The brass shell casings glittered in the dirt around the Israeli commander’s combat boots. The senior officer was standing on a mound of earth looking from Israel into Gaza. A few meters away a team of Israeli snipers lay under camouflage netting, peering through binoculars and rifle scopes at a Hamas outpost on the other side of the border.

It was early last Friday afternoon and the border was quiet. But over the past weeks Israeli troops had fired thousands of bullets from positions like this as part of their mission to stop Palestinians coming through the thin barbwire fence that separates Gaza from Israel.

The commander, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, was in no doubt that those live bullets had been necessary.

“Was there an option where we could stop them cutting the fence and coming into Israel without a using a lethal weapon? The answer is no,” the commander said. “They have a hard and deep hatred of Israel and if they came into Israel I think there is no question of what they are going to do.”

At the end of six weeks of Gaza protests, during which Israel’s forces killed more than 100 Palestinians - most of whom were unarmed - and faced widespread international criticism, Israeli military officers expressed no regrets over their decisions.