In response to the letter, the IDF said in a statement to the ABC: "The Intelligence Corps has no record that the specific violations in the letter ever took place." They fear they could be prosecuted and jailed for refusing a military call-up, and they are also worried about the public reaction in Israel amid heightened tension after the recent war in Gaza. "I'm worried that Israeli society will see us as traitors, as people who are trying to harm Israel, while in reality it's the opposite. Soldiers and officers in the unit act in accordance with their training and remain under the strict supervision of high-ranking officers." But it is the first public collective refusal by intelligence officers rather that combat troops. We're doing this because we feel a sense of urgency, a sense of responsibility for the place we live in," another captain said. This is not the first time Israeli soldiers have refused to serve on moral grounds. JERUSALEM — Denouncing Israel’s treatment of Palestinians under occupation, a group of veterans from an elite, secretive military intelligence unit have declared they will no longer “take part in the state’s actions against Palestinians” in required reserve duty because of what they called “our moral duty to act.” 
 
 In a letter sent Thursday night to their commanders as well as Israel’s prime minister and army chief, 43 veterans of the clandestine Unit 8200 complained that Israel made “no distinction between Palestinians who are and are not involved in violence” and that information collected “harms innocent people.” Intelligence “is used for political persecution,” they wrote, which “does not allow for people to lead normal lives, and fuels more violence, further distancing us from the end of the conflict.” 
 
 The letter, revealed Friday in Israel’s Yediot Aharonot newspaper as well as The Guardian in Britain, echoes similar periodic protests by reservists over the years, including a group of 27 pilots who refused to participate in what Israel calls targeted assassinations, and 13 members of the vaunted commando unit known as Sayeret Matkal, both in 2003. More than 40 former soldiers and current army reservists have signed a letter refusing future service in the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) military intelligence wing, known as Unit 8200. "The goal of this unit regarding Palestinians is wrong as a whole and this is what really bothered me," one former soldier told the ABC. In witness testimonies, they detail the strategies used by Israel's elite intelligence corps. "Any information that might enable extortion of an individual is considered relevant information," one soldier's statement said. But it is the most significant such incident for more than a decade, because of the number of soldiers involved and the elite reputation of their intelligence unit. Legal officers checked the order to make sure it was an OK operation to carry out. It was when I realised that what I was doing was the same job that the intelligence services of every undemocratic regime are doing. 'People are going to wish for my death', soldier says 
 
 Several Israeli soldiers who signed the letter have told the ABC they are speaking out because they believe the actions of the unit are aimed at strengthening Israel's hold over the Palestinian territories. D: At first it was just a small group of people meeting and discussing both our political opinions and also going through a process of realising what we’ve been involved with. "I feel that it's my obligation, in a sense, to do something about it – to make a stand and say, 'This is what we've been doing'," she said. The veterans believe the surveillance and intelligence gathering by Unit 8200 is not necessary for Israeli national security. "The continuous cycle of violence is something that has to be stopped and something we can't be a part of." But I realised that is running away from responsibility because I am already a part. But the group of soldiers who served in the unit has spoken out about the methods used and the toll they take on innocent civilians in the occupied Palestinian territories. It uses sophisticated technology to monitor the lives of Palestinians, gathering information which is then used by Israel's military. "Any Palestinian may be targeted and may suffer from sanctions, such as the denial of permits, harassment, extortion, or even direct physical injury." "Whenever I raised doubts or questions about the morality of things we were doing, I was always told, 'Everything is OK, we are not doing anything wrong – we are simply gathering information, there is nothing wrong with it, we are not hurting anyone'. "I'm going to have to deal with the fact that people are going to wish for my death, that they're going to call me a traitor, that they're going to treat me as if I am not an Israeli that has lived here for 26 years and who has given so much of herself to this country," one woman said. “After our service we started seeing a more complex picture of a nondemocratic, oppressive regime that controls the lives of millions of people,” said one of the group’s organizers, a 32-year-old sergeant major who was on active duty from 2001 to 2005. "What I'm doing is not helping the security of Israel in the long run," said one former first sergeant.
– The Israeli military has a new problem related to Palestinians, but this one comes from within its own ranks. Forty-three vets of a secretive intelligence unit have written an open letter to their superiors refusing to take part in any further action against Palestinians because of what they see as past abuses, reports ABC of Australia. For instance, they say Unit 8200 would gather information about an individual's sex life and use it to blackmail the person into becoming an informer. "The notion of rights for Palestinians does not exist at all, not even as an idea to be disregarded," says one of the 43. Many are current reservists. In an interview with the Guardian, three explain that the letter is not a response to the recent military offensive in Gaza. Rather, the group began forming a year ago. The New York Times points out that other members of the Israeli military have refused to serve in years past—including more than two dozen pilots who objected to targeted assassinations—but this is the first to involve members of an intelligence unit. “There are certain things that we were asked to do that we feel do not deserve the title of self-defense,” one sergeant-major tells the newspaper. “Some of the things that we did are immoral, and are against the things we believe in, and we’re not willing to do these things anymore.” Read the letter in full here.