Breaking The Silence

BREAKING THE SILENCE
Women Soldiers’ Testimonies
Somehow, a female combatant has to prove herself more, on the ground too. Again,
a female combatant who can lash out is a serious fighter. Capable. A ball-breaker.
There was one with me when I got there, she’d been there long before, she was
– wow, everyone talked about what grit she had, because she could humiliate Arabs
without batting an eyelash. That was the thing to do.
... I think guys need to prove themselves less in this respect, but it was not clearly
stated. We did talk about how the tough female-combatant has no problem beating
up Arabs. It’s obvious, you don’t even need to spell it out. This one means business,
you should see her humiliating them – there was no problem to say something like
this out loud. Take a look at that one, a real ‘ball-breaker,’ see her humiliating them,
slapping them, what a slap she gave that guy! You hear this kind of talk all the time.
Breaking the Silence is an organization of veterans who served in the Israeli
army during the Second Intifada (since September 2000), and have taken it upon
themselves to expose the Israeli public to everyday life in the Occupied Territories,
a routine situation that is never reflected in the media. An alternative information-
conduit thus becomes accessible to the public at large about what the daily goings-
on in Israel’s back yard. Breaking the Silence came into being in March 2004, and
has since acquired a special standing for both the public and the media, bringing
forth the voices of soldiers who had previously remained silent. The ultimate goal
of Breaking the Silence is to stimulate public debate about the moral price that
Israeli society as a whole has been paying for a reality in which young soldiers face
a civilian population on an everyday basis and control its life. All the testimonies we
publish undergo meticulous research, including cross-checking facts with additional
eye-witnesses and /or archives of other human rights organizations which are also
active in the field. True to our journalistic effort, the identity of our sources is not
exposed and remains confidential. The testimonies published here are unedited and
presented in their original form, except for details that are withheld in order to conceal
the identity of specific testimony-bearers, and/or clarifications of military jargon.
Printed in Jerusalem, 2009

Breaking the Silence
Breaking the Silence activities are made possible through the generous support of
individuals and foundations including: The Moriah Foundation, The New Israel
Fund, ICCO, SIVMO, Oxfam GB, The British Embassy in Tel Aviv, the EU, and
the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation.
This booklet was produced and duplicated thanks to funding from the EU,
and the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation.
The content or opinions expressed in this booklet do not represent the EU or the Spanish
Agency for International Development Cooperation, and are solely the responsibility of
Breaking the Silence.

This booklet is a product of “Soldiers Speak Out,” the testimonies collection project
of Breaking the Silence. Since 2004, we have collected hundreds of testimonies from
those who have, during their service in the IDF, the Border Guard, and the Security
Forces, played a role in the Occupied Territories. We are talking about the best of
the sons and daughters of Israeli society, sent by that society each and every day to
control a civilian population. The encounter with those who have lived under military
control for more than 40 years leaves an impression, but is nevertheless hidden from
the eyes of society, which are inclined not to recognize the character of the mission
on which it sends its youth. Only those who wear uniforms are acquainted with the
daily realities. The cruelty required to fulfill the mission and the dissolution of ethical
sensibility under the routine of controlling neighborhoods, communities and families
are missing from the public discourse in Israel. In contrast to widely held beliefs, the
mosaic of testimonies that only continues to expand proves that we are not dealing
with a fringe phenomenon that touches only the bad apples of the military, but a
gradual erosion of ethics in the society as a whole.
This booklet comes in a long line of publications and testimony collections that
Breaking the Silence has published in the past few years; it is also the first of its
kind. The testimonies collected here are all from women who served in various units
and roles in the Occupied Territories since the year 2000. This collection uncovers a
reality that many female soldiers were exposed to during their military service. Female
officers, commanders and soldiers, who served as combatants and in supporting
combat roles, describe how they dealt with complex situations on the ground.
Many of the testimonies in this collection alternate between a semi-external perspective,

observing the action from the side, and full participation in what occurs. These perspectives
shed additional light on what happens in the back yard of the State of Israel.
The booklet that is in your hands contains testimonies selected from interviews with
more than 40 women breaking their silence, who join hundreds of soldiers whose
testimonies have been published in the past. This booklet is an additional example
of the ethical and societal cost of the missions with which the security forces have
been charged.
These women breaking their silence shed light through their testimonies on how acts
that were defined yesterday as “exceptional” become the norms of tomorrow, how
Israeli society continues to slide down an ethical slippery slope together with the entire
military system. This is an upright stance against the stubborn majority who refuse to
know the facts that are created by the extant reality.
www.breakingthesilence.org.il
This is an urgent call to Israeli society and its leaders to wake up and evaluate anew
the results of our actions.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank the many volunteers and supporters
who made possible the publication of this booklet. Without their support and
assistance, these important testimonies would never reach those who must come
to know them.

Testimony 1
Name: *** | Rank: First Sergeant | Unit: Border Patrol | Location: General
Somehow, a female combatant has to prove herself more, on the ground too. Again,
a female combatant who can lash out is a serious fighter. Capable. A ball-breaker.
There was one with me when I got there, she’d been there long before, she was
– wow, everyone talked about what grit she had, because she could humiliate Arabs
without batting an eyelash. That was the thing to do.
The entry ‘ticket’?
Yes, kind of. When I got to the company they were on operations maneuvers, and I
got the highest marks, guys included. I was in the top ten. They were all impressed
and at first I had a really good reputation, until I was out in the field and they realized
I wasn’t that tough. On the ground I wouldn’t apply my capabilities. Like, she’s fit and
she can punch and she’s a ‘karate-kid’ and all that doesn’t really show when she’s
out there. Not because I didn’t give a shit. No, I was too wimpy. First of all, I didn’t like
to cut guard duty. I can’t say I didn’t fall asleep on any shift. We all do. But I wasn’t
too keen on cutting the job and going out to do this and that. Sure, let’s take a ride to
this or that village because you know, routine drives you crazy, but I wasn’t too keen
on going wild. So I had a problem. But right at first people really appreciated me.
What would you talk about with your roommates?
Depends which. Again, it varies.
Was it obvious or implied that this was the ‘entry ticket’ for girls, to belong?
I think guys need to prove themselves less in this respect, but it was not clearly
stated. We did talk about how the tough female-combatant has no problem beating
up Arabs. It’s obvious, you don’t even need to spell it out. This one means business,
you should see her humiliating them – there was no problem to say something like
this out loud. Take a look at that one, a real ‘ball-breaker,’ see her humiliating them,
slapping them, what a slap she gave that guy! You hear this kind of talk all the time.
***
Testimony 2
Name: *** | Rank: Lieutenant
Unit: Hebron Regional Brigade/Education Corps Officer | Place: Hebron
As an officer in Hebron, one day I went out to the gate to hitch a ride. It was extremely
cold and I was wearing my fleece jacket, which does not show my officer rank. I stood
there with the other guys. Across the road was this kind of bus stop where Palestinian
detainees would be seated to wait for the Shabak to pick them up and take them
to the *** detention center. The guys on guard duty at the brigade HQ base were
on routine security shifts, they are assigned for these ongoing security runs from all
kinds of office jobs in rear units like the air force and so on. They would stand guard
at the camp gate. So, standing there I see these two guys pacing around a detainee
– blindfolded, his hands shackled behind his back. Suddenly I see that one of the guys
simply approaches him and, without any warning, knee-kicks him in the head.
My gut-reaction was instant: I leapt at this guy, caught him and said: “You’re coming
with me now.” He didn’t understand what on earth a woman-soldier is doing ordering
him around. He shoved me off, this was a big guy - he pushed me away and ran into
the barracks. I was all wound up at that point. I left the gate, hurried upstairs straight
to the brigade commander’s and deputy-commander’s office. The commander
wasn’t there, the deputy was. I went up to him and told him what happened and he
said, “Go with our deputy operations-officer and find that fellow.”
I went with the ops-officer, the guy must have hidden somewhere on the base, we
couldn’t find him. When we returned to the deputy-commander and told him we
hadn’t found him and that we’d go looking for him again in a few hours, he said:
“Let it go, it’s pointless. Anyway there are and there will be many such cases,” or
something in that vein. I don’t recall his exact words, but that was the message: let it
go, no need to pursue this. It was one of the instances I had a very hard time with.
***
Testimony 3
Name: *** | Rank: First Sergeant | Unit: Border Patrol | Location: Seam Zone
There was this 5-1 patrol authorized around Umm al-Fahm. And there was a patrol

on foot, for some reason called ‘lookout watch’ although most of the time it was
not doing that at all, it was simply a foot-patrol amongst the trees there, meant to
seize as many illegals (Palestinians illegally inside Israel) as possible. In theory, catch
every one of them, check his ID, and of course see if it’s green or orange, namely
Palestinian. Check it against the diarist who would check it on the computer and
if some sort of investigation is called for – he is to be detained. If not – “go home!”
get back. And of course make sure he doesn’t go around the trees right back into
Israel.
You said there are huge numbers of illegals.
Sure, and it cannot be totally prevented. That’s why when I’m asked for my opinion of
the Separation Fence, politically I cannot oppose it one-hundred percent. Something
has to set a border because it was really… And they crossed over, they crossed
every single day. You cannot ignore the fact that they did. Our aim was to prevent
the maximum possible, and especially by this ‘lookout watch,’ on foot, usually two
soldiers, often neither of them a commander - simply two combatants. Often I’d be
with a combatant who was younger than me and I was in command, and we simply
hid in spots where we knew we would not be seen, among the trees, and we’d
suddenly leap out, and “come here, show me your ID” and all of that.
Was there violence?
All the time.
What kind?
First of all, just plain harassment. Keeping them on their feet, because if you’re really
gung-ho and got up that morning rearing to go and catch some, you could easily
hunt down thirty people in a half-hour. The point is you had to detain them. You
couldn’t get them and check them out one by one. You had to catch the guy, seat
him and wait for others. And often they would come in large groups. Again, when
they move in large groups obviously they’re not out on a terrorist mission, that’s not
exactly the recommended mode of action… So you catch them and make them
stand in formation.
Formation?
Yes. Stand in formation, and there’s that famous Border Patrol rhyme - Wahad
hummus, wahad ful, ana bahibbak Mishmar HaGvul (One plate of hummus, one
plate of beans, I love you Border Patrol)… They’re made to sing it. Sing and hop. Just
like rookies, the kind of hazing stuff in basic training, about which soldiers’ parents
are always raising hell. It’s the same thing. Only much worse. If anyone laughs, or the
soldiers decide he’s laughed, he gets punched. Why did you laugh? Boom, a fist. He
doesn’t really have to laugh to get that punch. I feel like punching him. Why did you
laugh? Boom.
How long does this last?
It can last for hours. It depends how bored the soldiers are, they can stretch it out for
two hours. It’s an eight-hour shift. Got to get through it somehow.
And who is made to stand in formation?
Everyone, all age groups.
Women? Children? Elderly people?
Yes. Whoever shows up. Whoever shows up, stands in formation. There were the
more sensitive soldiers who’d let the women and elderly go. I’d say the elderly were
less harassed. And there were soldiers who’d harass the elderly. Like in any society,
this company too, some soldiers abused more and others less. Some had absolutely
no restraint and abused anyone.
***
Testimony 4
Unit: Gaza Division / Education Corps Officer | Location: Gaza Strip
I can describe to you the everyday routine of combat service in very general terms;
I wasn’t a part of this combat routine. I can talk about my own routine and what it
was like for me to be in Gaza. Since my second night there, I think – I was learning
the ropes from the officer I was about to replace – during my first night I had a hard
time falling asleep because I was constantly startled awake by mortar fire, after all,
I originally came from a unit that is not exactly army in the strict sense and I didn’t
realize what that meant. She told me: “You get used to it.” So the second night, I got
used to it and even in my quarters, when I kept hearing blasts, I didn’t turn my head,
it no longer startled me. You do get used to it. It means traveling down to Ashqelon
every Sunday morning (after Sabbath leave), and then getting into some secured bus
to cross Kisufim Checkpoint and enter another world which – no matter how much
time I’d spend there, a week or two at a time – always seemed like being inside a
movie. And I realized I was in a movie every time I’d get out of there. Every time I
realized I am free to move and can walk around, and people are not wearing ceramic

bullet-proof vests… And that I don’t get home at 12 noon and there’s shooting and
the PA system announces we have to enter safe rooms and no one bothers to do
that anymore because how much can you stand of this, or go get newspapers in this
secured Mercedes they got out of Lebanon or I have no idea where, and looking,
driving on a straight paved road and seeing a dangerous winding dirt track on my right
and seeing Palestinian children going to school there, riding a donkey and watching
me with frightened, hateful eyes, that’s what my routine was like. And beyond that,
there were all kinds of incidents.
How does such constant routine pressure affect you? How did it affect you
personally?
The truth is I only confronted it in retrospect, after leaving. Suddenly I realized to what
extent I had not been a human being out there. I read some of the emails I sent my
girlfriends, and I have no idea who wrote them. I have no idea how I managed not to
shoot myself in the head every morning. We’d stay up – some junior officers of the
human resources section, let’s say – every night until 3-4 a.m. just to be together,
after the soldiers were gone, to vent and cry on each other’s shoulder.
What about? What is the difference between being a ‘normal human being’
and being there?
I don’t know, it’s like a movie with a lot of death around you, an unreasonable reality,
with soldiers doing inhuman things to others and to themselves. It means guarding
and guarding and guarding and guarding and guarding, and doing irrational things
to other people.
***
Testimony 5
Name: *** | Rank: Sergeant | Unit: Nahal | Location: General
I don’t exactly recall my own deliberations, but I do remember not always managing
to deal with my own reactions. I knew I was not real, I knew that something here was
just not right. If I pass a seated person and spit at him, and call him a terrorist because
I’ve decided he’s a terrorist, then something here is just not right. And that’s what I tell
everyone: come take a look at the blood of someone who’s dead, it’s not right.
I remember having that feeling, but still you get carried away, people encourage
you. And that a certain incident has not been ‘action’ enough yet, let’s turn this into
‘action,’ let’s laugh about it and get our pictures taken with the detainees because
it’s okay for me to get this photo with two guys, our soldiers, smiling and someone
with his eyes…
Did they give this to you as a gift?
Yes.
What did you think of this gift?
Cool. I showed it to my mom. Yes, cool. And I tell her: I was next to him, I saw it
happen.
Were you photographed too?
No.
Did you take pictures?
No.
Why not?
Because it scared me. I was scared I’d get, I don’t know, I’d get thrilled with guys who
did get their pictures taken: Yes, take his picture, take his picture. But not, somehow
something like this did seem a bit shocking to me. Having in my own camera a shot
like that. I don’t know, even though it’s cool, I thought it was cool. Look what kind of
action I’m a part of in the army, and I’m a woman-soldier with a low profile and look
what kind of stuff I get to witness, and where I’ve gotten to and what fun.
***
Testimony 6
Name: *** | Rank: Sergeant | Unit: Paratroopers | Location: Nablus
My boyfriend at the time lived in the central part of the country. We always traveled
from my parents’ place to his parents’, and once on a bus he was really stressed.
I asked him: what’s wrong? Normally he was always the clown, everything he did
was really funny. So he said: “I’m troubled by some things that happened last week
on one of our patrols.” He was crew-commander, and they were off searching for a
wanted man or something like that, he told me about some things that happened
there, and suddenly it all opened up, and I think it was the longest ride I ever took to
his place. Then he said they knocked on some house door, knocked hard and no one
10
opened. They said, okay, either people inside are busy hiding something, or they’re
getting ready to attack us. He wasn’t sure whether to break in or not. They went on
knocking on the door and then he pushed it open and saw a crippled old lady without
legs, creeping on the floor and trying to reach them, she simply couldn’t make it. He
told me he had never seen anyone so terrified, and he’d seen a lot, this was after
about four years in the army. And then he ordered everyone to move back and they
closed the door and simply went away. But it doesn’t always end that way.
***
Testimony 7
Name: *** | Rank: Sergeant | Unit: Border Patrol | Location: Allenby Bridge
I enlisted on November 7th, 2001, doing my army basic training in Camp 80, near
Hadera. I knew where I’d be assigned eventually, knew that I would eventually not be
wearing army fatigues. I got this Border Patrol dress-uniform, and they told me where
to report after my leave. I got there. It was some unfamiliar god-forsaken place and
I had no idea whether I was still inside my own borders, I mean I didn’t even know if
this was still Israel, this amazing place I had reached. god-forsaken, but amazing.
Where?
Northern Dead Sea. South Jordan Valley. Jericho. A 40 minute drive east of Jerusalem.
That’s where I was. I mean that’s where I arrived. From the army base we were taken
directly to the Bridge. The Allenby Bridge. I started after the course, I mean the
course I took before enlisting, in Petach Tikwa.
In January 2002, I began my term as a border-controller, accountable to the following
superiors: Ma’ale Adumim police, I mean the civilian police of the Ma’ale Adumim
settlement; the Border Patrol of course, I was considered a Border Patrolwoman; the
Israeli airports authority, the Ministry of the Interior, and others. My job was to try to
detect hostile individuals,
I mean, the main thing here is to control the flow of people in and out of Israeli
territory, or Jordan. Border control, travel documents, which means people that have
no passports. East Jerusalem residents have no passports, okay? They come and
go with either a laissez-passer or their blue (Israeli resident) ID, okay? Or say both
they and the Palestinians proper, who are the absolute majority of those entering and
exiting. It means that until about half a year before I got there, the job I did vis-à-vis
the Palestinians was done by Palestinian police who, since the Oslo Accords, they
were accountable by law, along with the Israeli police, for everything connected with
both borders and patrols.
Since Oslo? And when was this changed?
I believe this changed in September 2000, along with everything else. My military
service at Allenby Bridge from January 2002 until August 2003 was the height of the
Second Intifada. And when I say the height of the Intifada I mean that all my friends
who were then in the army as combatants, at checkpoints, and as Border Patrolmen
– they all had much more work than I did, I was the Palestinians’ last stop after
waiting for hours and wilting in the heat at the checkpoints in Nebi Musa, sleeping
there and washing themselves out of buckets before they reached me and then leave
for Jordan. And the Jordanians, too, gave them trouble before returning. In other
words, after they crossed the Jordanian border, they came to us and went home.
You would also check their permits?
Check permits but also try to detect, you know, I mean you work there with Israeli
intelligence people who try to detect stuff all the time, it’s part of the whole thing. But
that’s not the point, I don’t know to what extent I should go into details with you,
it’s not even that relevant. The point is the whole atmosphere there, and my own
experience of this work at the bridge. When I got there I thought: What am I doing
here, what is this nonsense? I want to be out there getting my nose dirtied, like other
Israeli women-soldiers. What am I doing here in this dress-uniform? But with time,
I counted my blessings for not being out there, it changed my idea of things. You see
little children, you see fathers and mothers, and young and not-so-young men and
you, as banal and obvious as it sounds – I didn’t realize this before - you learn to look
these people in the eye and they look at you, see? I don’t think serving anywhere
else would have changed my views so much and opened my mind to see what really
happens, how complicated it really is to be Palestinian. I mean, they have a passport,
an emblem, national colors and flag, they have it all – so what are we doing there?
I mean, why am I there? I am not Palestinian, why should I be letting them in and out?
I mean, the feeling, my presence there in those halls, was like: here I am, dominating
you, from here on out I’m the policewoman in charge… When you realize you’re
supposed to seat a young woman or man just like that on a bench for five hours
straight, and then release them, for what?
What was that incident?
Strange to say it, but there are no problems with their exit. I mean, let them go, what
12
do we care? As soon as they want to enter, here too, at the airport, there are many
more problems, right? More inspections. Most of the difficulties I ran into were around
re-entry into Israel or the Territories or what have you. Say a man and a woman arrive
and after we check their documents they are told they have to stay and be detained
and I’m the one who has to keep going over there and telling these young men or
women: listen, guys, you’ve got to wait here, on these chairs. Sorry, again, and then
find out that all that waiting, those five hours, and they still were not called forth.
How come it dragged out for five hours?
No answer. There is no answer. I don’t know if it was five hours, or three, or two, or
just an hour, right? Maybe it was more, maybe less. I don’t think more, but certainly
less. I couldn’t go over and tell them what to do. I was just there as a kind of buffer, an
instrument, and with that whole engagement, I was different there, the odd one out
among the other girls who served there with me. I mean, I tried to be – to smile and
be – I mean even if humaneness is not such a relevant idea here, I still tried. I really
did try. I mean, there was this case where I had some chewing gum in my pocket
and I saw these kids there and said, okay, I’ll give them some. This was extreme. An
extreme act. People stared at me there, I mean the other policewomen who were
with me there, who served with me.
***
Testimony 8
Name: *** | Rank: First Sergeant | Unit: Border Patrol | Location: Jenin
There was this one occasion that was – to this day I don’t know what exactly
happened there but I don’t think anyone tried to really find out exactly – there was
this patrol where they detected someone near the fence. They chased him, saw him
somewhere close to the fence, and began to chase him. He managed to escape,
ran, jumped over the fence, they yelled at him to stop and fired. They shot in the air
– as they say – shot in the air in the lungs… They chased him within the Israeli zone,
near the fence, he jumped over the fence, and they shot and killed him. When he was
already inside the Occupied Territories and constituted absolutely no threat. He was
killed by the first shot so it was not shooting in the air but rather “the air in the lungs.”
He was hit in the belly. The guys claimed he mounted a bicycle and that’s why his
legs couldn’t be targeted.
Who was there?
It was a patrol of four Border Patrolmen.
And each had a different version?
Same version. They fitted up their version that very moment.
What were they concerned about? The investigation that would be held if
someone got killed?
An investigation was carried out. First they said it was really an unjustified killing. He
was a child, about nine years old. Something like that.
Nine?
Pretty young, yeah.
Where did this take place?
Around Jenin. Eventually the army claimed he was doing something there, like
checking escape spots for terrorists. I don’t know how they suddenly came to that
conclusion. I’m sure the patrol at that point didn’t assume that anything explosive
was involved. And that was that, the file was closed.
***
Testimony 9
Unit: Hebron Regional Brigade/Medical Corps | Location: Hebron
They (Palestinian detainees) were taken for medical examination before being arrested.
I remember one case near Karmei Tzur. We had a field headquarters there, with the
brigade-commander and all the officers. There were trucks and Safaris and all kinds
of vehicles, after this arrest operation, and detainees were brought in. There were
many that night. Every once in a while, a detainee would arrive and was examined by
the doctor. I was there all night, staying up with coffee and cigarettes, with occasional
evaluations and checkups. I went to see what it’s like, what it really looked like.
Some detainees were sitting there in a Safari, blindfolded and shackled, that’s how
they were watched over, and some medics were there too. I don’t remember this
specifically, I mean I can’t really recall details, but someone looked like he’d really
been beaten up badly, and the doctor said: Now, what’s this? He seemed to be
14
irritated with the soldiers, and they told him: Well, that’s how these things go. Or, it
happened during the arrest. And it was not that clear whether this happened during
the actual arrest or afterwards. And he (the doctor) confirmed the examination and
said: Okay, you can take him in.
***
Testimony 10
Name: *** | Rank: First Sergeant | Unit: Oketz (search dogs) | Location: General
Why are search dogs necessary at checkpoints?

