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LISA MULLINS: Israel has faced harsh criticism over its conduct in its recent war in Gaza. But this week, Israeli newspapers are printing accounts from Israeli soldiers who say they witnessed the killing of civilians in Gaza. And they told of a relaxed attitude toward the reckless destruction of property in Gaza. Daniel Estrin reports from Jerusalem.

DANIEL ESTRIN: Last month, soldiers spoke to new recruits at a military prep course. They came to talk about their service in Gaza. One spoke about witnessing an Israeli sharpshooter kill a Palestinian mother and her two children. Another said he saw soldiers shoot an elderly Palestinian woman walking on the road. Danny Zamir runs the military prep school that hosted the talk. He told Israeli TV that the stories shocked him.

DANNY ZAMIR: What's the most disturbing part of the whole thing is the feeling that the soldiers spoke about. In certain units, there was a normative atmosphere of lawlessness when it comes to Palestinians, their houses, their properties and in the most extreme cases, their bodies.

ESTRIN: Zamir sent a transcript of the soldiers comments to the Israeli military. Then he sent it to the media. Now the Israeli military has launched an investigation. But army spokeswoman, Avital Lebovitch, continues to defend the army's conduct in Gaza.

AVITAL LEBOVITCH: We did everything we could to prevent civilian casualties, and I know for a fact that the moral code of the IDF is a very high standard one, and we educate our soldiers to the highest morals.

ESTRIN: It's not the first time Israel has faced sharp criticism for its actions in Gaza. But it's the first time Israelis have heard public criticism coming from those who fought the war. Eliezer Sagi is a poet in Jerusalem. He says he's not surprised by the soldiers' statements. He says, “Unfortunately, the Israeli public doesn't see this as so bad. If they've fired on us, we'll fire back. Even if we say three times a day that we are the most moral army, it's only convincing those that are screaming it.” But Ben, who only gave his first name, says the Israeli soldiers shouldn't be criticized for civilian deaths because they were trying to stop Hamas rocket fire.

BEN: This is a war, and they're not saying this Israeli is evil, this Israeli is good. They're saying all Israelis deserve this, so by reaction, we need to do the same thing to them.

ESTRIN: Michael Vyazmensky got a close up view of the fighting in Gaza. He'S is a 23 year old reservist who's served as a tank operator there. He said his commanders instructed his unit to not target civilians. But he said the orders were different from the ones he received as a soldier in the 2006 Lebanon war.

MICHAEL VYAZMENSKY: Yeah, in Gaza, we had the rights to fire. We got our orders. Our orders were less strict than in Lebanon.

ESTRIN: He described one frightening episode in Lebanon when he encountered a Hezbollah militant.

VYAZMENSKY: He was standing with his AK-47 pointing at me. And I couldn't shoot! The orders were not to shoot.

ESTRIN: Others say they've also noted a shift in military orders since Lebanon. Yehuda Shaul is founder of an Israeli veterans group called Breaking the Silence. His group collects anonymous testimonies from Israeli soldiers

YEHUDA SHAUL: And nothing what we heard until now is even close to what we heard coming out now from Gaza. Orders, the attitude of the commanders, it's a total different military.

ESTRIN: Shaul says he hopes more soldiers will come forward to provide their accounts, so Israelis can learn more about the Gaza War from those who had to fight it. For The World, this is Daniel Estrin in Jerusalem.

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