Three IDF veterans who fought in Operation Protective Edge in the Gaza Strip in 2014 and the Ad Kan advocacy group have filed a joint lawsuit against the NGO Breaking the Silence.
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The lawsuit, filed Tuesday, accused Breaking the Silence of disseminating false "testimonies" about alleged human rights abuses and IDF actions during the campaign in Israel and internationally.
The three veterans are seeking 1.2 million shekels ($364,000) in damages. The lawsuit, filed by attorney Michael Dvorin and attorney Tzur Falk, legal counsel for Ad Kan, describes the testimonies in question as "each being more mendacious and malicious than the previous one," calling them blood libels published maliciously to sully the good names of the soldiers, the IDF, and the state of Israel.
Dvorin, whom Ad Kan hired to represent the plaintiffs, said that the suit was "one of the most important and justified defamation lawsuits filed in recent years. For years, the Breaking the Silence organization and its senior officials have been busy slandering IDF soldiers and turning them into 'war criminals' for things they did not do.
"This organization doesn't stop with defaming our soldiers in Israel, but does so in every corner of the globe," Dvorin said.
The suit comes on the heels of another suit recently filed against Breaking the Silence by a group of Armored Corps soldiers over testimonies about them. The testimonies in question also involved alleged incidents during Operation Protective Edge.
Breaking the Silence issued a response to the lawsuit: "This is another ridiculous legal proceeding that doesn't have a chance from the group of moles Ad Kan, whose sole purpose is to try and slip items into the media to threaten soldiers so they don't dare talk about the reality they experienced in the territories.
"The bottom line of this ridiculous lawsuit deals with the shooting death of an elderly Palestinian man who was not armed or dangerous, and not even the plaintiffs are trying to challenge that. Moreover, the lawsuit strengthens the importance of our work, and it is completely clear that this difficult story would never have come to light if it hadn't been for the soldiers' courage to break their silence.
"We are happy about the renewed discussion about the difficult, important testimonies from soldiers that we have published from the fighting in Gaza in the summer of 2014, even if the goal here is once again to goad us. We stand behind the testimonies and the brave witnesses who choose to expose the difficult reality in which they took part and are determined to continue to work without despair, until the occupation is ended," the organization said.
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