It is now more relevant because there are these back-to-back checkpoints, the larger
checkpoints that are like a large structure, as in Bituniya. I don’t know if you’ve
seen it lately. It’s very similar to a terminal. A closed compound where the trucks are
unloaded, and the dog is supposed to be inside, going over everything. It’s one of the
inspections. So we also had this for vehicles. Especially when there were alerts, the
dogs would be summoned and do the inspection. With us, at first, as a small crew, it
worked especially around alerts.
You spoke earlier about the attitude of soldiers at the checkpoint.
I’m an outsider there, since I don’t do routine security patrols, I don’t do eight-hour
shifts at the checkpoint, I don’t do all of that. So in a way I’m more objective at the
checkpoint, I regard myself less as someone who’s really getting burnout from being
there so much and is sick of it all, seeing all that really takes place at the checkpoint,
sees more Arabs and responds accordingly. There were many guys there, especially
at checkpoints with Border Patrolmen and such and you’d see how they talk. You’d
tell them: Okay they’re Arabs, but still these are humans… Total disrespect. They’d
make fun of them, harass them.
For example?
Nothing specific, just a general dismissing attitude. I don’t know, treating them as if
they’re a piece of shit, never mind if it’s a family with children arriving in a car, I mean
just wanting to get to their relatives or something. On the one hand it’s understandable
for you can’t know, they might be transporting something in their trunk, but on the
other hand these are people. You’ve got to check them, I’m not saying you don’t, but
to treat them like that… I don’t know.
Was your dog ever used to humiliate Palestinians?
To humiliate them? I was told to “come, scare them.” I didn’t agree, it seemed
unreasonable to me. If it’s just to stand there at the checkpoint, say after the dog has
worked really hard and it’s tired, and I know it wouldn’t smell anything, and still I stand
by for deterrence. But not to deliberately scare Arabs.
I know that being inspected by a dog is humiliating.
No, it wasn’t… The problem is that people were very sensitive about dogs. They
said, I’ll open up the whole car for you, just don’t bring the dog in. Because they
(Muslims) see it as a really unclean animal. But we wouldn’t use dogs on the people
themselves, we’d just check their belongings. After all, it’s just a car, what’s a car?
I mean, just the vehicle. Not their person. And we’d try not to dirty up stuff, if possible,
inside the car. Still, it’s an inspection you have to carry out. (…) Or, say, until I realized
this, there were vehicles where soldiers would tell me, “Go on, check it.” And there
wasn’t too much stuff inside. I said, Listen… “Check it, check it.” And it was just
someone the soldiers wanted to harass, so they used me for this and it took me a
while until I realized this. At first I couldn’t figure out why they were sending me to
these people.
You’re in a different position?
No. There’s a place, in every checkpoint, where you pass vehicles. Not everywhere,
there are checkpoints where it was really checking the whole lineup. But they’d do
random checks. They’d pick a vehicle and tell the driver: pull over here, and that’s
where I’d check it. So it wouldn’t block the traffic and it’s easier that way for me too.
How many vehicles get through there per hour?
Depends on the day, depends on the alerts. Essentially there’s always a waiting line,
nearly always. There’s always some kind of traffic blockage.
***
Testimony 11
Name: *** | Rank: Sergeant | Unit: Erez Crossing | Location: Gaza Strip
Say there was this procedure, before you released a Palestinian back into the Strip,
you’d take him into the tent and beat him up.
That was the procedure?
16
Yes. Together with the commanders. The commanders took part in this.
How long?
Not much. Within 20 minutes they’d be back on the base, but they’d stop at the
outpost, on the hill there’s this tent. They’d stop there, have coffee, a smoke, and
the soldiers from the field headquarters would beat him up in the meantime. With the
commander.
This would be done to every illegal caught on the ground?
Not many came. It’s not something you did all day long, but there was this procedure.
I don’t know if every single one was treated like that, there were some who were
probably just released. But even if I let an illegal go at my side of the checkpoint,
until he’d get to Gaza he’d go through hell. It took me a while to realize this, that it’s
not that simple. I noticed it took such a long time until they’d get to Gaza, until I had
the report from the last outpost, these roads are so long. Until he got there, until I
got the report that he entered the Strip, two or three hours could go by. In the case
of that kid, it took all night long, which is crazy. It’s no more than a ten-minute walk.
They’d be stopped along the way and every soldier would take his turn beating him.
Commanders, too.
***
Testimony 12
Name: *** | Rank: Sergeant | Unit: Field Intelligence | Location: Gaza Strip
Binoculars, too, are considered incriminating equipment (namely, activating open-fire

instructions – in case of incrimination, shoot to kill). It’s called incrimination. Why?
Because they’re gathering pre-assignment intelligence about the army.
What happens if you see someone with binoculars?
It’s almost the same thing. Depending on alerts and all, but it’s almost the same as
with weapons.
You look for binoculars?
I don’t… Well, in a way yes. There are lots of binoculars. They stand at high places
looking at the army forces always, all the time.
Children too?
Yes. They’re sent there. So what if it’s a child? This child, eventually, in a few years,
he’ll… What’s a child? A 13-year-old is a child? Yes, sometimes children.
I’m trying to understand how things work, how many binocular cases and
how many weapons cases, and what is done about them.
Especially when weapons are detected… First of all, binoculars – that means they’re
preparing, collecting preliminary intelligence to come and carry out a certain incident
eventually, and that’s how we can also tell where the next incident will take place.
We’re involved in assessing the situation and such. And weapons, when someone
approaches our area with weapons, that means he intends to open fire on our forces,
enter Israeli territory. He doesn’t approach the fence armed, just for the sake of it.
***
Testimony 13
Name: *** | Rank: Sergeant | Unit: Shimshon | Location: Gush Etzion
As an education corps NCO, what is expected of you?

Many things. Especially to explain the mission to the soldiers and educate them to
really stick to their objectives.
Isn’t that what the commanders are there for?
Okay, an education corps NCO works alongside the commander and helps him make
his soldiers internalize Israeli army values. Again, perseverance in mission is first and
foremost, and of course the purity of arms, comradeship, responsibility. I think there are
eleven principles, I’m ashamed to admit I don’t recall them all. And there was this whole
thing about recuperation. Which means bringing the soldiers recreation and taking them
on tours and visits. We really wanted to give them a chance to go swimming so we
contacted various security-officers in settlements so they would let them use their pools.
There’s a whole thing about getting to know the region and its history in order to motivate
the soldier, to make him realize what he’s fighting for. Personally for me that was the
toughest issue, and I also had quite a few run-ins with my superior officer. For example,
in Gush Etzion there was this guy, I don’t know if he’s still alive. I don’t remember his
name. But he was the ‘ranger’ of sorts in the region, always on the move and followed
by a swarm of kids all over the place. He really knows his stuff, and would always take
everyone for a visit to the Gush Etzion springs. Anyway, to me he seemed like a real
nutcase. And my officer kept saying “Go on, bring the soldiers to *** so he’ll show them
18
around.” And naturally within ten minutes the tour would become hysterically political.
There’s the lone oak tree there, right next to one of the main localities, and he’d start
right away, telling the soldiers Gush Etzion’s battle-heritage stories. I don’t know, I had
a hard time with this, because I come from the ‘wrong’ side of the political spectrum.
He would begin to talk about the cradle of our culture, things like that, and I just sort of
cleared my throat. And the commander was delighted, because all the commanders in
the Shimshon Battalion were… there was no way you could have a different opinion on
these things around them.
How do you mean, different?
Different. Say, to be against war or against the occupation or something like that.
No way.
There’s no room for such opinions?
Absolutely not.
In a 400-man battalion, no one thinks differently?
A few do, but they wouldn’t make a sound.
What, they’re selected along their political views?
Really, it’s nothing personal, but there was no room for this kind of thing and for
anyone having that kind of opinion. It just wasn’t there. Not among the commanders,
not at all. When you’re in the army there, inside the Occupied Territories, no way.
There wasn’t a commander who… if a soldier would say something (different) – he
would be silenced. You couldn’t talk about this.
Did anyone ever say anything and was actually silenced?
I did. (On that tour) I asked him not to go into this, and got a real scolding from the
commander. Right then and there.
Did he take you off to the side to do this?
No, right there in front of the soldiers. Why off to the side?
What did he say?
Unpleasant things. He knew. He understood why I cleared my throat, and said: “Okay,
we know your opinions, keep them to yourself.” Something like that.
These tours take place all the time?
Nearly every company stationed in this region has to go through a tour of the terrain
and learn about the battle-heritage of Gush Etzion.
Say I offer them a tour, I mean ‘Breaking the Silence’ guides a tour of Gush
Etzion, would they let me?
Not a chance.
Why not?
Because that’s the problem. With them, it all has a certain orientation, a certain
viewpoint. And this guy, although he lives in a settlement… again, the ties between
the army and the settlers in the Territories are like, let’s say all the hospitality, all the
‘goodies’ often came from the settlements themselves. In Tekoa, for example, families
would host soldiers for Shabbat, bring home-cooked food to the army positions. I
find it problematic. If they would ask for my opinion, I’m uneasy about this. On the
other hand, afterall, the soldiers are there to protect them. So they want to spoil the
soldiers in their own area, it’s absolutely legitimate.
A tour like the one that’s held along the Separation Fence – as an education
corps NCO you’d want to look for such events.
That’s right, I could. But still…
Who would need to okay this?
My superior.
And she wouldn’t?
What, tours of the Separation Fence? No way. Impossible.
Why not?
I can tell you I wanted to bring that cute guy, Meirke Pa’il. A real pillar of Israeli society.
He must already be eighty-something. He’s also a military historian and as for his
political orientation he’s pretty much on the left, although he is a military historian
and has been lecturing in the army for years. And I had a tough time convincing the
battalion-commander to invite him for a lecture. We’re talking about a real pillar of
society here, this guy was a friend of Ben Gurion’s. Again, the battalion-commander
hates me personally, too, so perhaps he just wanted to abort my plans. But that
was the problem, because in a way this might dislodge something in the soldiers’
motivation, see? You undermine your own duty. If I tell them to think twice before they
do something then I am actually… I can talk about the purity of arms, I mean I can
propagate it, say how important it is, I don’t know, not to hurt civilians (…) not to target
innocents, but a mission is a mission. There’s no two ways about a mission.
But when you take someone on a tour of the Separation Fence, for example,
then there are other values, for example violation of human dignity.
I don’t know, the fence wasn’t there at the time.
Right. Just an example.
Protecting human dignity, as a topic of discussion? I wish I could do this, but that
wouldn’t be acceptable, the commanders wouldn’t have that, ever. The job of an
education corps NCO is Sisyphean enough as it is, always hearing ‘no, no, no.’ Until
you finally get something approved that seems important to you.
20
What gets easily approved?
Entertainment troupes.
A lazy education corps NCO takes this?
No, we’re supposed to provide everything, but let’s say that the commanders are
supposed to do the motivation talks, not me. All these topics of values and battle
heritage – I prepare a whole file with information for the commander. If he’s going to
handle a topic, I provide him with a folder with all the information, simulations if there
are any, and he presents it to his soldiers. Usually from the rank of platoon-commander
and up. When there are terribly important things, the company-commander takes
over. And they don’t like doing it. They’re tired. They couldn’t give a damn. Especially
the more veteran companies. Until you assemble all the “bones” (nickname for the
older soldiers) from the auxiliary company to sit down and listen to this – no way. But
if I bring an entertainment troupe, that doesn’t pose any demands on the commander.
There were even shows at Rachel’s Tomb before the Intifada. When it broke out, that
didn’t happen. Two weeks before the Intifada there was the “Mom’s Voice” broadcast
which I brought the soldiers, live.
***
Testimony 14
I recall patrolling the Fence and a group of tiny children were standing near the fence
and throwing these little stones at the vehicles of the fence construction firm. Never
mind that most of these stones got stuck in the fence and they didn’t even manage
to really throw them. We got there with the patrol, and the commander’s Jeep arrived
and I was ordered: “Okay, load rubber ammo.” Okay, I loaded rubber. I said, okay,
let’s aim for legs. For the ground in front of them, which is mostly just frightening.
Naturally I’ve heard all the stories about taking apart the rubber ammo but had never
done it. This ammo comes in units of three bullets each.
Tampon.
Exactly. The Border Patrol tend to take them apart because that hurts more.
They peel the pellet, too? (Some soldiers like to peel the rubber off the steel
pellet, which makes it more lethal)
Some do that, I didn’t witness it. But we know it’s unofficially legitimate. So, anyway,
I inserted a cartridge of rubber ammo – one tampon, I inserted one tampon – doesn’t
that sound great? – into my gun, and fired at the ground in front of their feet. Again,
these kids didn’t seem to me to be an immediate threat to our lives. These were, let’s
say, boys in their very early teens. The operations officer got annoyed. He took my
gun: “You don’t know how to shoot.” I said to him: where do you want me to shoot?
“Let me.” He came along, fired. “Where? Straight at the belly.” Fortunately he missed.
But he fired straight at their belly, and of course they ran.
Did he hit anyone?
He hit someone in the leg, but his aim… Like what were they doing? Throwing these
little stones at the fence. That’s not something that would hurt or endanger anyone.
Give it a laugh, drive off, they’ll give up. They’ll feel frustrated, get upset. If you wish,
stick around to make sure it’s not really some kind of distraction and that someone
will really do something while they’re throwing stones. But, seriously, shooting? Well,
firing rubber ammo at their legs, okay. But he couldn’t even conceive of the option of
shooting rubber at their legs. I mean, why?
What were your open-fire instructions at that time around Katzir?
There’s the usual regulation of “Stop or I shoot!” then a shot in the air, then a shot at
the legs.
Was there the idea of gradually scaling up the use of force? If he didn’t stop?
If he came any closer?
No one really took this regulation seriously, let’s say, for two reasons: One, to give us
a free hand. And two, cover-up. Otherwise if I shoot someone and say that I was told
the second shot should be to the legs, the officer might say, “No, but that’s only if…”
No one really got into that too much. There were briefings before our shifts, but it was
something that people repeated.
***
Testimony 15
Name: *** | Rank: Sergeant
Unit: Field Intelligence | Location: Etzion Regional Brigade
There were some weeks when Molotov cocktails were repeatedly thrown in that area,
22
always in the same area, at the same time, at the same spot. Every Sunday between 7
and 8 p.m. Molotov cocktails were thrown at the same place. They did this about three
Sundays in a row. So on the fourth Sunday, an ambush was laid for them. The first three
times the soldiers couldn’t catch them, they ran straight from there to the village.
Whenever a Molotov cocktail is thrown, you see it right away?
Well, you don’t really see it from such a distance, a person looks about as big as an
ant, a bit less. You can’t really tell it’s people. With stone-throwers it’s hard to detect
because you don’t see their hands. If they throw a Molotov cocktail, it’s very black,
when ignited it makes a huge black spot and then it’s hurled. So if the vehicle ignites,
it looks very black.
Is there some preliminary sign you see before it’s ignited?
If I see kids there on Sunday between 7 and 8 p.m., I mean that’s the lookouts’ job,
filming the routine. There’s nothing to do in that region. If people are detected, that’s
already suspect, they’re probably about to do something shady. That was the point,
when I detected them. That was it. Even if I couldn’t tell whether they were going to
do something wrong. The history around there tells it all.
…And where do they run off to, every time?
To a kind of a wadi, a ravine, there’s this village there, Hussan, not far off.
What happened that day?
Once more the same thing exactly. I detected several people there, and there was
already a sniper ambush that had not detected them because he didn’t look in
their direction, so I said they were there, and then the snipers looked for them and
saw them. They stood there for a minute or two and then one of them ignited a
Molotov cocktail and threw it at the road. At that moment it’s ***, one of the army’s
procedures.
What does that mean?
It’s an order that allows shooting to kill because people’s lives are threatened. Then
shooting started and I only heard it, I didn’t see them. Just sometimes, these black
spots. And that’s it. They ran off the second the shooting started. That’s what I saw.
How many Molotov-cocktail throwers were there?
Five or four. The soldiers didn’t see either. Because they appear tiny, ant-size. And
that’s it, that’s where the event ended as far as I’m concerned. They (the soldiers)
didn’t even know they killed anyone, and then someone went to search the area and
discovered…
Only this one child was killed?
I think so.
All the rest ran off?
Yes I think so. And that’s the point, this kid was killed after he took off. He was killed
by two bullets while he was already escaping. At that point shooting is not allowed,
for he longer constitutes a threat against any movement on this road. And that’s it.
How many seconds did it take them from the moment they ignited until they
threw the Molotov cocktail?
It was a matter of seconds. Perhaps five seconds until running off.
When did the shooting start? After they threw?
I reported *** and then they were allowed to fire. And the point is he didn’t shoot
before that, otherwise the Molotov cocktail would not even be ignited. As soon as they
hear shots they run off, that’s why they could have been chased away any other way
and the shooting would be avoided. A siren could be sounded somewhere, or shots
in the air, or at their legs, but the army wanted to put up this sniper ambush – I was
commander, I was present at the assessment briefings at battalion headquarters – this
sniper ambush was put up for deterrence purposes. Usually a sniper ambush waits
until shooting, that’s its point. It does not deter. A patrol deters, I don’t know, stuff like
that. A sniper ambush is put up to… Later I had a talk with the battalion-commander,
we were off to hold an event-investigation, and then he says to me: Did we really have
to kill? Okay, you put up a sniper ambush, couldn’t you… it’s not that you planned
something else. What else did you imagine would happen?
What did he say?
Well, earlier we went to see the film and check. We, or rather he, the battalion-
commander and the operations officer and myself, we sat there and watched the film.
After it happened.
Yes. The same day. Again and again, to figure out what happened there, because
none of us was really on the spot at the time. We sit in front of that television trying to
understand how many there were, four or five? Four or five? And they bring the report
on where the kid was shot. He was hit under both arms. Both sides. Can’t tell which
is an entry hole, or exit. Then the battalion-commander…
He was shot under his right shoulder?
Both shoulders. Two holes, one here, one there. They didn’t know whether that was
an exit hole, if it was two bullets, or one.
Did they see the body?
We had it for a very short time, this body. Then they tried to figure out how to make it
all look all right, because they were not supposed to shoot the rest.
What were the rest?
24
*** is a situation in which someone constitutes a threat against the route, a hot threat:
shooting or Molotov cocktail or explosive charge. So the rest of them, whose who still
have no Molotov cocktails in their hands, they must not be fired at, the army rules do
not allow for them to be shot. And only one Molotov cocktail was ignited. After that,
the soldiers opened fire and one child died. And we don’t know if it was the same kid.
You can’t tell. And we saw. Then we saw. They decided that the best story would be
to say he came to throw the Molotov cocktail and then he was shot, and he tried to
escape so he was shot once more.
They ignited, waited for a vehicle and then threw?
No, they ignite it when they see the vehicle. You cannot wait around holding an
ignited Molotov cocktail.
They see the vehicle coming from afar?
They saw a vehicle arriving, ignited a Molotov cocktail, and threw it.
Did they hit the vehicle?
No. They never hit. And that was it.
What was on the road?
Nothing, just some black burning stuff.
The road?
Yes, a bit. No car.
After the shooting, were there stones being thrown?
After the shooting, those kids probably got home and found out that one of them died
and then the whole village came out to throw stones at the road, on civilian traffic.
How did the army do away with the stone-throwing at the road?
I thought it would be proper to close this road, but I was not the one to decide. They
simply stood on the side of the road and threw stones at Jeeps, and the Jeeps fired
all kinds of stuff, I don’t know what.
The next day this stone-throwing was over?
Yes.
Back to normal?
Yes.
There were no sanctions against the village?
It’s a very quiet region. Someone was killed, that seemed to be enough. After that we
didn’t want to do to anything, we’d done our share. They didn’t want to do anything
anymore because we kill. That’s it.
That’s what the battalion-commander said?
No. That’s insight. I mean, it also appeared on the situation assessments later, that
now everything will calm down and be all right.
How long after that did they start throwing Molotov cocktails again?
Several months later. At the very same spot I think about a year, a year-and-a-half.
What was the atmosphere like in your crew?
My crew? Both in the company there, and in the battalion and the brigade-commander
himself – I doubt that anyone was unhappy about this.
What is there to be happy about? What made them so happy?
Shall I try explaining their train of thought to you? They’re out to keep the region quiet
and to deter, and that was the best deterrence possible.
Did the brigade-commander say this?
In so many words? I don’t know. But yes, it was appreciated.
Do you recall things that were said afterwards? What was the atmosphere in
the crew then, besides joy? Did everyone shake your hand?
Respect, respect. Every word I uttered at the situation assessment got everyone’s full
attention. Before that it had been harder. All these senior officers, and I’m a corporal.
They just said ‘respect,’ and after that they worked better with us.
What do you mean?
The companies on the ground whom we are supposed to tell what they are to do out
there, they have to trust us, to rush off to where we say they should. So after this they
were saying, these girls know what they’re talking about, sometimes. Although with
stone-throwers it’s more complicated. (…)
Were you summoned for an investigation of the incident with the Molotov-
cocktail-throwing boy?
No. No one summoned me… I didn’t say too much, I went to watch the film with
them, explain to them how you can tell what’s a hill and what’s…
Nothing official?
No. (…)
***
Testimony 16
On the one hand, now I do feel guilty about not having said anything, on the other hand
26
I still believe it wouldn’t have made any difference. I could have changed something
for the moment. It’s not the mentality of this force. Perhaps in other companies it
would – I mean other companies are certainly less extreme. When I got to Jenin
Border Patrol later on and saw less of this still it’s not that different. There is still an air
of violence and yes, ‘things get boring so let’s invent an incident.’
What do you mean?
I don’t know, make up an incident. Get on the radio and report: Stones have been
thrown at me on this street. And then you detain someone and start questioning
him. Eventually he’s released, or not, depending on the person who invented this
incident, if he’d identify him or not. There was this (Border) policewoman who’d say,
I’m bored, let’s say someone is throwing stones at me. She’d be asked, who? “I don’t
know, some two guys in grey shirts, I didn’t see exactly.” So two guys in grey shirts
would be caught, and she’d be asked: “These guys?” Naturally, when they’re caught,
they’re beaten up too. “These guys?” “No, I don’t think so.” Well, there you have a
whole incident. People got beaten up. And nothing had happened there that day.
***
Testimony 17
Unit: Field Intelligence | Location: Etzion Regional Brigade
What is done to stone-throwers?

