In July 2002 the Israeli air force dropped a one-tonne bomb on the home of Salah Shehadeh, the head of the military wing of Hamas, in Gaza. You don’t have to be an expert in air combat to imagine what’s left of a home hit by a one-tonne bomb. Not much. That bomb killed not only Shehadeh, but also 14 civilians, including eight children.

At that time I served as an operations officer in the Israeli air force. Like many of my friends, I found myself carrying the burden of immense responsibility at the ripe age of 20. I was responsible for relaying commands and intelligence from headquarters to pilots, preparing aircraft for operations and providing support to pilots throughout.

After the assassination, Israel shook. Even when the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) insisted that there was operational justification for the attack, public sentiment could not accommodate this assault on innocent civilians. Israeli intellectuals petitioned the supreme court, demanding it examine the legality of this action. A few months later a group of reservist pilots criticised such elimination actions.

As soldiers and officers used to carrying out our missions without asking unnecessary questions, we were affected by the public reaction. But Dan Halutz, air force commander at the time, told pilots: “Sleep well at night. Don’t pay any notice of the criticism.” One month later Halutz, asked what a pilot feels when launching a one-tonne bomb on a home, said: “A slight jolt of the jet’s wing.” To outsiders this statement sounded cold and detached, but my friends and I trusted our commanders to make the right moral decisions, and returned our focus to the “important things” – the precise execution of further operations.

A few months later I was made commander of a course for air force officers. I taught cadets how to take responsibility for their actions as officers. We studied the lessons of previous air force operations. I taught them that the IDF is the most moral army in the world, and that the air force is the most moral corps within the IDF.

I believed with all my heart that we were doing what needed to be done. If there were casualties, they were a necessary evil. If there were mistakes, they would be investigated.

Things have changed, and now I can no longer have that certainty. In 2002 the dropping of a one-tonne bomb on a home resulting in civilian deaths was the exception. The IDF eventually acknowledged that the assault on Shehadeh’s house had been wrong. They deemed it a failure in intelligence and said that, had they known there were civilians in the home, they would not have carried out the operation.

Seven years later, during Operation Cast Lead, there was widespread dropping of bombs over densely populated areas in the Gaza Strip. Today, in Operation Protective Edge, the air force boasts of having released over 100 one-tonne bombs on Gaza. What was once the exception is now the policy.

This is how it goes today. We notify the inhabitant about the imminent destruction of a house minutes before a bomb drops (via text messages, or by dropping a smaller bomb on the house as a warning). That is enough to turn it into a legitimate target for an air strike. In the past two weeks dozens of civilians have been killed in such strikes.

Homes of Hamas members have become legitimate targets, regardless of the number of people within their walls. Unlike in 2002, no one bothers to justify or make excuses.

What’s worse is that almost no one protests. Entire families are erased in a second, and the Israeli public remains indifferent. From year to year, from one military operation to another, our moral red lines are stretching further away. Where will they be in the next operation? Where will they be 10 years from now?

I know how hard it is to ask questions during times of conflict as a soldier. The information that the officers get in real time is always partial. That’s why the responsibility for drawing the red lines, and alerting when we cross it, lies with the public. A clear, loud voice that says that bombing a house with civilians in it is immoral must be heard. These killings cannot be accepted without question. Public silence in the face of such actions – inside and outside of Israel – is consent by default, and acceptance of an unacceptable price.