Israelis travelling to New Zealand asked to disclose details of military service: Reports
Israeli soldiers travelling to New Zealand have reportedly been asked to provide details of any military service, with at least one member of its military denied entry as a tourist.
Israeli and local media in New Zealand said visa applicants from Israel are being asked a series of questions about their time in the military, rank, units in which they served and where they served. Israelis are also being asked if they served in intelligence or a unit subject to accusations of war crimes in Gaza.
At least one Israeli soldier claimed to have been refused a visa based on their answers, according to The Times of Israel.
New Zealand’s immigration authorities denied this to local news outlet Stuff, saying they have not introduced any practices but could not discuss specific cases owing to the country’s privacy laws.
Australia has also started to require Israelis to provide details of their military service and denied two soldiers entry in December based on their answers, according to reports.
This still image from a video shows an injured Palestinian strapped to the front of an Israeli military vehicle as a human shield during a raid in Jenin, in the occupied West Bank, in June 2024
Israeli troops graffitied Gaza homes, left them ‘trashed beyond recognition’: Veterans
Breaking the Silence, an Israeli military veterans group monitoring rights violations in the occupied territory, has gathered testimony on the systematic graffitiing of Palestinian homes by troops in Gaza.
Based on testimony provided by a first sergeant in Israel’s 55th Brigade, who served in Gaza’s southern Khan Younis in 2024, the daubing of slurs, threats and sexual imagery by soldiers on walls in Palestinian homes was normalised and widespread.
“The walls are always being graffitied in the [Palestinians’] houses” in Gaza, the soldier told the organisation. “It’s pretty obvious that this graffiti isn’t something that’s allowed, but there wasn’t a single house I was in that didn’t have graffiti, not even one,” he said.
“There were children in almost all the houses we were in. We knew it for sure because you see children’s clothes. It bothered me, because they drew really sexual things, nudity, and it felt messed up to me,” he added.
“I think there was a really really big indifference towards the Palestinians and the fact that they’d have to go back to their homes. I think a lot of people believed that we had to inflict more damage, and that was their way of doing it.”
Essay Pro