They get beaten up and taken to brigade headquarters. (…)
They know you take pictures.
Who, the soldiers? They know… As soon as I see stone throwing, it happens at
certain times, there’s a history to this, you know the routine. So at that time the
forces are closer, they’re not napping in their Jeeps, say, they’re patrolling. Or they’re
napping in the Jeep at a good spot, and then they arrive right away.
What happens to the stone-thrower?
They beat the hell out of him or take him to division headquarters. Or they bring
him to his father, which is the worst. It’s worse than beating him up or taking him to
brigade HQ.
Why?
Because his father does worse things to him.
Beats him up, I guess.
No, worse.
At situation assessments they say it’s worse to take him to his dad?
Sure. They talk about everything there. Bring up everything. Who’s present? The
battalion-commander, all the company-commanders, and yes, they discuss
everything, every single event that has taken place.
So taking the stone-thrower to his dad is allowed, or not?
Depends on the commander at the time. Usually they prefer to take him into
custody.
There were battalion-commanders who preferred to take them to their
dads?
If there was a kid who didn’t talk, or didn’t tell on his friends, he’d be taken to his dad.
After he had been in custody?
No. Before. He’d be questioned on the ground: where are your buddies? I don’t
know, I don’t know.
Taking him to his father is an effective option?
If you don’t have too much on someone, not enough to really take him into custody,
not too many incriminating evidence or legitimate reasons, you can take him to his
father, you can close up the village. Many things were done there. If kids throw stones
– all the shops in the village would be shut down.
Who decides this?
The battalion-commander… I think in our area there wasn’t too much of this, it’s a
grey routine, you know? We also had about 40 illegals every day, in the morning, and
there’s also nothing to be done with them, nothing definite. Anyone decides on his
own what to do at a given moment.
What do you mean, anyone? The sergeant?
If it’s about illegals, it’s the sergeant’s judgment. In cases of stone-throwing, it’s
the company-commander. In cases of Molotov-cocktail throwing, it’s the battalion-
commander who intervenes, usually. About illegals, not a single battalion-commander
will tell you what to do. So you can take your own initiative what to do with them at
the checkpoint.
***
28
Testimony 18
Name: *** | Rank: Reserves Sergeant
Unit: Hatikva | Location: Qalandiya Checkpoint
I’ll start in a general vein, again because I really can’t recall anything specific I could
put my finger on. As I explained to you earlier, I came with certain guilty feelings and
high motivation, and a very tough feeling of not having done enough regular service,
so a mere two months after my discharge I already found myself there. A few words
about this unit: These are rather older guys, even around 60-70 years old. There
are some really ludicrous moments. These guys, when they’re ordered to drop in an
exercise, they say: Listen, I can drop but I’m not so sure I’ll be able to get back up
again. Really cool types who’re brought there in fact to raise the humanitarian level
at the checkpoint. The work is in eight-hour shifts, morning and evening. I can tell
you things that for me were… Okay, I’m a pretty sensitive person, especially to the
suffering of others, and somehow I can say about myself, maybe I’m starting with
the end, that somewhere this sensitivity was entirely lost in those two weeks there.
It felt like being in a world apart, where I did things which, after getting out of there,
I suddenly realized: I mean, I didn’t hit anyone or anything like this, but cases of
disrespect that are not like me at all. All those retarded jokes of ‘give me al bidubi’
(expecting the Arabic-speaker to ask ‘what is bidubi,’ in Arabic, ‘shubidubi’) and
stuff like that. Anyway, at that time I was really into photography, so I’d take pictures
there, of people at the checkpoint. It sort of feels you’re not imposing or anything.
There were also people who’d cooperate, assuming, I guess, that it would ease
up their treatment there. Something that really really bothered me – I can’t begin
to imagine what it’s like to go through this for three whole years and now there
are guys there from the Military Police units and there’s nothing to relieve them, it’s
their whole military service – what really bothered me was the degree of disorder. I
happen to know, I have a friend who was checkpoint commander before the MPs
were brought there. Actually these guys were in the armored corps, on a sort of
“front” period, with very orderly, informed briefings - today you let people from Jenin
through, today you don’t let people from here, another day you do, alerts and so on.
When I was there, on the other hand, no soldier could give (a permit), he goes totally
crazy. You’re in this absurd situation where first of all, in the briefing you’re not told
anything really, it’s just this hollow, minimal briefing – this is the area, and then you
go on up to the checkpoint. And then the day’s rumors begin, about alerts, I don’t
remember who, but suppose the intelligence officer says one thing, and the DCO
another. So everyone is certain of different things, not that they really care, I mean I’m
talking about the soldiers at the checkpoint, themselves. So say you’re coming from
Bethlehem, and you want to cross the checkpoint. Possibly the soldier checking your
line will let you through, and the soldier checking the other line will not because the
one heard one thing, and the other heard a different instruction. They sit next to each
other but there’s no communication between them, and you feel that… you have to
argue with the person, explain to him that he cannot cross over, and what are you
arguing about, actually? I mean, what is your point in this argument if the guy next to
you contradicts you? You feel that everything you’re fighting for, as it were, that you
want to have some sense of national mission or purpose in the mere fact that you’re
there, doesn’t really hold water. Nothing is based on any kind of alert that you can
rely on. All the information gets crossed, and that really drove me out of my mind. It
was uncontrollable. I tried, I said: Okay, if I’m there anyway, I’d pass by the various
checking posts with a notebook and update the soldiers, but it was impossible to get
anything, any kind of coherent information. This is something that really worries me
and I can only imagine it annoys the soldiers there too, very much.
***
Testimony 19
Unit: Education Corps /Border Patrol | Location: Gaza Strip
I can begin with my experiences in the Border Patrol which are first of all, if we
speak chronologically which is easier for me – my first experiences were of a lot of
chauvinism and power play against me.
Specifically against you?
Specifically. I came to the battalion as an education corps NCO of the unit. I
mean, there were other women on the base: a literacy NCO, a welfare NCO, and
a secretary, but all the rest there were guys. The first comments were really crass, I
don’t remember the exact words, but something like: Hey, a new NCO is here, now
she can make us coffee. They were really crass. I was constantly picked on. Another
officer, a captain, would show up in my office and blame me for not working at all,
which was pure bullshit. As an 18-year-old girl, I was so delighted to keep writing
30
those weekly lectures; I was working incessantly. But he would say: You’re sitting
here all day, doing nothing. Every time he’d barge in, and constantly pick on me.
Once he forced a kiss on me, and simply me stuck his tongue into my mouth, like
‘Frenched’ me, it was the most repulsive thing in the world. And I didn’t react, as
though… You know, he being a captain, and me – an NCO.
What was the hierarchy like?
He was an officer in this unit and I was just beginning my duty there so I was sort of
in awe. There was a very clear division between officers and NCOs.
How did you react to this sexual harassment?
I wasn’t familiar with this term. This was in 1998, it wasn’t such a… When I told my
mother, she said: you’ve got to complain. But I thought she was crazy to think of that,
after all it wasn’t such a big deal, and honestly I wasn’t working as hard as they were,
and I don’t know, all kinds of excuses. But these were my very first experiences, I
was very humiliated, belittled.
Slowly, with time, I grew closer to all of them, both officers and soldiers. I heard
all kinds of stories from them, it was a time of the joint patrols, they were working
8-hour shifts intermittently. These were joint patrols with the Palestinians. 8 hours
on duty, 8 hours off, and they were tired all the time. In their 8 hours off they’d play
backgammon and watch porn and soaps, and told all kinds of stories from their joint
patrols, which sounded to me especially humiliating to the Palestinians.
What kind of stories?
These were just the stories they told on the base, and I don’t know how true they
were, but all kinds of boasting: how one guy threw a shekel coin and the other guy
(Palestinian) jumped for that coin. One of the soldiers threw a coin and said to the
people with them on the patrol to jump and do all kinds of humiliating things to get that
coin. They said how the Palestinians would do anything for a shekel, something like
that. And I asked: Were there officers there? Any officer? “Yes, sure.” I don’t remember
the names, but “Sure we had an officer with us.” I didn’t have too much room to make
myself heard, to resist. If I’d only say a word I’d be silenced right away.
Pretty soon I learned my place. When I heard this story, I went straight to the officers,
quite upset: we have to write them a weekly lecture about this and discuss this. But the
officers told me not to. I mean they didn’t come outright and say it but I gathered from
their conduct that they have no interest in bringing this up, opening it to discussion.
***
Testimony 20
Name: *** | Rank: Sergeant | Unit: Nahal | Location: General
So how do you feel, coming out of there?

A bit ashamed.
From the beginning?
When I got out of the army. Now, gradually, especially after seeing this film, I suddenly
realized these were things I had experienced and didn’t think about.
Except for the part with the stretchers - seeing blood, except for that one part which
was extreme for me, as it were. The part that closed this whole circle for me was
when that soldier told me - having asked him how many he had killed – except for
those parts all the rest seemed normal, routine. Then, after seeing that film, “To See
If I’m Smiling,” I suddenly began to take note of things and realized how screwed-up
this whole system is. No one is okay. Those aren’t okay, and these aren’t okay, and
the army is not okay.
***
Testimony 21
Name: *** | Rank: First Sergeant | Unit: Border Patrol | Location: Hebron Hills
Did you meet Palestinians?

