeli military officer shot and killed a sick, elderly Palestinian woman who was being evacuated from an Israeli military operations area in Rafah, according to testimonies collected in an investigation by the Israeli outlet Ha-Makom.
The incident reportedly occurred during the summer of 2024, when soldiers from the 50th Battalion of the Nahal Brigade were participating in Israel’s ground invasion of Rafah and other areas of the southern Gaza Strip.
Israeli occupation forces had ordered hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to leave the area. During one logistics mission, soldiers encountered an elderly Palestinian woman who had remained behind.
According to the investigation, the woman was sick and weak and posed no threat to the soldiers. A decision was initially made to evacuate her.
Israeli soldiers placed her inside a military Humvee traveling with a logistics convoy. She was bound and blindfolded and accompanied by three soldiers, according to the report.
What followed, according to the soldiers’ testimony, turned an evacuation into an execution.
Testimonies collected by HaMakom revealed that during the military invasion into Rafah in 2024, Israeli soldiers from the Nahal Brigade’s 50th Battalion encountered a weak, elderly, and disabled Palestinian woman who remained behind after forced displacement orders. pic.twitter.com/L3Bb3L5g5S
— Gaza Behind Scenes (@gazabehindscens) September 21, 2026
‘Orders from Lasri’
During the journey, the officer accompanying the woman received a telephone call. According to the testimonies collected by Ha-Makom, he then stopped the vehicle, removed the elderly woman, shot her dead, and continued the journey.
The two soldiers traveling with him were reportedly shocked by what they had witnessed. “Orders from Lasri,” the officer told them, according to the investigation.
The reference was reportedly to Major Menachem “Mendi” Lasri, who was serving as deputy commander of the Nahal Brigade’s 50th Battalion at the time.
One soldier familiar with the incident described the killing in stark terms.
“This is the execution of an elderly woman who needed to be evacuated. This is the most brutal thing there is,” the soldier said.
“This is not destroying a house; it is not even using a human shield, because you can say that you are protecting your life that way,” he continued. “This is not an incident that you can explain in any way. In every atrocity committed by the IDF, there is usually some sort of organizational logic or tactical or strategic explanation. There is no way to justify such an act.”
Ha-Makom reported that the killing reverberated through the battalion and deeply disturbed soldiers who learned what had happened.
Elderly Man Used as Human Shield
The investigation also identified Lasri as the officer previously implicated in another case involving an elderly Palestinian civilian.
Ha-Makom reported in February 2025 that an Israeli officer had tied an explosive cord around the neck of a Palestinian man in his 80s and forced him to serve as a human shield.
According to that investigation, the elderly man was forced to walk ahead of Israeli soldiers and enter buildings they feared could contain explosives.
He reportedly spent approximately eight hours carrying out the task while walking with a cane. Soldiers threatened to detonate the explosive device around his neck if he failed to comply.
The elderly man and his wife were eventually released and instructed to head toward an area designated for civilians.
But soldiers from the 50th Battalion reportedly failed to inform other Israeli occupation forces operating nearby that the couple had been released. After walking approximately 100 meters, the elderly man and his wife were shot dead by soldiers from another battalion.
The Israeli military subsequently announced that the Military Police had opened an investigation into the case. Ha-Makom reported that the investigation remains open, but soldiers who served under Lasri told the outlet they were unaware of any soldier having been summoned for questioning.
An israeli officer was ordered by deputy Major Menachem Lasri to execute an elderly Palestinian woman in Rafah, investigation finds https://t.co/aCsjRnrWoh
— Sarah Wilkinson (@swilkinsonbc) September 17, 2026
‘Manifestly Illegal Order’
Ha-Makom said the testimonies indicated that the elderly woman’s killing was neither accidental nor the result of a battlefield mistake.
According to the soldiers, the order came from higher up the chain of command.
The investigation noted that under Israeli military law, soldiers are required to refuse what Israeli jurisprudence defines as a “manifestly illegal order.”
The principle is rooted in the landmark ruling concerning the 1956 Kafr Qasim massacre, which established that an order whose illegality is unmistakable does not carry a soldier’s normal duty of obedience.
Ha-Makom therefore raised the question of individual criminal responsibility not only for the person who allegedly issued the order, but also for the officer who allegedly carried it out.
Officer Reportedly Promoted
Despite the allegations surrounding the killing, Ha-Makom reported that the officer accused by soldiers of shooting the elderly woman was subsequently promoted and remained in the Israeli military.
Lasri, meanwhile, completed his role with the battalion in the summer of 2024. According to the investigation, his departure from that position was unrelated to the elderly woman’s killing.
He subsequently attended a battalion commanders’ course and a command and staff course and was sent for academic studies funded by the Israeli military.
Ha-Makom reported that Lasri later left the military under circumstances that remain unclear.
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