BTS publishes anonymous testimonies from soldiers who have served in the occupied Palestinian territories on its website in collections, such as “Occupying Hebron: Soldiers’ Testimonies from Hebron 2011-2017.” 

“The point of the testimony collection is not to draw out specific incidents and say, ‘Look how terrible this soldier was,’” Carmel said, “it’s to show that what we’re being sent to do is a policy that comes from above.”

Founded in 2004, BTS initially set out to collect testimonies from soldiers who served during the Second Intifada of 2000-2005. Since then, more than 1,500 former soldiers have come forward.

An entire category is dedicated to the genocide in Gaza: Since it began, BTS has seen an influx of new testimonies, especially from reservists.  

Carmel believes that the older age of reservists explains this increase in testimonies. “They are sent to do unbelievable things at a stage in their life when they have kids, a job, when they’ve made up their minds politically,” he said. “They stop and think ‘What am I doing here?’ in a way that maybe an 18 or 19-year-old doesn’t.”

Young Israelis have few spaces where conversations about the occupation are held — not even schools. 

BTS runs two political tours: one in Hebron’s H2 area, the section of divided Hebron that is under Israeli military administration, and a second in the South Hebron Hills, focusing on the village of Masafer Yatta, where Palestinians face near-daily settler violence, home demolitions and displacement.