It depends where. There are the roadblocks you put up daily, and then it’s all about
the illegals. ‘Illegals with permits,’ that was our in-joke. A million vans coming out of
the checkpoint as well as bypassing it. At Tarqumiya Checkpoint this was a sort of
local joke. There is a checkpoint between two forests, and everyone moves around it.
Personally, I understood the construction of the Separation Fence. I left just around the
time all those violations near the fence stopped and it was being constructed. When
that region stopped being ‘interesting.’ That’s it, I don’t know, at the checkpoints…
What about the attitude towards Palestinians?
They don’t understand. They’re not used to girls. Especially as a crew-commander,
you’ve got to throw your weight, show authority. What kind of authority? I mean, I’ve
never raised a hand against any of them. There are other ways to make them understand.
Once, let’s say, we were blocking a certain road and there were about ten vans, with
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20-30 passengers each. We’d check them one by one against the GSS and police
computers. They arrive in groups and there are only three of us and only the commander
is authorized to go on radio. That means these vans have to stand waiting – say a van
comes and everyone gets off with their belongings, their permits, and they’re checked
one by one – one soldier securing, another soldier checking – and they’re waiting outside
the cars. I’m supposed to be the backup. Now, as the crew-commander, I’m helping
out inspecting. If not, I choose two who do the checking. Inspecting the whole vehicle.
Sometimes there were detector dogs, trackers, explosive and weapons detectors that
would join us, at certain times. There’s a kennel at the regional police station, and they
would come to our area and we’d do roadblocks with them, using these dogs. The
roadblocks were not put up at regular times or spots, so as to increase the chances
of catching illegals. We’d inspect the vehicle, send everyone back inside, take all the
IDs and permits, bring them to me and I’d start checking them against the authorities.
They would wait inside the cars, not disembark at all. Because there were three of us
and sometimes about 300 of them, so they could easily take off with a soldier of mine.
Once one of the drivers – these are usually Bedouins because residents of the Occupied
Territories are not allowed to drive a vehicle with Israeli license plates, and they haven’t
got Israeli driving licenses. So this guy starts – even though it took us about ten minutes
– this guy comes every morning and sees that I’m a girl so he goes up to one of the
soldiers and they tells him he wants to talk to me because I’m the commander and I
say when to let people go. I was right in the middle of an inspection so I replied: Sir,
please wait inside the car. As soon as we’re done here I’ll have no reason to detain you,
I have another ten vans like yours that need to be checked. I asked him to get back,
he kept coming up again and again so I said, enough is enough. I checked him against
the police computer and found out he was actually not authorized to drive. I said, cool.
This is our chance. I mean, teaching him a lesson he’ll be sure to remember. How many
times can you take this? We really asked him politely, it’s not that we took anything out
on him. I don’t believe they learn anything through violence, they learn through their
pocket. He was unauthorized to drive. We summoned a traffic-police mobile unit. As
soon as he came to us yet again, we told him everyone’s free to go except for him. So
about 30 people came out of his transit, who would be paying him 50 shekels fare each
way. We already hit his livelihood. They simply ran off to other vans as soon as we let
them go. Then he waited with us until the traffic police arrived, it took them about an
hour-and-a-half. We’re allowed to detain them for three hours. Police regulation. So
the traffic police arrived and said this was a computer error, the lists were not updated,
he was indeed authorized to drive. But since the traffic police is already here, let’s run
a vehicle inspection. He had about three things that were not in order: a weight in the
vehicle, a third mirror, something like that. Gave him three tickets and take him off the
road – more money down the drain. And if he doesn’t report to a traffic-police station
within two days – there’s one in Kiryat Gat, for the entire southern district – there would
be an arrest warrant against him and more fines. He left the checkpoint with tears in his
eyes after all those tickets. We detained him, and now he had to go to a garage for all
those repairs, and it’s a workday, he makes several such runs, with 50 shekels a fare. A
lot of money. Okay, he learned his lesson. That’s how all the rest learned to wait properly
in line. It might sound disgusting, but we weren’t out to get him personally… I have no
other way to teach them, especially as a girl, which in their culture is really not – I mean
women, it’s, like, dishonorable. Okay, we have to make a stand somehow. Once a man
like that gets what he deserves, as I see it, because really – we didn’t just give him
tickets and delay him, he really did come up on the computer – we weren’t just picking
on him. But he learned his lesson, I’ll say. You know, word travels quickly, and they’d not
mess with us any more.
***
Testimony 22
Name: *** | Rank: Sergeant | Unit: Sachlav | Location: Hebron
Our girls got rather polarized, on both sides of the spectrum. Some came out and
said plainly: ‘Enough, I’m no combatant, I’m cut out to be a secretary,’ and that’s
what they became. There was one who was re-assigned as a driver and was just
driving the company Jeep. She didn’t do guard duty, she handled no one, she was
always there in the Jeep with the commanders. Others went psycho, and became
worse, tougher than the guys.
What does that mean?
An Arab says something to her that he shouldn’t, for example - she calls some four
guys from her company to come handle him. A Safari-load of guys comes down to
beat him to a pulp, and then she detains the Arab.
Do you recall a specific incident?
I’ll tell you an interesting story. I was standing in the post and we were about to be
replaced, one of the girls there was very extreme in her views and stuff. And it was
34
this time, I don’t remember exactly why but we were on alert, with a bullet in the
chamber. We had to be on standby with a bullet in the chamber the whole time. Gun
cocked, bullet in the chamber and a finger next to the trigger. Not on the trigger. And
then there was this boom, we heard a shot and of course I was on patrol so we ran
over to see what happened, and there’s a girl-soldier standing like this, facing an
Arab bleeding on the ground, and she says something like: “He tried to attack me. He
tried to attack me.” We look at him and he’s shot in the belly, and we tell her – I mean
he has a bullet hole in his stomach – we ask her: What did he do? How did he attack
you? What do you mean he tried to attack you? The soldier who was there with her
was all confused and didn’t know what to say: “Whatever she says, whatever she
says.” Something like that. This all happened when I was already there for quite a
while. And she told some story about her asking him for his ID and he wouldn’t show
it, and then he attacked her and somehow she tried to get away and turned around
and shot him in the belly, something of that sort. You look and see an Arab who’s
been shot at point-blank range and he’s holding his ID. And you say to her: Listen,
this is impossible. Your story just doesn’t add up. And what happened to that other
soldier that he’s so afraid to talk? Then there were inquiries and stuff. Apparently she
had asked to see his ID and he approached to hand it to her and he got too close
– that’s what came out in the last briefing we had. She then shoved him off with her
rifle and a bullet shot out right in his belly. Now, first thing we hear, instead of ‘Oh
no! What have I done!’ - we hear her saying “He tried to attack me.” This girl finally
admitted he really got too close to her, and the bullet was already in the barrel and
she shoved him away in the belly so he got shot in the belly.
She admitted it?
Yes. Eventually, at the inquiries she did. And she was not prosecuted, I think. She left
that company. She was kicked out. Yes, she was re-assigned to the Military Police.
That was her punishment.
What happened to this person?
I don’t know. He was driven away in a Palestinian ambulance… This incident shocked
me. A girl shoots a guy in the belly and the first thing she says is ‘he attacked me.’
What did the guy attack you with? His ID? He was holding his ID, what did he attack
you with? (…) I remember that right after that soldier shot the Arab in the belly and
we all got there, I kept asking her: What do you mean, what did he try to do to you?
And everyone – at some point suddenly the commander who was with me, who got
there very quickly, said to me: “What do you want? What is this? Just stop it! Stop
asking her what she means! Enough of this! She’s telling you he tried to attack her,
what’s there not to understand?” And I said, okay.
… That was the greatest fear, to end up in jail because of them, because of the
Arabs. I’ll go to jail because of them? So I’ll shoot a guy in the belly, I’ll spit in his
face, but never get caught. I think that this determination ‘never to get caught’ really
shows that what I’m doing is wrong – so I mustn’t get caught. It pretty much says
that, I think. It means everyone was pretty much aware of what went on there, and
that it’s not right.
But people did it all the time.
Yes.
***
Testimony 23
Name: *** | Rank: Sergeant | Unit: Nahal | Location: Hebron
Also, to see those children in Hebron walking by, and to take pride in the fact that
they are afraid... I mean, these are kids, and I can recall who they were afraid of. They
feared the Israeli kids. Not that they did anything to them, but they (Jewish settler
children) would throw stones at them as they passed by. And their parents would
say nothing. The parents stood by, you could see a little kid standing there, throwing
these small stones and shouting something at them. And it became routine. You
would come to Tel Rumeida any day and see this. It had already become a norm. And
their parents hanging out there, I don’t know if these were parents, but anyway these
adults would hang out there and say absolutely nothing to the little ones.
Doesn’t it seem strange to you to see a child throwing stones at another
child?
Since the one was Jewish, and the other Palestinian - it seemed ‘all right.’
I remember saying aloud that it was sort of okay, but thinking to myself, what’s this
kid, screwed–up? And the Palestinian had done nothing to him. I would think: That’s
what brings about this whole mess, these quarrels, these things that the children
bring on. I know this kid’s parents teach him to hate Palestinians. They give him
perfect legitimization to throw stones and swear at them. And obviously this would
lead to a major mess. And you can’t figure out whose side you’re on. I’m a Jewish
Israeli soldier, and I’m supposed to be against the Arabs who are my enemies, but
36
I’m here next to the house at the outpost, and I think that they’re wrong. That the
Jews are wrong. So wait a minute, no, I have to switch my mind and go on hating
Arabs and justifying the Jews. But wait, they’re still not okay, they (the settlers) start
this, and we’re here because of them, they make this all happen, they pester them
(the Palestinians) and scare them. It’s all so…
So why make the switch?
Out of loyalty to your own kind.
What age children are you talking about?
Little ones, five-six-year-olds run around outdoors.
Were there cases of adult violence?
I remember someone on the bus, this was during the ‘disengagement,’ I don’t
remember the whole story there, but I was told about some woman who was crazy,
her husband or boyfriend had been murdered by terrorists, I don’t know exactly, but
anyway she yelled at the soldiers. One of the soldiers wouldn’t get up for her on the
bus and I remember he took it and took it, and I think she even hit him. He didn’t
react, until at some point he yelled back at her: “Shut up, it’s because of you that I
have to be here!” They hated being there.
Who, the soldiers?
Yes. And I think they were really mad at the Jewish settlers in Hebron. Really angry.
Wouldn’t these people bring you pizza right to the outpost and stuff like that?
They did. But occasionally I’d also hear soldiers saying: these shits are the reason
we’re here in the first place, wish they’d get out of here already. On the one hand
you are angry at your own people for being here, at the Jews who live here. On the
other hand you also hate the Arabs because they kill your buddies and give you a
hard time.
So you end up hating everyone?
Yes. And you don’t really think, you just say whatever comes into your mind right
then: I hate this guy so I’ll swear at him, and then I hate that one so I’ll swear at him,
and now I hate him so I’ll spit at him.
You would spit at Jews?
No, why? They’ve done nothing to hurt me.
And Arabs?
Well, they’re Arabs, I mean, I don’t know. True, the one specific Arab I spat at didn’t
actually do anything to me. Seems to me he’d done nothing at all to anyone. But
again, it was a cool thing to do, and the only thing I could do. I mean I can’t go
around boasting of having arrested anyone, or be proud of having caught a terrorist,
or killing a terrorist, I can’t go on some mission and find some weapons under a floor
tile in a home. But I can spit at them and humiliate and ridicule them.
***
Testimony 24
Name: *** | Rank: Sergeant | Unit: Border Patrol | Location: Hebron
That’s the incident I remember most from Hebron. That day there were many Shabak
(Security Services) guys on our base. Now, the combat companies in Hebron were
the least belligerent. There were Nahal and Paratroopers, the Lavi battalion was still
being formed while I was there, so we were less combative. Then one day when
there were lots of Shabakniks on the base, you see stuff happening. I was driving
the company-commander crazy, of this combat company, with my wanting to come
along on a weapons-search mission. It took him a long time to finally let me come
with them. Anyway, I was there and another girl, an ops-sergeant. We were the only
two girls.
I was unarmed. The only one without a weapon. God knows how they took me along,
and luckily nothing happened because they would have paid big time - for taking
along an education corps NCO on a weapons search at 2 a.m. in the Occupied
Territories. So anyway we went, I remember this like a movie, how we left the base.
On the Jeep you’re still inside a movie, like you’re a part of some cool movie there.
I tried to ask the Shabak guys who were there with me what’s about to happen: We
get to someone’s house and then what, wake them up? The guys didn’t really answer,
they said: Just follow us, when we run, you run. That was the most frightening moment
because that was when I realized we were there in empty, quiet Hebron in zones I’m
not familiar with at all. It was sometime around 2 o’clock at night. And then they got off
the Jeep, and we ran. I didn’t know what to do with myself, suddenly I realized where
I was, and God, I have no weapon, everyone there is wearing their helmets and bullet-
proofs. There was this one large house and another smaller one next door, so first we
climbed the steps to the large house. I clung in fear to the company-commander. Like
suddenly I didn’t know, I wondered what the hell I was doing there. We could be shot
at from any direction here. That’s it. So we woke them up, the guys woke them up. I
kept clinging to the company-commander in sheer fright.
38
The company-commander himself entered the house?
Yes. But he was not the first to enter. The Shabak guys were first, and I was with him,
and he was not the first. There was the operations officer, too, who I was friends with,
so the two of them, I kept switching from one to the other. Crazy. I’ll never forget this.
So we entered these people’s home, the father opens the door for us, in his robe,
and the mother and grandmother and two little kids woke up too. Now they look at
you with this look, like you’re entering our home at 2 o’clock in the morning! The kids
were absolutely horrified. And we turned – I see this as if I was part of it because
I was there – the soldiers turned their whole house inside out, I never imagined it like
this. You go in, after all you could open a drawer and look inside, and you can open a
drawer and throw all of its contents out, and leave it like that. Now, I was still asking
the company-commander as we went from room to room, I’ll never forget this – we
found some porn tapes and the father’s embarrassment as he went with us from room
to room to room. So I asked the company-commander if we help them sort it all out
afterwards. Just so you understand how naïve I was. Everything was just so messed
up. And he answers, and the father tries to ask, the owner tries to ask questions and
talk and none of us even bother to speak to him at all. The soldiers go on, opening
and trashing and trashing just about everything in that house, turning the whole place
inside out. A year ago, on Passover Seder night, my flat was broken into. I got home
and everything was upside down. The first thing that came to my mind right there was
that this is exactly what it looked like. All the drawers, the closets, everything. And we
didn’t find a thing. Nothing. In the first house they needed someone to search. So I
was taken along, me and the female operations sergeant, to search the women for
weapons, because men are not allowed to do that. We were there for about an hour
and they hadn’t found a thing and were going nuts because they were certain, they
had information, I don’t know what, they were confident they were going for a find.
So they trashed and trashed and left not one thing in its place. Then we went on to
the second house, and I couldn’t understand why we do it this way. And that was
the first moment I realized why we are looked at like that, and why we are so hated.
You enter in the most disgusting manner, without a drop of humanity, because the
disrespect in the answers the man was given – the wife and children were not even
addressed – I mean, no one even looked at them. We were sent off to a side room
near the kitchen to search the women for weapons. Now if I were in this position, I’d
think: What the hell are you doing here? What weapons? And what if she explodes
right there with you now?
That’s what you were thinking at the time?
Sure. Listen, originally I just said to them, for curiosity’s sake, take me along, I realized
something was going on. I wondered what would happen. How this works, this whole
thing, what they do nights. That’s why I also kept going to the Tomb of the Patriarchs,
because it was really important for me to know how they relate to this, and what they
do all day, what they do there for eight hours. Next to the Tomb of the Patriarchs
there’s this – I don’t know if it’s still there – but when you go up the stairway, there’s
this command post of the Border Patrol, a little one. I was really curious what goes
on there and why they get so frustrated. What do they do all this time and why…
The fact that the Jews there were fanatics and even tried to run me over once when I
was crossing the road, and the soldiers would come back from patrol and their Jeep
would be smeared with raw eggs the Jews would hurl at them, I mean those were
routine things. You deal with it somehow, thinking, Okay, so this side is not my side.
But I was a lefty when I enlisted, so I came there with this view that as far as I’m
concerned you shouldn’t even be here. That’s how I started out.
So you are inside that house and searching that woman…
I can’t even begin to describe to you the shame I felt, ashamed of the way we were
behaving, entering their home like that, that we… I’ll never forget this as long as I live,
I’m telling you. I have this picture in my head, of those kids staring at me. And
I go, frightened to death. First of all, it was the first time I had ever been inside a
Palestinian home. Everything there, I mean there were pictures of Jerusalem on the
wall and it was so odd for me to see they had them too. So really, if until now they
hated us, now that I enter their home and behave this way, and they’re still looking at
me like, I mean I was without a weapon, nothing. And these kids looked at me and
I just wanted to die right then and there. Also when the company-commander asked
me, when I asked him if we’d help them clean up afterwards, and he laughed, I felt
even dumber, I realized I was far out of this whole thing, and that I’m upset because
it’s my first time to see such stuff, but they do it like machines. Soldiers go along,
shake out drawers, turn out closets, trash-trash-trash, they don’t regard the people
at all, don’t talk to them. And the owner keeps pleading with them, saying ‘don’t this
to me.’ Trashing the place.
Where was the whole family?
The father went with us from room to room, and the mother, grandmother and two
kids were not allowed to make a single move, they were placed in some corner, there
was this hallway, and a first room we entered and then passing from room to room.
How did they react?
They were silent. That’s the point, they simply had this look. The children didn’t
40
understand, I think they were sort of, like they were seeing live what they had always
been told. There, now hate-hate-hate. Look, see why you hate. They were looking at
us with such a look of not understanding, and they’re too little.
How old were they?
I think one was about five or six, he understood a bit more, and a girl who was younger,
I think. Yes, the mother held her close. When I went, when they told us (girls) we had to
go search – they didn’t tell me ahead of time I would have to search her for weapons,
only at this point did I realize that was the reason they agreed to have me on this
mission with them, because they needed another woman to search for weapons, so
only when we were told to go to a side room and search, did she let the little girl down.
She was wearing a robe and clothes, and I remember my revulsion even at the mere
smell of her, I was revolted to have to touch a stranger, and search her. I was laughing
at myself for behaving like in the movies, that I don’t know how to do it. What, I mean
how do you search? So you touch like you see in the movies, because you really don’t
know what to do.
How far down did you strip her?
Not much, I’ll recall in a minute. My thought from a certain point on was this: I don’t
care if I get blown up, just let me not be here. Just to get this over with. The ops-
sergeant with me was more skilled, she had already gone out with the guys once
before and she had a gun and knew what to do with it. I didn’t.
She knew what to do in a situation like this?
She showed a lot more confidence, but we were both embarrassed. When the company-
commander left the room and left us with this mother and then with the grandmother
– it was this very little room so one came in and then out and the other came in. So we
removed her blouse and she remained just in a shirt and pants. We stuck our hands
in her pockets, touched her blouse, I remember that. I didn’t care what it was then, at
some point I thought: I don’t care what she has, I don’t care. And I also remember ***
asking me: And if she had stuck something up her cunt, how would we even know it’s
there? I told her I didn’t care, I just wanted to get out of there, just get out.
Did you think about where she was hiding things?
Yes. I was terribly sick at the thought, and I was terrified suddenly, and I also couldn’t
believe I was really there. And then, no, I tried to do it. I tried but couldn’t. When I was
told that this is what I had to do I said: okay, so we went in and started to do this, I
only wanted for this to be over already.
How long were you in there?
It took a few minutes. Some minutes with the first one, and then the second and then
we left. I mean the younger woman, then the older and then we left. In the yard was
another house, a smaller one which we entered also, but it was only two rooms.
How long did the search take?
The search? A few minutes.
So you enter with one of the women, and you were alone in the room with
her?
No, myself and ***, the two of us with one woman.
How did you talk to them?
We didn’t. That was just the point, you didn’t need words. They may have talked, I
didn’t exchange a word with them and I remember even thinking about it, that you
can’t even talk to them, you can’t say anything to her. I saw the kids. I saw the faces
of those kids. I thought to myself: If I could just say something. Like now, when I
walked around in Hebron and saw the kids I said, you can’t even say anything to
them. They hate you, they don’t want to see you, they think you’re the enemy, and
you are wordless. You have nothing to tell them.
Did you think about your not knowing Arabic?
Yes. Especially about not being able to communicate. Because in this situation, even
had I been able to speak Arabic I wouldn’t know what to say because I was entering
their home at 2 in the morning, I was waking them up, sticking them in a corner.
The women and children were in the corner while we kept moving around the house
and they couldn’t go anywhere. I can’t even tell you whether anyone told them not
to move or that they were simply petrified. They kept following us with their eyes. I
remember I had a really hard time because they were watching me. I had a hard time
with the children and with the mother, she was watching me the whole time and I
remember feeling I was doing something wrong as a woman. To her. I was going into
her home and waking up her kids. I felt that men were much more crass than we
were in this situation.
Were you on other arrest missions?
No way. I wouldn’t, I didn’t even want to go.
So why did you go in the first place?
I wanted to see what we do.
Out of plain curiosity or for kicks?
Listen, I remember the moment we disembarked from the Jeep and they began
to run and I remember my panic as I suddenly realized where I was. Before I just
thought, okay, there’s plenty of Shabak guys if something does happen, so let’s go. I
used to ride around with them in their Jeep, ask them to take me along on patrols. All
42
that would take place in daytime. Nothing at night. Suddenly you’re in those places.
… After we got back from this arrest mission I kept asking the company-commander,
I walked with him and asked if this is what’s done all the time. And he said there’s no
other way. He says to me: You have a gun, you have weapons here, how do you want
this to be done? If you tell the guys that the education corps NCO says this or that,
they just say: she’s being self-righteous. Many of them. So I said, “Well, is this what
we do, then? This way? Just like that?” I told you, I was a lefty when I enlisted, and
this was the first moment I simply understood why they hate us. I would have hated
us too. Perhaps I told him this: if you were to enter my home, no matter how old I am,
and break into my life and into my privacy like that, I’d hate you too.
Was there any slapping, kicking?
Kicking yes. Just when the guys entered. They kicked the father. In front of the kids,
yes. In front of the kids.
What is so important about taking the mother into a side room and doing
everything by the book, as it were, and hit the father in front of his own
kids?
Because as far as they’re concerned, first of all I think they thought we stripped the
women completely, I’m pretty sure, I mean the company-commander. He didn’t really
see us inspecting. I also thought if you take me along and let me inspect a woman,
you don’t even check to make sure I’m doing it right.
***
Testimony 25
Unit: Hebron Regional Brigade/ Medical Corps | Location: Hebron
They liked to carry out all sorts of experiments on seriously wounded people. I mean
trying resuscitation even though it was obviously too late, but just to let doctors and
medics get some practice.
What do you mean?
A fellow seriously wounded, hemorrhaging all over, no chance. Or I don’t even know
if it was an already dead body. The reports are about… If the doctor decides to
confirm death, he does it on the spot and there’s no more treatment. If he says there’s
a chance, they do continue. But sometimes it was sort of uncertain. They didn’t
confirm death although officially it was, in order to carry out some more treatment
– practice intubation, emergency surgery. These kinds of field procedure. Sometimes
the doctors would come back from their event and say, ‘Yes, he was already finished,
but we did practice some intubation,’ or this or that. Practice. It’s not that we tried to
save the guy, he died on us. Practice.
We’re talking just about Palestinians, no settlers were in this kind of
situation?
No. Just Palestinians.
You heard this and did nothing about it?
I wasn’t in any position to blame anyone. To check whether it was right or wrong.
That was the given situation. Practice? Okay, practice is all right. I mean, no criticism
was voiced anywhere. This was all very welcomed.
***
Testimony 26
Name: *** Rank: Sergeant
Unit: Binyamin Regional Brigade | Location: Binyamin Regional Brigade HQ
On our base there was this – what I call – pen. A small detention cell, a shed with a
little yard, right across from the war-room, at the outer edge of the base.
What base is that?
Binyamin Regional Brigade, at Beit El. Now when they tell you there are arrests, at the
end of the arrest mission the detainees caught in our area are brought to this detention
spot until they are tried. Then they’re taken to Beit El military court and that’s that.
Something like that. Anyway, there were always detainees there, and whenever we’d
go out with the trash from the war-room, there would be people outside in the yard.
It’s fenced in?
Yes, but open, I mean they see us, we see them. Sometimes they were blindfolded,
sometimes not. When they weren’t, we wouldn’t go out. It was embarrassing. They’d
make cat-calls and whistle. It was highly unpleasant. Once an arrest mission took
place, I no longer recall which battalion did it, and the kid, I mean this soldier kid didn’t
know what to do with the person he arrested so he brought him to the war-room.
44
We were there four girls on the shift, maybe less, no officer, and it was nighttime. He
simply brought in this detainee blindfolded, his hands shackled, and asked us what
to do with him. There were screams, one of the girls started crying and ran out.
Why?
Because when you dehumanize someone it seems to you as if Hitler just walked
into the war-room. We didn’t regard this as simply a person who’s been detained.
Everything gets blown out of proportion. We were terrified. We began to yell at him:
What are you doing? You are not supposed to let them in here. Now this detainee
stands there, it was really embarrassing and scary. Because it’s scary when someone,
never mind if he’s an Arab or Israeli or Russian comes in blindfolded and shackled.
It’s not something you’re supposed to deal with, not as an ops-sergeant or anything.
But I have a problem when I see anyone being dehumanized, never mind what race
or gender or whatever, I get really upset. I realized after some moments of hysteria
– everyone was screaming, it was such a scare about this person who had been
arrested, and I didn’t know if he had done anything or not, he was standing there and
everyone was screaming and he has no idea of his rights and what he’s supposed
to do – it really bothered me. I was also the only one who didn’t panic after the initial
shock of seeing someone standing there blindfolded.
A bit extreme, such a reaction…
Yes, but don’t forget this was at a time when you couldn’t know. My friend had
served as an officer in Gaza, and there were terrorists who had entered her base and
blown themselves up. I mean we heard about stuff happening, and that’s why the
fear was so tangible. So here comes a soldier with someone you don’t know anything
about, maybe he’s… Anyway it was very stressful. But for me, it was traumatic to see
someone detained for some unknown reason…
***
Testimony 27
I was in Hebron once and there was this stunning little blond girl, “***, the Little
Demon” (a Jewish girl from one of the Hebron settlements). She would pass us by
near the outpost in her Shabbat dress, all neat and cute, and smiling. And then she
saw some Arab walk by and she grabbed this huge rock and ran towards him, leapt
and boom! She banged his head with it.
Just like that, without throwing?
Just like that, boom. She leapt up to him and banged his head with this stone. And
this man was just an old man walking along the street. Then she started yelling:
“Yuck, his blood is all over me, so sickening!!” And he turned to her and went like this,
and the soldier who was with me charged at him and punched him as though he was
threatening this little girl. I stood there in absolute shock. I didn’t know what to do with
myself. An innocent little blond girl in her Shabbat-best has just banged an Arab in the
head with a rock, and the soldier has punched him in the face for turning around and
yelling at the girl. Not to mention another four types who came from their own base to
spend Shabbat in the Jewish settlement and approached him like showing him, just
try us. So the Arab just put his hand on his wound and ran for his life.
How old was he?
Elderly. Over fifty I think. Really old.
How old was ***?
About eight, I think. A little girl. Seven or eight years old. I remember she had a baby
brother, in a pram. She’d hand him little stones and say: “Throw it at the Arab, throw
it at the Arab.” And he was this tiny thing in the pram, and he’d go like that and throw.
Naturally it would hit his toes because he was sitting and he was so little, but that’s
what she’d show him: “Throw it at the Arab.”
***
Testimony 28
On our first day in Hebron, it was a huge shock, just to realize you were inside the
Occupied Territories.
Had you ever been to the Occupied Territories before?
No.
Where are you from?
Haifa. So then, on my second day in Hebron I was taken to Tel Rumeida to distribute
storm-wear to the soldiers. And I was really excited to be inside the Territories and be
46
seeing things, and I asked to stay on the job.
And what did you see?
Just as we got there, you know, it really hits you because I mean what do you get
to know in basic training? The M-16, helmet and bullet-proof vest, which you don’t
really use anyway. So we got there and I had to put on a ceramic bullet-proof, as
far as I remember we rode a Hummer or Jeep, don’t remember which, one of those
large ones. We get there and I’m told, “Come on out,” and I say: No way, I’m not
coming out. “Why?” Because I’m in Hebron, in the Territories, I’m not coming out.
And they go, “Come on, what’s wrong with you? We’re in the middle of the job, get
out.” No, no, I’m scared. Anyway my sergeant came along, gave me his hand and
got me out. And then I saw a little kid with a skullcap passing by and I thought, cool,
it’s a Jewish neighborhood, so sure I can come out. I got out of the vehicle and was
still sort of scared, you hear a shot here and there, or something strange like that.
I was really scared. My first two days in the army. So we got to the outpost and
saw that this outpost – Tel Rumeida – was right next to the settlers’ living quarters,
and they live there really crowded together and there are these wire nets over the
windows. So I got to the outpost itself and was in shock, I felt as though I was in the
middle of a war. Looking around me, it all looked like one big ruin and they were living
inside. And the outpost and the soldiers all with weapons drawn and at the ready and
the children hanging around, and here and there I saw them talking with the soldiers.
And this sight of houses with wired windows, it was really odd. But I was excited with
it all and thinking, wow, I’m seeing things that no one else gets to see.
What follows fear?
I calmed down afterwards and then, at other times when we got there, I mean you
already know it’s not you who should be afraid but they, the Arabs, who should be
afraid. And you see how they behave too, they simply cross the street. I remember
seeing them walking along, and we were riding, and they see Israeli kids, I mean
Jewish settler kids, and they would switch street sides. And soldiers too. They are
afraid, and then slowly you realize you’re the stronger one here.
***
Testimony 29
Here’s a specific incident. I don’t quite recall exactly when it happened, but I believe it
was late 2002. I was on a patrol with several combatants and another one was sitting
in back with me. Could be we were on a foot patrol or something because usually on
a Jeep we were only three of us. But anyway we were sitting two combatants in the
back of the Jeep, another guy and myself. We caught some 5-year-old kid. I don’t
remember what brought this on, where we brought him from. He was Palestinian
but I remember we went to bring him back into the Territories or something. So that
kid was there and he was picked up and slapped around a bit, taken into the Jeep,
and this kid is crying, so the guy next to me goes: “Why, don’t cry!” He starts smiling
at him so finally the kid smiles too, and then – boom, a punch in the belly. Wow, I
wouldn’t punch even a strong adult like that. A kid – all of five or seven maximum.
Tiny. Boom. Why? “Don’t you dare laugh at me!”
Was he laughing at the soldier?
I don’t think he was, I didn’t see him laughing. Certainly not at the soldier, he was
shaking with fear. All that “No, no…” pleading with them not to harm him.
***
Testimony 30
There was an incident with a Palestinian baby brought in from Yatta to the gate of
the brigade HQ base when he was already blue with an asthma attack. He’d had
this happen twice. His father wanted to get him through the checkpoint but wasn’t
allowed through, and things really got tight. Finally he was breathing again, he was all
right, and this time too, he thought, okay, I won’t take him through the checkpoint,
I’d have trouble. Then it was too late. Such stuff.
What do you mean?
It was a real case… The story you get is something insignificant, background, it’s not
even recorded anywhere, between us. You only get this report: At such and such
48
hour a baby in severe asthma crisis reached the brigade HQ. Resuscitation attempts
were made. The baby died. That’s it.
And what really happened?
The father already came out of Yatta twice with the child suffering an asthma attack,
reached the checkpoint, was delayed, and again, again, by the time the soldiers
decided to let him get through to hospital or not, the child regained his breathing
capacity, the attack was over, they went back. Twice. The third time, the father said…
the soldiers spoke about this regarding the father’s anger, right? It’s the father’s fault.
He didn’t want to travel with the child because of the checkpoints. So it’s his fault
the child is dead.
And there was no inquiry.
None at all. Such stories were a dime a dozen. But there was another story. Which
I also heard from some officers at the brigade HQ. Junior officers. Curfew was
announced in Hebron, a Palestinian came in, the first report we got during the
incident was that…
The story you’re telling me now, took place as you were sitting in the brigade
HQ war-room?
Yes. And then I hear or see it on video at the Gutnick Center (in Magen David
Adom’s video) in Kiryat Arba (Israeli settlement adjacent to Hebron). Moked (medical
emergency unit) 4. Together with the medics there. They loved videotaping stuff,
especially when a Palestinian was involved. In this case, there was curfew in town.
We got a report: A Palestinian is hurt, hit in the leg, there was open-fire procedure,
he didn’t respond, he was suspect, hanging around … During curfew, got shot. That
was the report. We sent an army ambulance, the guy was hurt. Later he was taken to
a hospital in Jerusalem to get fitted for prosthesis. Then, I don’t know how long after
that, certainly a few days, I get to the Gutnick Center, around noon we were talking
with some people we met there with whom we had good contacts. Suddenly they
show us this film on a video camera, we see that guy just after he got shot. A soldier
stands there next to him, in absolute shock after having shot him. What was the story?
This too I heard from people who stood around and told that this Palestinian was a
drunk whom they knew. A guy who was always hanging around and he was ordered
to stop in Hebrew, and in Arabic, and he wouldn’t hear them, he was flying high, and
they shot him. The soldier stands there, you can see him standing there stunned
and looking at him for some minutes. After quite a few minutes he was approached
and given treatment. I don’t know about you, but as far as I’m concerned it was as
if… According to our directives, you’re to immediately rush over and take care of the
guy, and if his leg spurts blood, you’re to bind a tourniquet etc. So it was this kind of
negative model. They were standing around with the camera and joking: look at that,
look at that blood spurting and this and that…
Who was filming?
The video was kept at the medical emergency unit in Kiryat Arba. I understood this
from one of the medics there who filmed instead of treating the guy.
A settler or army medic?
Settler medic. Moked 4 at Kiryat Arba was manned by civilian medics.
Was that the only case you recall where help was not offered to Palestinians?
I seem to remember this case in particular because of the video camera. It was
etched in my memory. There were many other cases… I call them small incidents
because I wasn’t there and didn’t witness them myself. You simply note something
down and later you get the stories. There was this and that and the other. There
were many cases where… In Hebron, on the seam-line between H1 and H2, when a
Palestinian got hit, the first procedure was to summon the Red Crescent. Not even
alert us. The medics of Kiryat Arba - Hebron do not approach Palestinians to give
them aid.
They said outright.
… There was this incident, for example, in which a Palestinian was hurt, the Red
Crescent was delayed, it always takes them hours to arrive, and I’m talking with Moked
4, and they say: No way! There’s some rally elsewhere, if we send an ambulance to
you for a Palestinian, and something happens over there, no one will be around to
take care of it. Are you crazy? Us send someone over there? For a Palestinian? So
I get annoyed and want to send in an army ambulance that is further away. There
was some bureaucracy to get him confirmed. You need to get confirmation from
division HQ through the telephones, and they need it from Regional Command, and
the command orders me back to get a civilian ambulance. So finally I spoke to the
division medical officer-in-charge, acting on my own judgment considering I was the
only commander in the area on duty, the brigade doctor was out. I spoke to him
on the phone and he yelled at me, no way! We don’t confirm such events. So still I
activated MDA Kiryat Arba, sent them in after all, in other words lied to them and said
it was authorized, and yes, go on, take the guy in. I got yelled at on every possible
echelon later on. It felt like the last straw, after that they just couldn’t stand me there
any longer.
Who yelled at you?
The division medical officer.
50
There was this event of a wounded Palestinian and the medical officer in
charge of the entire West Bank…
Tells me to forget it. Who cares… Yes… Right.
He’s a doctor?
He’s a doctor.
***
Testimony 31
You’re supposed to handle the women?

Everyone. I mean, if body checks are called for, then of course it’s the women,
but most of the time there are no body checks. Just hand over your ID, and that’s
checked against the computer.
What happens to people who don’t have their ID with them?
They would usually be sent back home.
Were there also cases of harassing women?
That, too.
What?
Slaps. Especially slaps.
Slaps, by men?
That, too. Whoever was there. The women-combatants, in particular, were doing
the slapping. There were two of them who really enjoyed hitting out. But the guys,
too, had no problem slapping women. If she would scream they would go: shut up!
and slap her. It was routine violence there. Again, there were guys who didn’t, but
everyone knew about this. Perhaps someone would say he didn’t. In that case he’d
need to get checked, urgent - he must be blind, deaf.
***
Testimony 32
Let’s say I put together this bulletin-board for the soldiers, and wanted to post some
excerpts of ‘Breaking the Silence’ testimonies. The company-commander had some
on his computer.
What did he do with them?
I don’t know, read them I guess. The company-commander is a very moral guy, but
also extremely militant. Very loyal to the system. So, on the one hand he had that
stuff on his computer, on the other hand he wouldn’t let me post it up for the soldiers
to read. He did say, though, it’s ‘not because I don’t think the soldiers should know
about this, I just don’t want them reading that stuff a minute before they go out on a
mission. I don’t want them to have that on their mind when they go on a mission.’
He wants them to focus on their objective, see?
Did you ask him why?
It creates empathy and could cause a soldier to say ‘I don’t want to go on this
mission.’
And that’s what he was afraid of?
I think so. Or how it would affect his own conduct on a mission. I suppose there was
that too.
Why did you want to post this?
That was in the beginning, and it seemed right to me to understand where you are
from a slightly critical point of view, one that no one else would discuss with them,
wouldn’t expose them to.
And did you ever try again since, to open this…
No.
***
Testimony 33
I think that perhaps on my second or third shift I was with some guy, we stopped
someone, again, on that foot patrol. So the soldier caught him and said: “What are
52
you laughing at?” Again, the guy was not laughing. “You’re laughing? Really, well,
no problem,” he took off his shirt and said: “Now I’m not a Border Patrolman, let’s
fight.”
Obviously the guy is not going to punch him back, what does he mean he’s no longer
a Border Patrolman?? The fact you’ve taken off part of your uniform doesn’t make
you just someone on the street, does it? He beat him to a pulp.
And the Palestinian didn’t hit back?
No. The soldier lashed out whole-heartedly and the Palestinian did not hit back,
only pleaded and pleaded with him to let him go. And the Borderman goes: “Come
on, come on, hit me back.” I think he knew quite well, as did the Palestinian, that
he wouldn’t. What could the Palestinian do? Hit a Border Patrolman? What is he,
an idiot? He could get arrested for something like that, as absurd as it is, and I
remember standing there and he goes, “Come on, show your stuff.” I say: leave me
alone, it makes me sick. I don’t want to touch him. Let him get out of here. Again,
right away I realized I wasn’t going to hold any political discussions here about my
own views. (…)
And he wasn’t wearing his shirt?
Right, so he picks up his rifle and starts using it to hit the guy. You don’t need a shirt
to hold your gun. This was routine there. Again, after about half a year I hardly went
out on patrol, most of the time I stood at outposts.
***
Testimony 34
That’s it. We got to the checkpoint, to Erez Crossing. How can I describe it to you?
It’s constructed as a vast compound with lots of concrete ledges, but not too high.
The checkpoint is huge. It’s a giant installation you can see from very far off. Say there
are certain observation points when Beit Hanoun is being shelled – then everyone
goes off to watch houses being demolished, how the air force attacks them and so
on. But that’s on special occasions. But even if you’re just hanging out on the base
you can always see the Palestinians moving around. Besides, if you’re plain bored,
you can be at the checkpoint in two minutes flat, and all that movement in the base is
that of soldiers coming back or going to the checkpoint itself. All the combat soldiers
who secure the checkpoint are not on the base with us, they’re at a base five minutes
drive away. So that’s the Erez Crossing.
What was it like for you, at first?
I think it seemed to me like a jail. There’s – not everything has been destroyed and
newly built – there are these metal pens, with people, soldiers scattered along several
strategic points. Below them, say a soldier stands like that on top of a concrete
ledge, and people walk along beneath him. Everyone’s armed of course. At the end
of each pen stands an armed soldier ordering people to pivot, lift their shirts, take off
their shoes, all of that.
At what distance do they stand?
It’s all metal doors, a highly upgraded checkpoint as it were, hardly any human
contact at all.
What, loudspeakers?
Yes, loudspeakers. They start from the point – I’m not too good at directions – like
the spot closest to Gaza. They start there, and there’s something called a sleeve. This
whole matter of crossing the checkpoint, it starts at 3 a.m. and ends at 5 a.m. and
then they return at 5 p.m. the next day. You realize what kind of a life they lead, these
people, right? They go home, say they get back home around seven. At three in the
morning they already have to show up at the checkpoint. The buses are there waiting
to take them to work inside Israel, on the other side. You see?
If I am Palestinian…
You’ll get there early to stand in line.
How early?
We open the gates at three a.m. There’s already crowding around one a.m., they’ll
wait and quarrel and all. Because they’re not told how many will be allowed in. We
have a meeting about this.
There’s a quota?
Sure. Back in the good old days… At the checkpoint they were always saying back in
the good old days, tens of thousands of people came through. I don’t remember exact
figures but something on the order of 15,000, 20,000 a day. When I got there, it was
already during the Second Intifada, 2000. It was quiet. At the checkpoint, except for
one incident in 1996, a shooting, supposedly – not a bombing, a shooting – nothing
happened there since 1996 when this press photographer was hurt. So when I got
there the situation was very different not because of anything that happened at the
checkpoint, but because of the Intifada. And then the State of Israel decided. I mean,
54
every day at noon we’d meet and decide what was going to happen at the checkpoint
that evening. It depended on State policy, not in the hands of the commander on the
ground. So the quota was lowered to 3,000 or 5,000. Which meant that people would
arrive and whoever got in, got in. They wouldn’t be arranged ahead of time.
No special permits?
There’s something called ‘humanitarian’ permit, which is the most, like, troublesome.
No one would, I mean it was treated very… What is humanitarian? Ambulances.
There are no humanitarian work permits. So let’s say today they are letting 3,000 or
5,000 people in, right? Or 6,000 max. And lots of people arrive, crowding, thousands,
standing on the other side.
How many?
I don’t see them. They’re on the other side, in Gaza. I don’t see them but the
Palestinians inform us know how many. There’s the DCO (District Coordinating Office)
who do the coordination of this whole thing. And they’re the weakest link at the
checkpoint. They’re the ones no one gives a damn about. They’re pests. But they’re
the ones who fill out the daily report, around ten pages, of exactly how many people
got in, how many humanitarian permits were issued, those were always around two
or three or four. And we had to fill out this report, our part of it. Every day, this very
detailed report that the night shift filled out. What kind of cases, ambulances, special
events, how many illegals, detainees or prevented from entry. In short, regulations
have gotten much tighter since I got there.
***
Testimony 35
They (the Jewish settlers in Hebron) were horrid. I don’t know, I was shocked by the
fact that they would always invite the paratroopers to visit. Never the Nahal soldiers.
I remember their resentment when some wanted man was caught, it was winter, this
crazy snow in Hebron. We were absolutely freezing. That’s what I remember from the
snow, and the Nahal guys caught this wanted man, everyone already knew about this
on radio, and somehow the Jewish settlers got there for some reason, straight from
their homes. I don’t know, I think they had our radio frequencies or something like
that. And they came and saw the wanted man with a blanket and got really annoyed:
What is this, he’s being given a blanket!? No one even knew what he had done. His
ID number came up for questioning. Whether he was a terrorist or something else…
This was not after an arrest?
No, not at all. A man whose ID was checked and he came up ‘wanted.’ There were
plenty of people wanted for questioning, whose relative so and so, not necessarily,
you know, collaborators, all sorts. And these settlers were furious why these Nahal
guys brought him that blanket, and they simply boycotted the Nahal. All the Jewish
settlers there. Really mean. They were terribly angry about this. Then soldiers from
our unit came along, took away the blankets the Nahal guys had brought, took the
cup of tea that the soldier had given him and spilt it on the ground, humiliating him.
They made him sit – you wanted to warm up a little? – they made him sit on the snow
– there, sit on the ice.
What did the Nahal guys say about this?
Nothing much. They were saying, hey – that’s our detainee, move, stuff like that. But
our guys were already, you know – we’re here in Hebron for three years inside, and
this is our turf.
So what did they do to this detainee?
Took away the blanket, made him sit on the snow to realize that who cares if he’s
cold, until the police came for him. It took about half an hour, the whole story. Not
much longer.
***
Testimony 36
As an NCO I slept at the outpost of one of the companies based in Hebron. Because
there were no girls’ quarters I shared a room with guys. I remember that one night,
around 4 a.m., one of the commanders came in, I think he was a sergeant, and sat
on my bed, waking me up. I jumped up, he sat, with his ceramic bullet-proof vest, his
helmet, his gun, just down from guard duty. I ask him: “Has anything happened?”
He sits there, his eyes glazed, and says: “I had this dream.” I ask: “What did you
dream?”
56
“I dreamt that the Jews are beating me up and Arabs beat me up and I stand in the
middle and can’t do a thing about it.” Then I asked him: “It was no dream, was it?
You’ve just come down from guard duty and something has happened.” He said,
“Yes.” The soldier was stunned. They just removed some settlers who had entered
Palestinians’ shops in Hebron. The Palestinians came to protect their own shop. The
settlers tried to break in, and the soldiers were there right in the middle of things,
getting hit by both sides. And the soldier was simply in shock. I had to actually help
him remove his vest and helmet and go to sleep, and forget about it. He came back
stunned from this incident. It was one of the things that really got etched in my
memory.
***
Testimony 37
Unit: Gaza Division/Education Corps | Location: Gaza Strip
I used to visit the war-room quite a lot as well as the look-outs’ screen-rooms and
see all kinds of films. And I remember that the first time I was really shocked, I saw
a video recording that showed some old Palestinian farmer who got too close to the
fence by mistake, too close to the fence, and you simply see the tank shell coming
and blowing him up. I looked at the Palestinian and at the female look-out watching
it, and thought about the soldiers in that tank and it was simply, I don’t know… When
you get out of things for a second it just doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make sense
and it’s inhuman. When you’re in it all, if you don’t… When you’re inside it’s got to be
normal, otherwise you can’t function. (…)
And tank fire, shelling people, is that routine there? Part of the open-fire
instructions?
I think these instructions were changed quite often while I was serving at the division
HQ. But I think they were changed so frequently that they never managed to reach
the rank and file soldiers before they were re-modified again. But, I mean, it was
pretty common. He got close to the fence? The look-out detected him, what does
that mean? It means he has to be taken down somehow or another.
Do you recall other such incidents?
There were many I heard about but I think that after that one time I decided I wouldn’t
watch any more.
What cases?
Cases where Palestinians didn’t mean to infiltrate or anything like that, as it came out
in inquiries after the fact, but were shot because they got too close to the fence or
were suspected. I mean, I’d seen enough films of terrorists who did try to infiltrate
the fence and you see their head popping up and disappearing, and again, and it’s
obvious they’re on a hit mission. And I also remember it looked to me like some kind
of video game, you’re not really seeing a human being, you see someone running but
it doesn’t look like a real person, like it’s not happening.
And what was the reaction to cases where people were hurt, and the inquiry
revealed they hadn’t intended to carry out any terrorist activity?
I don’t remember anyone except for myself who reacted to this, I never heard anyone
talk about it, respond, think, feel. Nothing at all. It’s something I absorbed and seemed
wrong to me. But like this was war, and there are no laws in war, it’s like the general
spirit of things.
***
Testimony 38
Name: *** | Rank: Sergeant | Unit: Army Spokesperson | Location: Yitzhar
Were there incidents that happened during your service? That left their
mark?
Yes. The first was the evacuation of the settlement outpost Shalhevet near Yitzhar, on
January 3rd, 2005. It was the first time I was actually on intensive filming. I had never
before filmed anything that was news, where the happening was so intense and
comprehensive… I came there in the morning with a camera crew—it was a video
cameraman, a sound man and a stills photographer. I was the stills photographer.
We went up with a convoy of soldiers from the settlement, from the guard post of
that settlement, to the outpost that was a bit lower down. And then at some point
we got away from the convoy. There’s this path leading down into the outpost, where
people were removed and the whole riot was taking place. When we arrived all hell
had broken loose, beatings, rioting.
58
Between the army and the settlers?
The army and the settlers.
Was there police, too?
The police was there and had already brought all kinds of heavy equipment to remove
the... I mean, some silly trailer was all there was. And then, at some point, going
down, we got detached. Somehow the soldiers were further away and we were
descending, and the camera crew was standing there, the cameraman and soundman
were standing at the bottom, filming something that didn’t interest me, and I began
to go down alone, I was with my camera, in uniform, and people saw I was a soldier.
Then at some point while going down, some five or six settlers surrounded me and
began to yell at me. Anyway, the camera crew couldn’t see me, I was surrounded by
these guys and they were yelling, I couldn’t say anything, so I just stood there and
didn’t move or say a word. Until at some point one of the settlers – I was carrying two
cameras, one on my shoulder and another around my neck. So one of the settlers
gripped the camera I had on my shoulder, and pulled. I pulled and he pulled, and that
went on for about ten seconds, but he was stronger. He went off, escaped and that
was that. Then I must have started to scream. I was in shock.
Did they touch you?
No, but it was terrifying. They surrounded me and I couldn’t utter a word, I couldn’t
move. What most shocked me was, I remember saying to some soldier who was
near me: “Help me, they’ve stolen my camera!” I guess he was scared, because it
seemed he just wasn’t interested, he turned around and then I started yelling for my
friends from my own unit who saw me and came running.
Did you talk with anyone after that?
Yes. Besides I had to go to the police and be questioned by the army deputy-
spokesperson, and by the way nothing happened, the camera was not returned,
none of the kids…
Didn’t you photograph them?
I photographed one boy who wasn’t the one who… I photographed several boys,
not the one who grabbed my camera, that one ran off to the fields and was taken
into custody, but he was a minor, so there was nothing to do about it. The army
spokesperson people did not really fight this out, and it was equipment worth a lot of
money, and I don’t know, I think they tried to stay on good footing with the…
Surely yours was not the first case, to what extent did they try to stay on
good terms with the settlers?
I don’t know, they didn’t really go out of their way to get army equipment back,
they’re not… I was the one who went to the police. Beyond an inquiry that was done
mainly for official appearances, I think, and to draw conclusions, nothing was done
on the part of the spokesperson’s office.
***
Testimony 39
There was this one case I recall of a boy, sixteen or seventeen years old, perhaps
even younger, who decided to get fresh with a Border Patrolwoman, okay? What do
I mean by fresh? I don’t know, be loud, say stuff, I don’t know what he said to her
exactly. Apparently he had to be detained, he couldn’t leave. She went off to call the
person in charge at the police station and I was asked to escort him to the station.
I was present, but not involved in what happened between them. So I followed him
and the officer in charge of the police station inside the Allenby Bridge Terminal. It
belongs to the Ma’ale Adumim police, like I said earlier. We got to the station and they
went into a room and I was outside. I didn’t know why I had to stay there in the first
place. I didn’t. I don’t know, something made me stay, I recall now. Across the closed
door I heard everything that went on inside. There was yelling: What are you doing?
How dare you behave this way? Anyway, I started hearing blows, a beating.
I didn’t know what to think. I felt quite frozen, didn’t know what to do. What, could
I break in and tell the commander to stop it? It wasn’t… You know, there was this
respect for superiors, there’s no way you’d open up and talk. Tell them how to
behave? Who, me? I was just a controller.
What did you do?
I told you, I wasn’t even supposed to be there. I didn’t leave, I stayed. I wanted to see
if he really hit him or anything. I don’t remember whether I saw him hurt or anything, I
think this was a very sturdy boy. Anyway, he was sitting there for some minutes, then
he was detained for a few hours, until things calmed down and he was released.
No investigation? Nothing?
You realize it was all about one word he said to a policewoman there. The point is that
at first he was certain it was all in jest. We’re talking about young people our age, what
were we? Girls. The policewoman too was young. These are army-age people serving
60
in the civilian police instead of the army. Police staff doing their regular army service.
***
Testimony 40
Unit: Golani Brigade (Infantry) | Location: Training Base
I can tell you a funny story. Before we went out to the Occupied Territories we had
some training. I sat in on an Arabic class my soldiers were getting.
They had classes in Arabic?
They had these lessons in very basic Arabic, to learn the most fundamental stuff like
‘open the door’ and all that.
Checkpoint Arabic?
Exactly. So I sat there with these guys who were really gung-ho, extremely militant
about anything Arab. And their songs, I mean – I cringe at them to this day. Never
mind. Anyway, there was this really delicate girl-soldier, ‘a yellow’ as they’re commonly
called here. She comes and tells them how to tell people to stop, teaches them
the ‘open-fire instructions’ in Arabic. I’m sitting there in class with them, and she’s
saying: “Stop! Stop or I shoot!” trying to explain this to them. Exactly five minutes into
class time, a guy stands up – I won’t say his name, but he was a true-blue Golanchik
(nickname for Golani Brigade soldiers) – he got up and said to her: “Listen, cutie,
forget it. Stop… Stop or I shoot… We don’t talk. We shoot. Then maybe we talk.”
Why am I telling you this story? It’s a would-be laugh. But come to think of it, it isn’t
that funny at all. In actual fact, even suspect-arrest procedure isn’t that respectful,
guys don’t really take it seriously. They slip through it. I mean, the bit about calling
out ‘Stop, stop or I shoot!’ – they don’t do that. At least not from what I can gather
talking to them. They seem to find that a kind of fairy-story bullshit.
How do they respond to the killing of innocents?
They don’t see them as innocents. It’s not that these people are guilty of anything as
far as they’re concerned, but for them it’s very common to compare this to our side:
Why, don’t children die in suicide bombings? Don’t suicide bombers kill innocents?
It’s a reaction that keeps coming up. There were often stories about situations where
innocents got killed. That’s something that happened big-time.
***
Testimony 41
Name: *** | Rank: First Sergeant
Unit: Oketz | Location: Menashe Regional Brigade
When I was – this is something I really didn’t like and it was when I just started
out in the Menashe regional brigade. Detainees were brought in by Golanchiks who
had really abused them. Really. I don’t know, it was… They were outside the war-
room. You see detainees, and soldiers standing guard over them, and all the guys
came over to make fun of these detainees. Ordering them around, say this, say that,
kicking them. They weren’t too…
How many detainees and how many Golanchiks?
There were two detainees shackled, blindfolded, the works, surrounded by at least
fifteen guys who were harassing them, who came out to make fun of them. It seemed
to me, I don’t know, somehow there’s this atmosphere of ‘It’s fine, because they’re
Arabs so they’re terrorists, they’re shits and this and that.’ On the other hand, I mean
they’ll be punished, that doesn’t mean… It’s like you’re making a fool of yourself. I
felt these soldiers were making fools of themselves treating them that way. A guy is
shackled, blindfolded, and you come out and tell him to say this and say that, a guy
who’s terrified because he’s detained. Okay, true, he’s a terrorist and all, but really, put
him in jail, why do you have to come along and behave like retarded children and start
telling him to say this and say that, say ‘I’m a whore’ and stuff. What are you, idiots?
That’s how I felt.
Did you say anything?
No, I didn’t.
Why not?
Because I was young. You know, in the army there’s this thing that you’re young and
these were all guys from the older company and all. Why should they listen to some
girl ops-sergeant?
Were you afraid?
No. They wouldn’t have done anything. But I told the girls in the war-room when we
talked about this, and they said – some actually had a laugh, went along with this.
Others didn’t agree. I don’t know. I found it out of line.
62
***
Testimony 42
Name: *** | Rank: Sergeant | Unit: Field Intelligence | Location: Gaza Strip
What about detainees?

Detainees? I don’t know. We hadn’t that much to do with them. They’d just be
brought in and questioned on the base, so we’d see it. Just see it. The fact that I took
pictures of them? I have nothing to say about that. Yes, it did feel strange, but…
Did you use your cell phone to take pictures?
My digital camera. I’ll tell you why. We girls sort of sit there, we see a lot of this, it’s
part of what we experience. We watch, I don’t how to explain this to you. It’s like
something we’re actually experiencing, part of what we go through every day. Even
if it’s, I don’t know, a souvenir for myself to see where I was in the army and what I
saw. It’s not necessarily…
… That’s close to the war-room? They’re brought into the war-room?
Yes. Not the war-room itself, no way. But they’re held close-by. The base isn’t that
big, either, so they’re either placed in the sports court, they’re made to sit in there, or
next to the rooms where they’re questioned.
***
Testimony 43
It’s terrible at the checkpoint. The whole business of ‘purity of arms’ and the fear of
violating the dignity of people being inspected at the checkpoint was terrible, there
were lots of problems with that. At the checkpoint, say Palestinians came with bags
of clothes, they’d be ripped. The women are stripped in a sort of, not a room, there’s
this partition, by female-soldiers of course. It could be done more gently than it’s
usually done.
Stripped down to what extent?
Stripped, what do you mean to what extent? They’re left in their bra and underpants.
It may have been possible – I suppose there just wasn’t enough money left in the
budget for this – one could have put in air-conditioning at this checkpoint, but it wasn’t
done. So say it was summer, it’s not pleasant to sit there for hours waiting. Really not.
And there’s this thing with food that they’d be bringing along, and sometimes their
stuff is opened, and sometimes say they had falafel in bags, so often soldiers would
open the food packs.
And help themselves to it, too?
Yes. Why, at the checkpoints in the Territories they do this all the time. You’ll not see
a soldier without prayer beads. Never. And that’s something they often hand over, it
already happens as if perhaps the Palestinians are so anxious to get through, they’ll
sort of bribe the soldiers a little to show some consideration.
***
Testimony: 44
Name: *** | Rank: Sergeant (Reserves)
Unit: Hatikva | Location: Qalandiya Checkpoint
I’ll tell you a little about how it works. There are several checking posts, four or five,
which are simply concrete slabs, and some chairs, uncomfortable ones if any. The
whole experience is not exactly pleasant, the helmet grinding your head, the eight
hour shift. At the side there is an armored booth for inspecting women, in more
intimate circumstances. It’s not, well, I don’t know other setups, but it is certainly not
done up nicely or looks good in any way, or seems as though anyone gave a thought
to how to put down belongings. Basically it’s all just very shocking. I had a hard time,
I told you, I felt uneasy from the first, found it difficult to think about.
Did you get to do women’s inspections in this booth?
Yes.
You were there for two weeks. How did you feel?
It’s what I’ve been describing to you, you’re in this state, personally I think I wasn’t
very much my own self at that time because it was a sort of… It’s work and even
more so if you’re doing it for three years, and even if you do it, say, for a week. So it’s
them, and they’re your job, and it’s not about us. It didn’t really bother me, say I was
a bit ill at the time, so I wasn’t exactly eager to lie flat on the floor right there and them
64
see that, or that I cared too much what they’re thinking or feeling. Again the
sly remarks, the teasing, the disrespectful speech. I mean yes, I suppose it depends
how many hours you spend there. I guess for the first few hours, yes, I may have kept
some kind of human manner, polite and all. But about these juvenile little jokes, that
make kids laugh, after all that’s what I am. I’m maybe 21 which is also a kid, all the
more if you’re 18. So what I do remember about this is a kind of detachment from
what you usually are in your life. Perhaps these guys, these soldiers whom I saw there
who behaved disrespectfully or condescendingly or uncaringly, perhaps at home with
their mom they’re angels. Again, I can only say about myself that I experience a kind
of emotional barrier when I’m there.
***
Testimony 45
I recall once we had this talk when we got back to our quarters, and one girl said she
had slapped an Arab. That was the first time I heard about a girl-soldier who actually
slapped an Arab.
What did you say to her?
It opened up quite a discussion in our company. The girls asking, like how did you
dare? She was in a company with a guy who was not one of the more violent types
there. He was rather one of the finer fellows in the company. And I remember her
saying, “Yes, he was rude to me.” Something like that. “He answered me rudely, so I
gave him a slap in the face.” And I’m thinking about that Arab, a grown man, who is
approached by a good-looking blond girl who slaps his face at the checking post.
I don’t know, the mere thought was just so shocking. And she said it so… Later
we talked about this and girls said to her: How could you have dared, I could never
do such a thing. We had this round going, who would and who wouldn’t. Barely
ten seconds later two other girls already admitted having done this, one of them
once told an Arab to get down on his knees, something like that, another said she
occasionally cocked her weapon right in the face of an Arab, threatening him. He
stood facing her and said: Okay, what do you want now? Something of that nature.
So she aimed her rifle at his face and cocked it right there. I was shocked that these
were my friends.
Did you feel like an outsider?
I remember coming home to my grandma and telling her: I’ve got to get out of
there.
Got to leave.
So how does one get used to this, when you realize all those girls had slapped
people?
Slapped? There’s this man, and you’re cocking your gun in his face. Although that
in itself was pretty common, guys were doing that often, cocking their rifles while
threatening children, grownups, everyone.
Did you see weapons being cocked?

Sure. It was procedure. Like: Where are you going? Click-click. Like: Where do you
think you’re going? Click-click. You do it to kids, to everyone.
***
Testimony 46
Name: *** | Rank: Sergeant | Unit: Border Patrol | Location: Gaza Strip
Once I took the soldiers to the theater, on a ‘culture Sunday,’ to see a play. It was
thrilling. There were guys from different places, rural areas, it was their very first visit
ever at “Habima” (Israeli national theater). And it was really nice, I came out feeling
really good, and then we got back (to the Gaza Strip) through Kisufim Checkpoint in
this open truck, open in the back I mean. We came back from Habimah Theater to
Gaza, and the minute we crossed the checkpoint it was like entering another world.
As soon as we got through they changed. There were Palestinians walking with
their carts and wagons and donkeys on the roadside, some on foot. So the Border
Patrolmen in the truck took these crates of left-over food they had there and began to
throw stuff at the Palestinians. It was my most shocking experience in the Occupied
Territories.
How did you see it?
I was sitting with them in the back of that truck. An officer was sitting up front in the
cabin and I don’t recall whether there was another officer in back with me or not.
66
I got hysterical, I yelled at them: What are you doing?! We’re on our way back from
such a civilized event, what is going on with you? They only laughed and forced
me back into my seat, like. Sit down. I knocked on the cabin to get the officer’s
attention and demanded that the truck stop immediately, not to go on driving. The
officer told me to be quiet, like ‘don’t interfere.’ I yelled about what was happening,
I yelled: They’re throwing vegetables at Arabs, stop. They didn’t stop the truck, they
didn’t mind it, they did nothing. The officer didn’t get off, nothing happened. And the
guys went on doing this the whole way. They were throwing cottage cheese, rotten
vegetables. I got to the base extremely upset. I don’t remember if it was immediately
afterwards, but at some point I had a talk with the unit commander. I think he was
a major or lieutenant-colonel, I don’t know. He didn’t seem too perturbed: “Forget
it.” And I talked to other people there and no one… Everyone tried to hush it up
somehow. I wrote a new weekly bulletin on the topic and no one agreed to pass it
on. Not one commander wanted to have it. So I told this to my superior and other
officers from the Southern Command came and I told them too, and in no time I was
off to officers’ training. Like within one week. I don’t know what went on there. I felt
I had been thrown out. I remember that after this whole storm, when I tried to talk to
all the commanders and no one wanted my bulletin, then they no longer paid me any
attention at all. There was not much time left but they really avoided me. When I told
this to people from the Southern Command who came visiting, they ignored it too.
You didn’t keep still.
No, no. Well, it was sort of like keeping still. It’s not like I went to the press and
told someone. But when officers from the Southern Command came, these were
education corps people, and I felt they were from my ‘home base,’ among them
was the person responsible for education corps activity throughout the Southern
Command. So I told them about this, I told him and his whole entourage. And I felt,
or they made me feel as though I was circumventing authority, as though I was out
of line telling them about this.
Whom were you supposed to tell, by the book?
I don’t know… It was really difficult. Especially realizing now how small I was, but I
felt big. It was very hard. All those feelings there, it wasn’t new, every Saturday night
I would cry my heart out at home.
What was so hard for you there?
Their male-chauvinism, the incessant humiliation, especially this power-play that was
on all the time, my feeling that I was the weakest, weirdest creature in the world, and
complaining all the time.
***
Testimony 47
Unit: Binyamin Regional Brigade | Location: Binyamin Regional Brigade HQ
I finished a 14-hour shift. It was morning. We had trackers at the brigade HQ. We
joined them, they were cool, always taking us along for tours of the area so we’d get
our bearings a bit. Once, one of them said: Come along for a ride. So we started out
on patrol, driving along a road that only Israeli cars are permitted to take. That too is
an amazing thing I ignored during my whole time in the army. There were roads for
Jews and roads for non-Jews. Just for Palestinians.
Did you accept that?
Yes, it seemed reasonable to me.
When did you realize this was not reasonable?
When I got out of the army, later, at the university. When I grew up. It’s amazing how
different a person you can become during your army service, when you’re told and
ordered what to do, and you don’t doubt anything, even if you consider yourself an
adult, a curious, politically aware person. This always seemed very reasonable to
me. Why not? There’s fear. I didn’t realize how terrible this is, but thought it was so
important security-wise. Anyway, we were riding along this Jews-only road, and a
Palestinian truck passed by loaded with fruit and vegetables. So the tracker – now
these trackers are cool people but they’re also very eager machos, and driving along
with a girl in their Jeep – “I’m arresting this guy.” I asked, why? “He’s not allowed on
this road.” We stopped him. He says, come, get out of the Jeep. I said, Why? I’m not
in this. And he says, come on out, it’s okay. We’re in a calm spot. We got out of the
Jeep and there were fruit and vegetables in that truck. We see that he (the driver) is
the fruit vendor. We reach the door, he opens it, a driver about the age of my father,
a bit older, even, an elderly man. He comes out, pale, holding out a bag of – I think
it was grapes, or oranges. Not saying anything, just ‘take it, take it,’ in Hebrew. He
hands it to us. I’m standing there, I’m not… He says: Please, just take it. He only
wanted to bribe us, to calm us. I couldn’t stand it. In the meantime the tracker asked
him for his ID. The man was shaking. Shaking. I ran back to the Jeep. I told him: I’m
not… To this day when I think about it I feel sick. I mean, nothing happened there,
the tracker let him go, he’d noticed my reaction, the tracker, so he calmed down and
68
quickly let him go. He explained that he wasn’t supposed to drive on this road. He
realized that he… And the only thing I had in mind was that this person who could
have been my father was afraid of me because I was wearing this uniform, because
I was there in an army Jeep, and he was willing to give up his livelihood so that we
wouldn’t harm him. Like, what could we have done? But apparently he knew very
well what we could have done to him, so that’s why he was so upset. It’s followed me
for all these years. And that’s nothing. After all we didn’t hit him or anything… But it
was extremely meaningful to me. It gave me a true slap in the face. Really.
Where did it move you?
It made me understand that I’m simply – that there’s this deep dissonance between
what I’m told, between the justice that I’m being taught, and what really takes place
out there, on the ground. Everyone’s monstrous, they’re all terrorists, all suspects,
they have to be checked every last one of them, they must not be treated as our
equals. It is not right. This person wanted to make a living. That’s respectable. It’s
much more respectable than what many people are doing not only in our country, but
– in fact – in our government. Honestly. And what am I? Here I come, young enough
to be his daughter, and he’s so stressed out to see me that he goes all pale and tries
to give me fruit, in an attempt to persuade to leave him alone.
Did you talk about these things with people?
In the army? No.
Why not?
I don’t know. I think that was a very confusing time for me, I mean I didn’t really know
where I stood, what was right, what wasn’t. I know that personally it traumatized
me, but I didn’t know how to develop it into an idea, I mean to turn this into a certain
ideology, a certain opinion.
This doesn’t have to become an ideology.
No, but I didn’t know how I could come to my friends on the base or to my superior
officer and tell her: Why are we doing what we’re doing? After all, my whole job,
the essence of my life in the army was to work a certain line. I mean, to show my
belonging to a certain line, not to deviate, because the moment you do deviate, we
know that, you’re no longer a good soldier.
***
Testimony 48
These children with their plastic bags, (Palestinian boys trying to get into Israel around
Umm al-Fahm with bags of toys and various accessories for sale), the soldiers were
always stealing their stuff out of the bags. “Go on, empty the bag.” Now, we know
exactly what’s in those bags. Okay. You could say this is security procedure. They
can smuggle arms in those bags. “Okay, empty the bags. Oh, cool, I need some
batteries.” And they take them. Whatever’s there.
What else did they take?
Toys, batteries, anything they had there. Little things.
Money? Cigarettes?
Cigarettes, yes. Money I’m sure, yes. But I don’t remember specific cases. Also, they
certainly didn’t pay for the stuff. There was one case that TV Channel 2 happened to
be around and filmed some crew doing this. So then the company-commander had
us stand in formation and scolded us, the whole company. He said: “How could you
possibly think you wouldn’t be seen?” Not, how you could possibly do such a thing,
what were you thinking… “How could you possibly think you wouldn’t be seen?”
(…)
And then, back to business as usual?
Yes, the patrol that was caught was tried by the area commander and some of the
guys were punished, but not really…
How’s that?
One was re-assigned to a better unit, a “terrible punishment” of course… And another
guy, professional army, was off the job for about a month. That was more or less the
extent of their punishment, and very soon everything was back to normal, meaning it
was quite all right to slap, hit, humiliate and harass.
***
Testimony 49
There’s this toy pistol that shoots these tiny pellets, right? It shoots these plastic
70
pellets that really hurt you? Soldiers would call a kid over, cock a weapon in his face
and say: get me that kind of pistol. Not even ask, order him. The kids would get us
these pistols. You’d give the kid 15 shekels and he’d be happy and get you such a
gun. Bags of 100 pellets would cost us 3 shekels. We had plenty of these pistols in
the company, lots. And it was pretty idiotic of the kids to buy them for us, because
many of the soldiers would then use them on the kids. You’d sit on guard duty and
– pop – shoot a kid, pop – shoot a kid.
With these pellets?
Yes. They really hurt. They’re bad-bad-bad. This went on until a rule was passed in
the company to prohibit this. Whoever bought them would be prosecuted. We once
had this case where someone jokingly shot a kid with several pellets like that. He
called out to the kid and pointed this toy pistol at his head and these two soldiers got
their picture taken. Then some time went by, and we were at the post, I was on guard
duty with the guy who had played with the kid, and suddenly this “witch” comes to
us, a Palestinian reporter who was really well-known. So she comes to him, calls
out to him, I have no idea how she knew his name, she calls to him and shows him
his picture pointed that pistol at the Arab kid’s head. She asked him: “Where shall I
take this, Yedioth or Ma’ariv? Ha’aretz? BBC?” He went like that with these pictures.
And we got back to the company pretty upset that she was going to get him into
jail or something. It was a toy gun, and he was sure to end up in jail. He told our
commander about this. So they went out, a special patrol, to look for her in Hebron,
for this reporter. She was no sucker, and I think she was paid to get those photos,
because they came with the pictures and she wouldn’t have given them. I think they
paid her for the pictures. I’m assuming this. They said she handed them over. But
surely they wouldn’t have beat her up, she has a big mouth, and just to get those
pictures like that, why should she hand them over? She had a gold mine right there.
It sounded strange to me, her just handing them over. Perhaps they threatened her.
I have no idea, but they came back with the pictures, with all the pictures she had
shown us, and it wasn’t publicized anywhere. She didn’t give them just part of it. It
was not printed.
And the pictures made the rounds in your company?
No. They were destroyed that very day.
What did the company-commander have to say?
That if this reaches the army spokesperson, we’ve had it. That’s what the company-
commander said.
***
Testimony 50
How do you feel, leaving the Border Patrol after two and a half years?
Lots of guilty feelings, I think. Because I can keep saying all day that I couldn’t do
anything and that this is the mentality there and the fact is that it hasn’t changed for
years and the fact is that anyone I mentioned Border Patrol to knew right away what
I was talking about. I mean, it’s not like I say Border Patrol and people go, wow, is
that what goes on there?? There’s a guy… People tell me they never thought it was
that extreme. And I’m sure that the really extreme stories are not being told, because
there are plenty of stories about trashing vendors’ stalls and all and I know these
are true stories. (…) Again, how did I come away from all this? There are the guilty
feelings about not being able to do anything. That you’re witnessing something you
know is wrong, and even if I keep repeating there was nothing I could do about it, and
this is in thousands of situations, not even necessarily harassment, because on the
one hand the Palestinian population suffered harassment and revenge for everything
they had done to us, and on the other hand guard duty was really neglected. If
you honestly want to defend your country, then do the job. Between beating up
Palestinians you better do your guard duty properly. Don’t go off to sleep or split to
go eat hummus. So it’s the actual awareness of the injustice and the fact that, well I
was sure there were terrorist attacks that could have been prevented if soldiers, let’s
say, if these areas were not in the hands of a force that is problematic to begin with.
You felt guilty while still on the force?
Yes and no. I suppose the guilty feelings were there to a certain extent but not enough
to be too conscious of them. Then I was more aware of this sense of helplessness
which is now behind me. I think it was mainly in order to survive. As a good friend of
mine said, she was with me from the beginning, that we were very busy looking out
for ourselves, we had no time left to look out for others.
What do you mean?
It was said in another context, of girls trying to survive this situation. In my unit, again,
the atmosphere was very sexually problematic.
There was sexuality too?
Yes. Especially in the first unit I was assigned to.
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What do you mean by ‘survive’?
It means a lot of things. Again, it depends. Every unit, every company, to what extent
– again, the Border Patrol has a very certain reputation but obviously every single
unit is different. If in the first unit I was in they were saying, like, you gotta be limber
in your legs. Not necessarily every unit was like that. In some, girls did manage
to do well for themselves, I’m not denying it. But there was also this very sexual
atmosphere and that was very heavy. So I’m saying yes, that’s true, Border Patrol has
had girl-combatants for years now but there is also this very sexual, very problematic
atmosphere. I keep saying that I had to fight more on base in than out on the ground,
and it’s like that in many respects. At the time I had to protect myself so I had not too
much energy left to protect others. But it stuck. I mean the memories stick at some
level or other. I do know that I have repressed a lot of stuff, I usually remember things
very specifically, from childhood, from high school, names, everything. However, I do
not recall the names of lots of people I knew in the army, even guys who were with
me for a whole year on operations company, some of them I don’t remember. And I
know that lots of events I remember only vaguely or partially, lots of stuff is blurred.
So I realize that somehow I tried, I preferred to forget it. It’s not something you want
to remember. Then gradually… At first when I just got out of the army it was mainly:
I’m out, I’m out of there and I didn’t let them win. I constantly had that feeling they
really tried to show me I wasn’t up to it.
… Possibly if I thought that getting re-assigned would really change something, I’d
have considered it, but it wouldn’t have changed reality. It would have changed my
own reality, perhaps, but not the facts. Again, it is something that troubles me, these
are thoughts that, well, I know these things keep happening to this day. And every
time you hear stories about a policeman who did this and a Border Patrolwoman who
did that, well, it’s maybe one percent or ten percent of what really happens out there.
It’s true that if a television crew happened to come by and film you, well, great, you
found out. But first of all, I don’t know what difference that makes. You found out,
okay, so those two BPmen will get punished. I mean, it’s not like after that crew was
there some crazy earthquake took place in our company and things changed. After
all we were told to watch out and not be filmed. Okay, so there’s the guilty feeling, in
spite of knowing there’s not much I could have changed.
***
Testimony 51
I was in the battalion war-room, the Erez Crossing Battalion, commanding seven
companies, which is a lot of soldiers. So you get there at 3 o’clock and there are
thousands of people waiting, and a soldier yells in Arabic to open the door. It’s a huge
iron door. Think about it, it’s nighttime, and cold and stinking and everything there
is made of concrete and metal. It’s a horrid place. It looks like, I don’t know how to
describe it, horrible. So he yells to open.
And what happens to the people?
They all rush in, shoving each other and falling all over each other and running forward
to the first checking post. When they run, there are soldiers standing above them
with their rifles drawn. In the top position. I was there with my commander.
What ages are these people?
Mostly older guys. They don’t get permits when they’re younger. At that time they
didn’t get a permit if they were under 24 and without a family. There were these very
strict regulations. But these are mostly older men, very poor, tattered clothes, poor.
All I remember is that they looked really ragged and terribly poor, they always looked
really miserable, holding these plastic bags, with some food for the day. And that’s
it. They would all run together and like first come first serve. Then they would start
getting checked. Now this checking took place at about three or four posts. At the
first one was a soldier facing them with his rifle, telling them to pivot, check them.
After that there’s the metal detector, this kind of gate. So the guy has to go through.
Then the soldier tells him to pivot and checks him, he goes through this other metal
door to the next stop. There were the crossing inspectors, checking their permits,
sitting in the booth, and being shown the permits and magnetic cards. And that’s
where all the jokes took place. The permit was this sheet of paper… We had a DCO
representative sitting with us all the time, but the Palestinians couldn’t reach him
because he was on the Israeli side. So he was there with the DCO and I really don’t
know how the Palestinians got their permits issued to them, I think they had to go
to the DCO who did it. But he sat beside us and they had no access to him. Good
question. Anyway this whole thing with permits was in the hands of the DCO. It’s
taken care of by the weakest person around, who is the DCO, and the DCO officer,
too, has the lowest rank there, no one pays any attention to him whatsoever. And I
remember their commander. He was the weakest authority there. (…)
First station – the gate is opened, Palestinians run some six meters, go
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through the inspection. Second station – permits. And third station? Now
they walk through that iron cage?
Yes. They are still in the cage. They have one more check towards the end, I don’t
know why, the last one, and then they’re out. Then they come out into the parking
lot where the buses wait for them… At Magen 12, the inspections really and truly
include body searches. There was this thing with women, I don’t remember where
the women’s inspection booth was. There were often complaints from the women-
soldiers having to inspect women.
The women (Palestinians) never complained?
They must have. But who ever heard them? No, there was a lot of criticism about
that, you know, there were all these horror stories about women, and some of it was
part of the joking around. Women who are totally concealed and they’re stripped
for inspection. They’d take off their shoes and belts and it was a sort of humiliating
situation. Yes, as in every checkpoint. We must say there were much fewer women
who came there than men, of course. But say at Magen 12 there was a special
chamber for inspecting women. Every woman who arrived would be sent right to that
room. There they would be totally stripped. I know they were because the women-
soldiers told about this with real revulsion, like they really had to inspect them, under
their clothes and all.
To what extent were they stripped?
I don’t know if they even kept their underpants on. Well, definitely they took everything
off under their dress and all.
And the woman-soldier remained with the woman inside this room?
Yes, the soldier would check her inside. They had rubber gloves.
***
Testimony 52
Unit: Hebron Regional Brigade/ Education Corps NCO | Location: Hebron
A month and a half after I began my job as an officer at the Judah regional brigade,
there was the event at the Prayers’ Route where the brigade-commander was killed.
From that moment a mad wave of terrorist attacks began and lasted about half a year
on and off, events that mostly ended with fatal and wounded casualties. At that time,
the normal conduct of the people at the regional brigade was a bit odd. For example:
the intelligence guys used to photograph terrorists’ bodies, after they were killed,
for intelligence purposes. These photos would somehow find their way to all the
computers on the base, through the army email, and would serve as screen savers
in various computers in the adjutant’s offices and so. Simply pictures of insurgents’
bodies. In general there was this thing where people would come to intelligence
to watch bodies, the burnt body of an insurgent, the picture of a D-9 bulldozer
demolishing a home. These were the engineering corps’s screen saver. Everyone
was doing this. There was this culture that started. I’m calling it a culture on purpose
here, a highly cynical culture around these events. We had all these moments at the
brigade that symbolized various events. For example, there was an incident where
Magellan soldiers accidentally shot and killed two Jews and perforated their car, like
I’ve never seen a car sprayed that way in my entire life (the interviewee is referring
to the event in 2003 where Magellan soldiers and an air-force helicopter fired at two
Israeli security personnel in the South Hebron Hills, having mistaken them for armed
Palestinians). That vehicle was brought to the brigade HQ and stood there about two
months and all the soldiers would come and get their pictures taken with it, with that
vehicle, with the blood all over it. Everyone would get their pictures taken, sit on it
and make all kinds of, stand there with hammers and get photographed in poses as
if they had smashed this vehicle, or with pointed weapons as if they had shot it full of
holes. I’m telling you about headquarters troops, yes, the guys who serve right there
inside HQ the whole time.
***
Testimony 53
Unit: Gaza Division/Education Corps | Location: Gaza Strip
A good friend of mine, an intelligence officer on our base, had a huge Palestinian flag.
I don’t recall whether there were drops of blood on it or not, she had it hanging in her
office. I once asked her why she had it up there, and she said: “I don’t know, looks
cool to me.” Once I took a ride with…
76
Where was that flag from?
A search in some house.
The guys simply brought it?
Yes. Once I caught a ride with some intelligence guys in a Jeep, they gave me a ride
to the base and there was this terrible stench so we asked them what it was and
they said there was, they told me: See that black bag hanging outside the Jeep by
the hood?
I said, yes. So they said, it contains the clothes of an insurgent who was killed
yesterday near Kisufim. So I said, why do you take it? And they said, what do you
mean? We collect it for the office. But don’t tell anyone you saw it. Like, they simply
keep these things.
Just the clothes?
That’s what they said. I don’t know. It stank. I don’t know what it contained. But
I’ve seen this pretty mechanical behavior, pretty bestial, like, not one of the people
serving inside the brigade HQ, or on the division HQ base had any daily contact
with Palestinians or with combatants whom he could beat up at the checkpoint or
something because he’d had enough or anything. But this was more like, “Hey, guys,
want to watch the film of that peace activist getting killed in Rafah? Rammed by
that bulldozer?” (The interviewee is referring to the event on March 16th 2003, when
American activist Rachel Corrie was killed.) Let’s go see it! Like they’re detached.
Was that part of the morale?
Yes, a part of it. Sometimes it seemed like the social thing to do. I mean, not on the
level of pictures of bodies as screen savers, but still, keeping the clothes of a dead
insurgent in the office, seems pretty sick to me.
There’s no difference here between officers and enlisted men?
No. None.
… How do you explain people’s behavior, your own behavior? All the guys
sitting there watching the filming of someone’s death?
These are perfectly normal people, if there is such a thing at all. It’s a defense
mechanism, because I’ve seen myself fall into it all the time. You can’t cope after
that. That one time when I was there in the event of the tank, because I chose not to
escape and not to use that defense mechanism that says let this slip, let’s not see
humans quite as humans, I really didn’t manage to function afterwards. It means that
if you want to function, you have to protect yourself somehow. You mustn’t feel too
much. You have to be quite mechanical, quite detached. So I don’t think these are
bad people or beasts or I don’t know what. It’s everyone, each to a different extent
and in a different manner, but this kind of detachment was pretty common.
…How did the soldiers react to this situation, what did you notice?
The truth is I happened to see, I mean I didn’t serve together with those soldiers, so I
saw two main types of situations: either all sorts of demonstrative activities, bringing
them entertainment shows or stuff like that and then I’d see wild behavior, like really
throwing themselves into a wild state, or when we’d visit outposts and talk with
a soldier alternating 8-hour guard duty, 8-hour rest. They’re frustrated, exhausted,
I don’t know, I’ll tell you in general – I don’t understand how and why the army
thinks it can do an effective job if it assigns soldiers to do guard duty in such a
frustrating, exhausting and desperate way. And I realize the soldiers were extremely
frustrated and took it out God knows how. I don’t justify it for a second, but I think
I would go crazy under such circumstances. I can understand, I can imagine why a
soldier might fall asleep on guard duty, do drugs on duty, beat people up, go home
and beat up the whole world, drive a car like a maniac, because in a way they’ve
lost it much more than we have. Like, if I myself lost it and I simply don’t know, I
didn’t care about things, then they must have, and at least from where I see it they
simply lost it. They’re constantly in this state of tremendous anger that is directed
at anything, and desperation and frustration. Once I visited some outpost that was
facing the sea, it was this sunny day, some Saturday in spring, a charming day and
the dunes and the sea were so lovely and they looked just so sad, so terribly sad,
they couldn’t understand what they were doing there, didn’t understand what was
required of them. They didn’t seem to care too much about the ten families living in
that settlement which they were supposed to protect, they only wanted to sleep, to
go home, like this is much more intense than the way we experienced it but it’s also
a kind of detachment, I think.
***
Testimony 54
There was a soldier with us, it was really an extreme case, I remember it was also
one of the things that most frightened me, I was going around among people and
thinking: How is it possible for people not to be talking about this? No one dares to
78
speak out. There was a soldier of ours on this post. At first this was a raised post, and
then it was lowered down. When we were lowered down, they were shot at actually,
but still it was better to check people who were passing there. As soon as you’re up
in the higher post you’re only shouting at them from above and getting watermelons
from the guy passing there with his watermelons. Every time he would give us a
watermelon. A man with a donkey and watermelons, yes. So there was this soldier
of ours, and some Arab boy came along and yelled at him: “Soldier, soldier, look,
look!” He made this gesture showing him he was holding a grenade. Now that must
have been a dud grenade or something, I don’t know where he picked it up, it was
no good, that grenade wouldn’t have done anything. So this kid goes, “Soldier, look,
look, you’re dead!” and threw it over to the outpost, and our soldier leapt down from
the post to the road below and broke his leg. I don’t know who, and I don’t know how
it happened, but I do know that two of our guys got him into a Border Patrol Jeep,
and hardly two weeks later this kid was moving around with his two arms and two
legs in plaster casts, in a wheelchair.
Who chased him?
They didn’t catch him right that moment. They just knew who he was. We already
knew him, he was quite a trickster. He would always do stuff like that. He’d come,
throw stones at our outpost. The story was that the Border Patrolmen got him into
the Jeep for us, and I’m nearly certain that it was someone from our company who
had done the ‘final act.’ They spoke about it quite a lot in the company, how they sat
him there and put his hand on the seat and simply broke it on the seat.
How old was he?
He was one of the older ones, about 14 years old or so, one of the relatively older
kids who hung around us. And this was his punishment for making our soldier break
his leg by jumping from the outpost.
Why did this story shock you? Accounts being settled?
Not quite that, I expected these people to settle accounts with whoever harmed
any of us, but to take someone and break their arms and legs? That’s super-Mafia.
Like, what? And this description was running through the whole company, how they
placed his hand on the chair and broke it.
Do the commanders hear about this? Is this supposed to be concealed from
them, or do they look away?
I think it was kept from them, but do you actually believe they wouldn’t know, in
such a small company? I think it’s very reasonable that they do know, but didn’t
openly talk about it. There were always these hush-hush talks and no one quite said
who did it. We knew that the guy to whom it happened, the one whose leg was
fractured, was one of the older guys, he was just about to get discharged from the
army and that’s what made the older guys so furious. Like, the kid had to be taught
his lesson. Otherwise he’d go on doing this again and again. He’d threatened them
with a grenade. The guy thought he was about to get killed. The kid showed him
that he was throwing a grenade into the post, and the guy jumped down, not just
for kicks, he really thought he was going to be killed. So I did expect some sort of
retribution, but to see that kid pass by in a wheelchair down the street with his arms
and legs in casts…
***
Testimony 55
Name: *** | Rank: Sergeant | Unit: Border Patrol | Location: Jordan Valley
When our shift at the Bridge Terminal (Allenby Bridge) was over, a vehicle would come
to pick us up and take us back to the base. We didn’t do much on the base except
for hanging out with the guys, the combatants. Cool. That’s where I’d hear about
what they do at the checkpoints and stuff, I mean I would ask them, I’d sit around
with them and they’d tell me about their experiences. What sort of experiences? That
one vehicle came along and for him to be let through I’d always take the prayer-beads
hanging from his rear-view mirror. Little lootings and stuff that they find amusing and
thought would amuse me too. Like, what?
Tell it matter-of-factly?
These are stories that aren’t like: Listen, I’m sitting and telling you this because I think
you’re a person who’s going to laugh at this, a person who appreciates a good laugh.
No, these were told just so, by the way, nothing specific that they wanted to get
across. They were really told by the way, stuff you hear. There was a specific incident
I recall, happened a few years before my time on the base. About their making a
group of Palestinians stand at the checkpoint, giving them their Border Patrol green
berets and making them sing Hatikva (Israeli and Jewish national anthem). He told
this and laughed.
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***
Tewstimony 56
Name: *** | Rank: Sergeant | Unit: Golani Infantry Brigade | Location: Gaza Strip
This happened in the hothouses of Kefar Darom (Israeli settlement). A company was
positioned there, assigned to defend the hothouses of Kefar Darom. I’m talking a
mass of soldiers here, some 30-40 men. The guard shift was changing, someone
climbed up the watchtower, someone else climbed down, and just then a Palestinian
Police officer got under the fence, shot the guy who came down from the tower, right
between the eyes. The guy who came to replace him shot the officer and he fell to
the ground. Before he hit the ground he managed to shoot the second soldier. So the
upshot was two dead soldiers, one died on the spot, the other died some three days
later. And someone from the soldiers’ encampment – the terrorist also held a grenade,
and the third soldier killed him before he managed to throw it. So theoretically – this
is not that far-fetched - theoretically it could all have ended very differently. This
was very close to the soldiers’ encampment where they were all asleep. It was the
middle of the night. There were about twenty soldiers in that encampment. And he
killed those two soldiers and seriously wounded the third. And this event had serious
impact on these soldiers and on me too, both personally and in my perception of
them. This entailed a certain ideological crisis, at least for me. Because this was the
first time at least I, myself – I’m talking about myself now, not about the soldiers – it
was the first time I realized the real meaning of all of this. Like it’s easy for you to be
asking these questions, as if it’s all so casual. In your everyday you’re in this kind of
social game.
So all of a sudden you realize this is no game?
Exactly, yes. It suddenly hits you that all this bullshit you’re into in your everyday life is,
the whole point this exists, that we’re here at all, is a reason we’re not aware of, but
suddenly two soldiers are killed. And suddenly you are conscious, and suddenly two
soldiers are dead, and it’s something that at least now I absolutely cannot accept,
that this was standing guard over the hothouses of Kefar Darom. The fact that I
suddenly woke up to this, that’s one thing, because I’m not the one who has to go
fight. But that the soldiers deserve this, that’s already something else entirely. (…)
Anyway, that was a real turning point for me. Suddenly I started thinking about it
all, where is our own humanity expressed in this whole thing, what’s the point of
everything we do here, but it was obvious for me that this isn’t something I’d bring up
with the soldiers. That’s not my role. I didn’t feel a need to do this. These are issues I
have with myself. But I definitely wanted to make room for their conflict.
Did they bring it up?
Sure they brought it up. It wasn’t easy, like: Guys, what does this do to you?
And they actually said: we’re here, guarding the…
No. It was from a place of – I’m not talking here about the first days, where the
emotional pain is just so great, it overpowers everything, when you lose a friend.
Revenge?
Revenge too. But at a later phase, I’m talking say about a good few weeks later,
when the initial phase is over and you realize things are not getting back to normal.
You realize people are bewildered and tense and confused. And you try to talk with
them and they don’t show any emotion whatsoever. (…) It wasn’t simple. I had to
really pressure them into it. I said to them after this event: What are you, animals?
Monsters? Don’t you feel anything? You want to tell me you’re totally indifferent to
what happened here?
They were obeying orders. (At another point in this interview, the interviewee
talked about the Golani brigade-commander who issued an order to his
soldiers, forbidding them to cry in public).
No, not that. This was later, not seeing this again. But regardless of the crying bit,
I’m saying I was trying to have them float what they were feeling beyond the actual
pain of losing a friend: Look, you’re animals. Don’t you feel anything? Are you totally
indifferent? You’re like this, and not saying anything? Slowly things began to emerge,
to be externalized. People began to talk and started bringing up all kinds of conflicts
and personal feelings.
Individually?
No, I’m talking about a group. I’m sitting with a group of men and we’re talking,
openly. Not once and not twice I got a real talking-to about this from the officers and
the company-commander.
What did he tell you?
He said: “You’re turning my men into cunts.” I’ll never forget this as long as I live. After
about three hours of sitting with the guys, and they talked and talked and talked, and
he realized what this talk was about. The mere fact that I come and talk with them
about their feelings, that turns them into cunts, plain and simple. I was not your ideal
welfare NCO you know, the other NCO works by the book. She does welfare, she’s
very politically correct. She has her work cut out for her with the soldiers and she
82
does her job with the commanding echelons. I wasn’t like that. Again, I’m not judging
here, good or bad – I just wasn’t like that. It’s a fact. Whether it’s good or bad, I’m not
getting into that at all. Often in this context, exactly around these things, around the
emotional-human aspects of their activity, this thing kept coming up of my being the
girl who screams and says: I’m not a rubber-doll, no one’s rubber-stamp, not a robot.
You want a robot? Get yourself a male clerk who’ll do the job. You cannot open my
eyes to something and expect me not to respond. I experienced this mad emotional
storm there, really mad. Not necessarily in this context, in general. But it did happen
at this point too. And yes, these are words I’ll never forget, the company-commander
summoning me to him and telling me: “You turning my men into cunts. And if you
don’t hold back I’ll not let you see them, you’ll have to do everything through me.” He
gave me an ultimatum: “If you don’t change your conduct, anything you need from
the soldiers, you call me. A form that a soldier needs to fill out, whatever – everything
goes through me. You’ll have no interaction with them whatsoever.”
How did you react?
Like a true-blue Golanchik.
Turn the table on him?
Not physically. But I told him no way, and with all due respect, there’s not a chance in
the world, it’s not within his jurisdiction, it’s not in his hands, I’m not his subordinate,
I’m not under his command and he cannot prevent me from seeing the soldiers.
It’s a soldier’s right to have a welfare NCO whom he can meet, and not limit her
time, just as you cannot keep him from seeing a mental health officer. It’s the law. I
knew my instructions inside-out. (…) Anyway, there’s no room for this as far as the
commanders are concerned, and I also understand why. Listen, today I can tell you
I understand this. If the commanders were to give this free rein, obviously things would
change. Obviously, if they were to give the soldiers legitimacy to think about their
action and look for the meaning behind it, I assume many people would be against
such actions. Not everyone. When he tells me “You’re turning my men into cunts,” his
subtext is this: If you don’t shut up, I’ll lose control. I will no longer be able to command
them. They would no longer be combatants. They will no longer be able to carry
out missions. That’s my own interpretation of his telling me: Don’t you turn my men
into cunts. What are you turning them into? What is this bullshit? What is this crying
about? What is this ‘what are you feeling’ stuff? It was what it was, war, casualties,
nothing to do about it. We’re not asking questions, it’s not our place to ask questions
about what we do. And I quote: “It’s neither the question nor the non-question, what
we’re doing here. It doesn’t matter. It’s the army, the army is the arm…”
He parrots to me a whole manifest about the role of the army as the arm of the
government and all that shit. What is shit? On the one hand it’s not. Clearly we’re not in
a position to afford total chaos where anyone who feels like it can come along and ask
questions. But it’s absolutely legitimate for them to think about what they’re doing.
***
Testimony 57
Unit: Hebron Regional Brigade/Medical Corps | Location: South Hebron Hills
We were summoned after an exchange of fire, on some hill on Road 60 heading

towards the Otniel settlement. I remember this location. We drove there with the
ambulance and a doctor and a regular vehicle. All the who’s who of the regional
brigade arrived. It was some wanted man, an armed insurgent who had fought to the
very last moment, hid behind some rock on some hill. We went up there, the doctor
checked him immediately. Moved him, touched his wound, established the cause of
death. We took him down on a stretcher, put him inside the ambulance. I was sitting
there with a medic facing me and the body between us, covered with a blanket. We
drove to brigade HQ. There, first thing, he reached the infirmary, near the toilets. The
brigade intelligence people came around, took some pictures for the Shabak. Their
orders were… Yes, clean him up in order to hand him over to the DCO to give his
body back to the Palestinians. After having photographed and identified it and all the
rest. Yes, I and several other medics who were reluctant at first, I had told them it
was optional, if you want to, help me, if not – just stay in your rooms but make sure
no one peeks out. We will not have a jubilant crowd in the infirmary. We cleaned him
up. Some people came around, a few ops-sergeants and other interested parties. It
was new for all of us, and they photographed him. They took pictures of me next to
him, and of me with other soldiers. So there were photos.
…In general, when you consider your time in the army, in the Occupied
Territories, what do you think?
Depends who I’m talking to.
What do you mean?
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I mean that if someone who’s a stranger to the system, not familiar with the situation
comes along and says: You soldiers, you did this and that and the other thing. And
I know that on the one hand many of the claims are justified. On the other hand, I
don’t know. I was there. When I was there, I did not understand. Five years later I still
don’t understand. I don’t know. I don’t know. The only thing I have left in theory, as a
mantra, is that one needs to talk about it five years later, you see? Something must
be said. It is buried so deep inside so many people somewhere.
What is Hebron for you?
Lots of blood. A nightmare.
Have you thought about it since? Is it something that keeps coming up?
‘Since’ is a long time. There are times. Directly following the army, I was still thinking
about it in army terms, in other words, as if I had not yet gotten out. I was employed
as a security guard so I carried a weapon and I was in the north, in Metulah, and there
was anti-aircraft shelling the whole time. It meant hiding from Katyusha rockets time
and again. And I only wanted to erase everything. Later, after a while, it began to pop
up again. I would recall pictures. I don’t know if it was that or other things, but I think
this is a part of it, yes. That suddenly, okay, there’s evidence. I mean, no one speaks
about it, no one tells. As though it’s over. I can talk and talk about washing bodies,
but this doesn’t interest a soul. It’s like those battle-heritage stories. But I have a
photo of myself with a body. And I think that at that time, I began to think more about
what I did there and why I did it and how I did it.
And what’s your answer today, to why you did it?
There’s no one smooth answer. It’s a combination of many factors - of being unaware,
of my immaturity, of extremely heavy responsibility. That one needs to be there all the
time, that one cannot let it, cannot think about it. Today you see a body, tomorrow
you see a body, day after tomorrow you’re treating a wounded man, the day after you
hear of ten wounded men. So no, you’re there waiting for a phone call any minute that
will lead you to the next incident, so you block everything. And that’s what happened
there as well. You cross the line in Jerusalem, you unload your weapon and that’s it,
it’s over. And no one wants to hear about it, no one even asks you. It’s okay. That’s
the Territories. Everyone knows that something is going on in the Territories, but it’s in
the Territories. So you let yourself off and say, okay, that was in the Territories.
A different world, different rules, different manners.
***
Testimony 58
Who does the inspections, is it a special assignment?

The Crossings Inspectors. I can tell you there’s enormous frustration, enormous. It’s
really scary.
I’d take it out on someone. My commander or a Palestinian or my boyfriend ***.
Often on my boyfriend *** and on my commander. Commanding these soldiers is not
that simple. I know that the Border Patrolmen take out more of their own frustration on
the Palestinians. They are armed, it’s the easiest way out. The slave with the scepter,
kind of. I mean, you have the gun, the Palestinian doesn’t. Usually he’s holding stuff
because he’s at the checkpoint since 2 in the morning, and he hasn’t seen his wife
for three months already and he can’t even remember his kids’ names. The Border
Patrolmen were much more… I must say now, they did have their frustrations, but they
took it out especially in making fun of the Palestinians behind their backs, calling them
names. There were the things, I don’t remember, somehow if I try to reconstruct, I see
my soldiers in the Shimshon battalion harassing the Palestinians at the checkpoint,
more than the Crossings Inspectors. Again, we’re talking about humiliation. Big-
time abuse? No. But this is not easier. I mean, if it means grabbing someone’s falafel
sandwich which he put in his bag, that’s both harassment and humiliation. If he took
along a falafel at five in the morning, that means he wanted to eat it at ten, right?
Or – by the way, although the Border Patrolmen secured the inspections, I recall
times when I went down to the checkpoint and saw Border Patrolmen tearing bags
with their hands, so that the Palestinian could then no longer use that plastic bag for
the clothes he took along. This might not sound too harassing, I don’t know, I think
it’s horrible. I thought it was horrible then, too.
***
Testimony 59
Unit: Field Intelligence | Location: Etzyon Regional Brigade
When children threw stones, were you questioned? Did you ever have to
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testify?
Yes, once. Because we had no video. If there’s video, that’s enough. You watch the
video and see the stone-throwing and that’s enough. If there’s no video, someone
has to testify.
What happened then? Is it like the movies?
No. They (the children who were caught) sat outside and waited for whatever was to
be done with them. And I went to talk to some Shabak guy or investigator or however
you call it, and that was that. He asked me to write down the whole event as it was,
and that was it. Then you have to sign on the dotted line, and finished.
What did you write?
What I had seen. But I wasn’t sure of what I’d seen, but it did happen.
What did you see?
There are all kinds of stone-throwing. Picking up and throwing stones, like I told you,
when they’re on their way home and they throw a few stones. Then there was this
case, where they just threw a stone to make it jump outdoors, things like that, where
you can hardly notice. So they were walking along home and played around throwing
three stones. They didn’t even run away. Then the patrol came. They didn’t even run
off at the sight of the patrol because it wasn’t close so they didn’t think they had been
seen somehow.
You wrote that you were uncertain?
No. I said what I remembered happening and then asked him what happens if that
wasn’t what happened. And he said that even if it hadn’t been, they would confess.
What did you think afterwards? What did you suppose would happen to these
kids?
First of all I saw them earlier as they were sitting there and it was cold, it was winter
in Jerusalem. They were tied, these poor kids. And that was that. What had been
done to them before that? I know they were beaten up. What happened to them
afterwards? I no longer recall.
What does that mean, ‘they would confess’?
I asked no more questions.
Why not?
First I asked him: What do you mean, they would confess? And he said: They will
confess. So I chose not to know.
He didn’t want to say?
No, I didn’t want to hear. I think he was rather eager to talk about it.
***
Testimony 60
We were the least of all evils, do you understand? Compared to the Border Patrol
we were the good guys. Who’s there in Hebron on a permanent basis? Sachlav
and Border Patrol. They’re the only ones – males – stationed in Hebron three years
straight. So compared to them we were like the good guys. They were the bad
guys.
What did you do?
They would settle accounts in a big way. As for hitting – they were on Jeeps the
whole time, less on foot, so they would simply take people into their Jeeps and beat
them to a pulp. You’d see a Jeep pass by and a person thrown out of it suddenly.
You saw that?
People thrown out of Jeeps? Yes. Beaten to a pulp. A Jeep drives by and a person
is thrown out into the street.
What did you think of the Border Patrolmen then?
They didn’t come close to me. They didn’t dare get close to my post at all. They
hated me, I tell you. Like I said, they enjoyed booing when I was cited for excellence
by their own brigade commander.
So how did you react when you saw someone thrown out of a Jeep?
Once a guy was thrown out of a Jeep right next to me, and I pretty much ran over to
him and the soldier who was with me said: Don’t touch him, don’t touch him, they
have all these skin diseases. That’s what he yelled at me from a distance as I was
running over to a man lying on the ground. Nothing, I poured some water on his
face and left him my canteen, that’s what I did. No more than that. I didn’t summon
anyone. I didn’t call an ambulance. Nothing. And he got up and ran away. Took the
water.
Was there a case where you thought: I’ll have no more contact with the
Border Patrolmen because of what they did?
No. My quarrels with the Border Patrolmen were on a personal basis, I mean, get
away from here, don’t stand around my post, move on. They would come along
and check someone right next to me, say, and do it a bit more brutally: move over
here, get a shove, move over there, stand here, when I’m checking you, you’ve got
88
to stand with your face to the wall, stuff like that. Stand on your knees while I’m
checking your ID, that sort of thing. And I was there saying this is my post, I’m the
commander here, you’re not going to check anyone in my post. This way, right in
their face, I’d go over to a man and tell him: Get up. They would say to him: Get
down. I’d tell him: Get up. They’d say: Get down. We’d drive that person crazy, and
then I’d start yelling at them to split.
How are the Border Police humiliations different from yours, if you were the
good guys?
Ours weren’t that extreme. Ours were, say a guy would get fresh with us, we’d punish
him. With us it was more like punitive action. They were about dominance. That was
their thing. They come around to show who’s in charge: first of all get down on your
knees when you talk to me. Like, not everyone, but yes, it was like that. That’s what
I’m saying, we would be more punitive, they were all about taming, educating, I don’t
know, whatever you want to call it.
***
Testimony 61
I came to Hebron many, many times, and when I was told I would be assigned to
Hebron I came fully motivated, I took it as a compliment to be assigned to handle
this difficult population. I was a bit scared, a bit stressed because it’s Hebron, and
everything that is being said about this town, I mean, the fear thing. And Border
Patrolmen, too, can be quite a problematic population, quite threatening at times. But
I was welcomed, that’s the point, it was like I was welcomed. Have you been at the
Mishmarot Yitzchak base? You actually see Baruch Goldstein’s tomb from the base,
you have to cross this hill, right across from the tomb. We weren’t allowed to go there,
not allowed to get close. Now I was there for the first time. In uniform. Yes, it was
forbidden. I would be eating at the meat-sandwich stand and not go over to look.
Why?
Because it was not allowed. As a soldier or Border Patrolwoman, I don’t recall if
regular army were allowed to approach, but for us Border Patrol it was out of bounds.
So people in uniform would not be seen at this site of the “saint” Baruch Goldstein.
Anyway, the guys received me with open arms but that’s between individuals. At
critical moments they always waved me off, wouldn’t let me get close to things really,
not to know. That’s why I really wanted to go and see things, because they were
always rounding corners, hiding things. You’d ask questions, they’d answer you to
a certain point. And there was always this: You wouldn’t understand, and you don’t
know because you don’t do the alternating eight-hour shifts here. And you don’t do
the sixteen-eight hour shifts.
You said there was talking to a certain point, and then you thought: I’ve got
to go to the checkpoint, to the detention site, to more places in order to get
a better idea? Did you know what that extent was that they were talking
about?
They had been there, and I was the newcomer. I also think that a lot of the reactions
of Border Patrolmen I saw now, when we were in Hebron now, really reminded me of
that time back then, because you’re walking along felling that on the one hand you
really want to do something and you feel that… the guys really liked us – me and the
welfare NCO – and as soon as I made it clear to myself, the moment I got to Hebron
and to the Border Patrol, I realized this was not going to be anything like we learned
in our training, there was nothing of that here, you simply can’t educate anyone here
like this. So I thought, okay, just personal talks, with the company-commanders as
well. Like, go make local, specific bulletins. I’m a person who believes that one by
one by one by one – eventually I will affect them. It was important for me to give them
a good time too. I realized this from the very start. I remember that on the day when
these settlers tried to run me over, literally, at the curve of the road near Kiryat Arba,
I was crossing the street and they couldn’t care less, then I thought: wait a minute,
suddenly I felt as if they were repeating their egg-throwing on army Jeeps and all
those stories about what the Jews do to them and how the Jews…
And you felt you understood?
Yes. And when I got to that point I said: Okay, so you realize how problematic this
is, you can’t even begin to imagine it when you just see them. Often I’d go down to
the Tomb of the Patriarchs, and there was no one to drive us back up so we’d stay
stuck there, me and the welfare NCO, for two hours, three. You hang out there, it’s
cool. You hang out at the various posts or sit at - it had a name, I don’t remember
what they call that little part, this little war-room up there, but it had some name. And
you suddenly realize you could go crazy there, you’re there, these settlers swear at
you from every direction, and the Palestinians too give you a hard time. I understood
this and at that point I really tried to give them a good time. Take them to Massada.
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I’ll never forget that, explaining Massada to the Border Patrolmen.
Why?
Because they live in another world, what can you do, they live in another world. I had
a group of people many of whom I met later in the army prison. It was a problematic
population. These are people who, first of all you’ve got everything there. As though
Hebron and its problems isn’t enough trouble as it is, all the people there were with
problems of their own. New immigrants with problems, Druze, Beduins, all mixed
together. And there were always those Ashkenazis (Jews of European origin) who no
one really knows what they’re doing there.
You were considered Ashkenazi?
Not I, I’m half Yemenite and everyone knew that. I’m half-half. But that’s what I’m saying,
for them I was the girl. They called me ‘Sunshine,’ I was blond-blond then. I’d hang
around them smiling to one and all. And at critical points, at certain moments they shared
stuff with me, but when they realized I think differently because I can’t really understand
what it’s like for them, they would clam up or disappear or just not cooperate.
Do you know now what drew that line there?
One simply has to go through the experience, as is. To be there for the whole
alternating eight-hour shift and then talk. Spend a month or two doing eight-eight
shifts and then talk about what it’s like to be in this situation. The fact that I made
the rounds in the posts – cool. Every week on Thursday afternoon, I’d be on my
way home and they would stay there all week. I’d come back on Sunday morning or
noon, I had to be there by 12 o’clock, and you see their faces and say: Wow, what
can you say, what can you say to make them feel better than they’re feeling now?
Most of them have endless problems at home. They are barely managing to survive
this week and get home and make it to next week.
And what happens in between? Stories of slapping, looting?
All the time.
And you let them off?
No, I kept saying, I tried to say my stuff without sounding patronizing. That’s what,
say, I kept trying all the time. So there were those who would wave me off pretty
fast, whenever we’d get to these topics they’d go onto to other things, but at these
specific points it would always end up with ‘You don’t understand, you don’t know,
there’s no other way to do things here.’
***
Testimony 62
In Charish there was this famous story about Baq’a al Gharbiyya, actually in the two
Baq’as where soldiers trashed stands and stole cell phones.
What that, trashing stands?
Vegetable stands.
That’s a shop. Going into a shop and trashing it?
Sometimes the stand is outdoors, like watermelons or something.
In town?
Yes, in town, sometimes on the main street. That happened.
Why trash them?
Because the owner employed an illegal (a Palestinian illegal working in Israel), to
teach him a lesson. Or all kinds of goods when vehicles are inspected, so the goods
are trashed. There’s a lot of goods and vegetables passed along, so that’s trashed.
What would he do? Or just little humiliations, throwing his ID on the floor so he has
to bend down and pick it up. There’s the ‘honor games,’ which could start little with
throwing an ID on the ground and reach the point of trashing a whole stand. What
could he do? He employed an illegal, I’ll trash his stand, he’ll complain about me, he’ll
have to admit he employed an illegal.
People didn’t come back to the base with loot?
Again, in our situations, especially out of those plastic bags. But still, it could be
toys, or batteries in packs of 20, not bad. So yes, it’s looting, and for such a kid it’s
a lot of money. “What a cool toy, I’ll bring it to my kid sister. Now, beat it!” At times,
generosity was at its peak: “Wow, what a toy, you give it to me, I let you in.” You know
this stuff, letting them into Israel in return for something you wanted from their stuff.
Did they offer straight away, those kids?
Yes.
How did guys react to this?
They went for it. They would make fun of these kids. The kids who offered were
those who didn’t want the contents of their bag to be scattered on the ground. So
‘Come see what I got in here instead of throwing it all on the ground.’ Also, you throw
everything on the ground, and “Come on, you got three seconds to gather it all up
again. Okay, out with it, once more.”
What happened if they wouldn’t?
What happened if they wouldn’t? They’d get slapped around or have their stuff
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thrown out again and they’d be forced to run off without it.
Leave their stuff and go?
Yes. “What you manage to pick up, you take, and now off with you.”
***
Testimony 63
Name: *** | Rank: Sergeant | Unit: Nahal | Location: Mevo Dotan
I recall once, this was after we moved to Mevo Dotan, to the base there, some
Palestinian was sitting on a chair and I passed by several times. Once I thought:
Okay, why is he sitting here for an hour? I feel like spitting at him, at this Arab. And
they tell me: Go on, spit at him. I don’t recall whether anyone did this before I did, but
I remember spitting at him and feeling really, like at first I felt, wow, good for me, I just
spat at some terrorist, that’s how I’d call them. And then I recall that afterwards I felt
something here was not right.
Why?
Not too human. I mean, it sounds cool and all, but no, it’s not right.
You thought about later, or during the act?
Later. At the time you felt real cool.
Even when everyone was watching, you felt real cool.
Yes, and then sometimes you get to thinking, especially say on Holocaust Memorial
Day, suddenly you’re thinking, hey, these things were done to us, it’s a human being
after all. Eventually as things turned out he was no terrorist anyway, it was a kid
who’d hung around too long near the base, so he was caught or something.
A child?
An adolescent.
Slaps?
Yes.
Blindfolded and all?
Yes. I think that at some point no one even stood watch over him.
***
Testimony 64
There was another Border Patrolwoman with me. Again, we’re talking about women
so I think the women combatants are more violent than the guys. There was this
Patrolwoman with me, let’s say we were managing an observation post, on some hill
near this patch of trees. And the kids came along with their bags and she called out
to them: “Come here!” So they came, they climbed the hill. She opened their bags
and found this kind of fly-swat inside. So she goes: “Okay, up and down the hill in
ten seconds.” Again, they’re scared. You see those kids, what, they’ll dare to refuse?
So he ran, went down, came up. Now, he tried to do it with a smile. He tried, I don’t
know, to be like a kid and believe she was human. So she tells him: “Now do this with
your fingers, squeeze them together.” I don’t know how to explain this, like signaling
someone to wait a second, with the fingertips all together – boom! She hit him there
with that fly-swat. The kid began to cry. She said, “What, you’re crying? Off with you,
run again, down, up, if you don’t make it in time, you’ll get beaten up.” She hassled
him about five times. Finally she says to me: “Well?” I said, leave him alone, let him
get away from here. Pretty soon, I understood that talking to them – I got it? Again,
what is it that I finally got? I was scared, and I didn’t feel that if I came and told them
listen, this is out of line, it wouldn’t interest anyone and wouldn’t change a thing. It’s
not that I can come tomorrow, and I’m not saying, maybe the regional commander, if
I went to him he’d take care of it. But later, I couldn’t reach any one of the companies
on the ground, and I had no access to the regional commander.
Why no access?
Why? I had to go by the company-commander first. I always tried their language:
No, let them go, leave it alone, I can’t deal with this. All sorts of things, as if I’m not
concerned with the people’s condition, just that it’s below me to even deal with them.
Sometimes it worked, other times it didn’t. There were guys with whom I felt more
able to talk and reach some kind of understanding, and that they were acting this
way to conform to their environment, because everyone else was like that, and with
a little talking this could change. And there were the guys whom I told: Listen, why
are you beating up this kid, tomorrow a Hamas member will catch him and tell him to
come, and take revenge on that soldier. Why shouldn’t he? If you treat this kid well,
I’m not telling you to let him in, he’s not supposed to go in? Send him home. But
treat him like a human being, so he won’t want to blow himself up on you tomorrow.
There were guys who did listen, not everyone on the force are like all they do is beat
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up Arabs. But there was definitely that atmosphere and it was totally routine.
Patrolwomen, too?
Also.
***
Testimony 65
They would ask the Palestinians for cigarettes or Coke in return for… Because they’d
see the people, in those good old days they knew the people, they would see them
time after time and again. They would be working 8-hour shifts: “You want to pass
tomorrow? Bring me a pack of cigarettes.”
That was the norm?
Cigarettes, food. That’s what I know about. It was the norm. They weren’t ashamed
to talk about it, on the level of cigarettes and food. But my brother, when he was
posted at the checkpoint as an inspecting soldier, securing there, he came there
from Military Investigative Police and filed a complaint with the chief complaint officer
of the army. When he got out of there after one month of security assignment, he
complained. You can get a copy of the letter he wrote. It was much more serious
because he was checking not at the normal checkpoint, it was where trucks were
being inspected, a checkpoint that was already closed when I was in the army. It was
serious, passing goods and trucks, inspecting these huge lorries. Not the people
themselves. There was real bribery going on there, much more serious than where
we were. That was already dealing with cargo.
They did it next to commanders or officers?
No, not next to commanders and officers.
So where would they put the packs?
No, first of all it took place on night shifts. Besides, it was fun. You go down to the
checkpoint and your bullet-proof vest has “Death to Arabs” written on it. Stuff like that.
So you go down, and you tell them, depending on the pressure at the checkpoint,
that you haven’t time for that bullshit because your commanders are near you so go
on, get this through. You can’t begin to negotiate with them now. But at slower times,
or when they come back slowly, when things are quieter, we would be watching how
many people were coming through, what the situation was like. In quieter times, the
guys told me they would really have a laugh, pull practical jokes, pretending they were
tearing up their permits but not really doing it, just hiding them. The whole gamut of
things you can pull on someone to humiliate him. I don’t remember. But mainly I do
recall how everyone would talk about the loot he’d bring back from the checkpoint.
It was very much like that, with girl crossings-inspectors too. Yes, most of them were
girls. Anyway, about sweets they demanded. Anything you wanted. You could ask
more or less anything you wanted and the next day he knew that if he wanted to be
let through, he’d have to bring you. Someone asked for a pack, another would ask
for a carton. It’s not about money, I never heard anyone asking for money. That’s it,
and I can hardly reconstruct the jokes, I don’t remember that much, but there were
a lot of those, and everyone was laughing, smiling about them when they talked.
Because it’s boring there, so you laugh it up at the checkpoint.
No one would say, come on, that’s not nice?
The Arabs are the enemy. The more you make them suffer, the better.
Why?
Didn’t I explain why? Because first of all, if I’d say something I’d be left with no friends,
I think. Really, I’d have no friends. People on the base didn’t like me too much as it
was, they couldn’t figure me out, I was too weird for them. They couldn’t figure out
this service year I did before my army time. They didn’t know what that was. Anyway I
was a strange bird among them. But really, talk was very strong on how we’re here…
Look, for everyone, including the commanders, it was very obvious: we’re here facing
an enemy, and we’re in danger and that’s why we have to do the job as best we can.
Okay? That’s the basic reasoning, right? Now, practically speaking, you don’t have an
enemy at Erez Crossing, these are only poor people passing through every day and
you know them and you see how miserable they are. Their clothes are torn and all they
have in that bag are this flatbread and yoghurt, and even that you order him one day
to throw away because “we’re on alert today.” There were always special instructions:
now you’re not allowed to go in with oregano, now no flatbread, not this, not that.
Who would issue these instructions?
My commander.
Not the government.
That’s right. But today, I recall a meeting where I asked him: Why not let them in with
oregano? They all have it, not just this guy. “Forbidden.”
So, the soldiers just took out the oregano…
Picked it out, put it on the side. Then bring it to the base. Not cool?
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***
Testimony 66
Name: *** | Rank: Sergeant | Unit: Nahal | Location: Training Base
When I came to Nahal Battalion 50 as a young NCO, I arrived at *** and no one was
on the base, the whole battalion was in Qalqiliya on some mission, and when they
came back it was the first time I saw them all. I walked around among the various
companies, all smiles and happy, and talked a bit with the soldiers and saw that
almost all of them have these Arabs’ prayer-beads, and little Qurans. I asked them,
where do you get these? They said, what do you mean? We were in Qalqiliya just
now, we took souvenirs from houses. So I, young female-soldier that I am, go in for an
interview with the battalion-commander the next day, and he asked me: What is your
first impression of our battalion? I said, okay, except that I saw soldiers with prayer-
beads and Qurans from Qalqiliya which they took as souvenirs. He got annoyed,
almost threw the table, picked up the phone and called the company-commander in
question that very moment. So the company-commander said: I never saw this girl in
my life, she’s lying, making it all up. No way, my soldiers would never do something
like that. He hands me the receiver, I tell him: Listen, this happened. He says: Who
are you anyway? You little runt, you don’t understand a thing. He was really yelling at
me. And that was that, I came out from the battalion-commander’s office and from
that moment on that company ignored me, for four months I couldn’t go near them.
The company-commander passed it on down through his chain of command, that
the education corps NCO is a rat and she rats to the battalion-commander, and at
that time that’s how I was treated. Four months I couldn’t get near that company, for
any purpose whatsoever, even for work. I remember we finally had to collect pictures
of soldiers for a battalion evening, and this company refused to pass their pictures
on to me because I was a rat-fink, they spat at my feet for having told the battalion-
commander on them. That was a serious shock, right when I arrived there.
***
Testimony 67
There was this one single time I harassed an Arab brutally. I threw his car keys into
a garbage truck that just happened to pass by. There was this thing, when I just got
to the company there were guys who wouldn’t share guard duty with me because I
kept saying about everything: this should go to the army spokesperson. You go on
like that, I’ll call the army spokesperson, I don’t care, you’re not going to slap this
person while you’re next to me. Such stuff, like really extreme. They were, if I went
to the bathroom for a second, someone would go with me, and when I got back
there would be someone inside the armored booth as if they’re questioning him on
something. So I’d open the door and make some noise to make them leave him
alone. There were lots of soldiers punishing Arabs. You were out walking during
curfew. I’m going to punish you.
For example?
Making them stand facing the wall, such stuff. Like punishments in school. A guy
forces a 50-year-old man to stand in the corner, as punishment. Stand there with
his face to the wall, looking. It was very common to punish them for things they had
done. A guy showed his ID, we’d check on radio, he’s clean, nothing on him. Then
we’d start harassing him. Tell him we didn’t get an answer on him, start emptying
your pockets, stuff like that, just because the guy pulled a face, rolled his eyes.
Punishment. You didn’t speak nicely, we’ll punish you. Really… So this Arab came
along and he was very, he was driving during curfew and tried to explain that his
mother had needed this medicine and he was going to get it for her and this and
that. So I said to him: Okay, but stop. He drove on. Stop! The soldier with me already
cocked his gun, and I said: What are you, crazy? Why are you cocking your gun
at him? Then this man came out of his car, like: Nothing, nothing. The soldier said
to him: Give her your keys. So he gave me the car keys and I don’t know what
happened then and we said he couldn’t keep driving, so he got really annoyed and
came to grab the keys from my hand. I reacted instantly - a garbage truck was just
passing by there – I simply went like that and threw the keys into the garbage truck
and it drove away.
Did he get angry?
Angry? He stood there, looking at me like this. He didn’t show anger. He just stood
there. So I said, bye-bye. You can’t drive like that anyway. And only afterwards, when
I got back to the company and the guys were taking turns on that car for days and
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nights on end.
What do you mean?
The soldier who was with me asked the soldiers at the outpost to stop the garbage
truck, and they got the keys out. That person walked away, he left the car, closed it,
locked it like that and left. So we had the key, and the soldiers would drive it nights.
All the soldiers there already knew that this is a car driven by soldiers, even though
it’s a Palestinian car.
Who knew?
The soldiers at the posts knew we were driving that car around. We had a girl-soldier
without a license and they tried to teach her to drive on that car.
So you throw the key and the whole company takes turns driving.
The whole time we were thinking that as soon as the guy would come back to get
his keys, reach the post or something, someone would know it was he. But the guy
never came back. Every night the soldiers rode around and then parked the car
across from that same post, and no one came to get it.
How did it end?
How did this end? We brought the car to the police.
***
Testimony 68
From where I am I can say that I often found out, soldiers would annoy me because
they wouldn’t follow certain instructions we gave them. There were many cases
where say we’d ask them to let someone go and they wouldn’t. I was making those
women wait anyway, at least for a while. My shift was eight hours long, and I’d make
them wait for eight hours.
Eight hours just waiting?
At least. The way my commander would put it, how long – at first I’d call him, say I
went on duty at six in the morning, I’d wait for him to get up, you don’t wake up your
commander because some woman wants to cross. Why did I get HQ on the phone?
Because it was someone with whom there was some problem – someone, male or
female, who had some kind of trouble. They had a permit to enter Israel, but I don’t
know, now it’s orange-colored and not whatever, some permit, some problem with
the permit, right? So it’s six in the morning, I’m not going to wake up my commander
right? Anyway I’d have to wait a few hours until he gets up and is available and I can
ask him. So that’s already a few hours waiting. And then he asks me: “How long has
she been waiting?” Four hours. “Four hours? Before she has waited for six or seven
hours, don’t even bother talking to me.” That’s procedure. Don’t even bother talking
to me. Six-seven hours at the least.
People used to wait even longer?
That’s what I’m saying, when the shift changed, if I started at six in the morning
and finished at two in the afternoon, an eight-hour shift – I’d tell the shift coming in
to replace me: That one, and this one, they’ve been waiting since we opened the
checkpoint at five in the morning.
And the next shift would let them go?
They’d check what to do with them, let them in, keep them out, take them to the
Shabak for questioning, what to do with them. There are all kinds of possibilities. It’s
like goods. You take it, you pass it along. We’d talk IDs. What’s your ID? You know
how it is. What’s his ID number. They are not considered human beings. And lots and
lots of cases, our operations log, filled every few days, would be full of things whose
meaning we just didn’t get. That’s all that log was. I think we never even gave it a
thought. I don’t know that maybe they were warm. I don’t know, we never gave them
a second thought. It was simply the least important thing on our minds. We were told:
This guy you take care of last.
***
Testimony 69
There was this case inside the lobby for Palestinians (at the Allenby Bridge Terminal),
someone once came up with a knife. This case really offended all the security
personnel at the Bridge. What do I mean? Someone came back from Jordan, a
Palestinian, and he had a knife on him. You’re looking indifferent, but this guy had
a knife. When I say it like this, I mean this was an exceptional case. Alarm was on,
we were thrown back to the dining hall, it was most unusual. The moment they saw
100
that knife… All hell broke loose. Even Ali at the kiosk was startled and everyone
started yelling, and this guy was beaten to a pulp. He was left there on the chair,
bleeding. We couldn’t look at it. He was left there. He wasn’t even taken in for some
medical care, into a sterile room. He was left out there. What finally came up? At the
Shabak questioning apparently they learned that this guy did not come to Israel on
any terrorist mission but to kill someone for a ‘family honor’ issue.
Who beat him to a pulp?
The security guys. That’s what offended security means. When I say they were
offended, lost face. I mean, you have to get my semantics. I’m being sarcastic, right?
I’m talking about the very disappointing case of the Shabak. What a downer. Finally
something happens at the Bridge, and its turns out not to be terrorists.
Did you ever lodge a complaint about something that happened there?
No.
To the commanders?
No.
Why not?
Because I thought it was all legitimate. I wasn’t important. This case shocked me.
The case I saw with my own eyes, a person lying there on the chair, all bloodied.
Didn’t you think he should get some medical attention?
Listen, nobody really paid any attention there to what I or other girls thought, like if
we’d come and challenge the status quo. No way. I mean this is army, simple, this
is an army thing. I was working with civilians and all, but as soon as I’d go to my
company-commander and tell him: Listen? No, it didn’t cross my mind at the time.
The only thing I did think of was to behave a bit differently than the people who were
with me and show some empathy. But it wasn’t something I thought about at all. We
were pretty scared. We were even excited with this fear, you could say.
What do you mean?
We’d say: finally some action here. We’re going off now, hiding somewhere… It was
pretty, I mean, it wasn’t like the real checkpoints where you guys served, I told you.
***
Testimony 70
Name: *** | Rank: Sergeant | Unit: Golani Infantry Brigade | Location: General
You spoke of passing around photos of bodies. In what format, cards?

No, a photo album.
Did you actually see this album?
It wasn’t secret or anything. It was lying around in the dorms.
Did you take a look?
Yes.
What did you see?
Dead terrorist bodies.
Who took these pictures?
The soldiers who were present at the event. You open an album, you see a terrorist’s
head, you see the body of a terrorist, you see him at the same incident from different
angles, you see pictures of a soldier holding the body, the head.
How do people refer to it? Get me “the album”?
No. You’re turning it into something much more grand that it really is.
***
Testimony 71
Is there anything that embodies your memory from there?

Yes, the body. I had more than one body. I’ve examined and checked and looked
into this and I’m not done yet, but there’s this one incident of many, nothing special
about it. I was washing a body. Who’s going to hear this? It’s not something that…
The people I told, who are close to me, appreciated knowing we return the body of
a wanted man who was shot in an exchange of fire, he did something, a terrorist or
– never mind, he reached you at the infirmary and your job, a 20-year-old or 19-year-
old girl, was to clean him up and get him into some respectable shape for his family.
Very humane of us. Aesthetic. So you find yourself in this position, trying to explain
that it isn’t, but people don’t want to hear. It’s your own private business. They don’t
102
seem to care.
Because?
Because, how can you explain this. I know now that if someone says: yes, this is
our army, very nice, it’s a humane gesture to return even the body of a terrorist so
aesthetically treated. But it was a Muslim, right? and if a woman touches him that is
already a desecration of the dead. That’s one aspect of it. There are many others.
And personally, you look at your hands every morning and say: Wow, you washed
him all over…
***
Testimony 72
Name: *** | Rank: First Sergeant | Unit: Oketz | Location: Nablus
Some of the Arabs there brought us sweets or coffee, not that the soldiers asked for
it or anything. They just came, they had some and they brought it, and it didn’t seem
extraordinary in any way. Although, I don’t know, it may have been wrong.
Were there soldiers who took advantage of this?
This thing with cigarettes, I saw soldiers doing that. Maybe. Several occasions where
cigarettes were taken, specifically.
Prayer beads? Watermelon?
Yes, there were such cases, with goods and stuff.
Can you talk about a specific case?
No, because it was a routine thing. It happened several times, here, there. It was
nothing extreme, not like they asked for anything way-out, not really taking advantage.
But little things, plenty. I especially remember cigarettes, more than watermelon and
such.
Cigarettes were an everyday matter?
Yes.
When we went public with our photo exhibit and told our stories, the army
spokesperson said these things do not happen.
They do. I’ve seen them happen. I’ve seen such things happening.
***
Testimony 73
I think a barrier went up. I can’t say I didn’t have the guts for this, I don’t think it was
guts, but I just wasn’t able to hit people. I pretended it amused me, the hassling and
all. But I constantly tried to find a way to avoid it. Laughing, saying okay guys, now let
them go. It’s gross, come on, get them out of here. I didn’t try to come out, I didn’t
dare show that I found it a terrible thing to do.
What were you afraid of?
Being ‘dissed.’
Was there a physical threat as well?
There would be a physical threat had I told on them, sure. Once a guy came to me
specifically and said: “Listen, if you rat on me, I’ll take you down too.”
For what?
I don’t remember. He came up to me one day, very annoyed. At that point, already,
whenever the slightest thing happened in the company, guys would come to me
with “You ratted on us, you ratted on us.” I wish I had had the guts to do so. What
frustrated me most there was that if I already had the reputation of a rat-fink, at least
I should have had the guts to do it. But I didn’t. I had neither the guts nor did I believe
this would change anything. (…)
What had happened to suddenly tag you as a rat-fink?
There were a few guys in the company who disliked me. Again, even my being a
kibbutznik played a role, and they must have noticed I wouldn’t cooperate, that I wasn’t
taking part in bashing Palestinians. I suppose they did worry that I’d open my mouth.
***
Testimony 74
While I was in Jenin, I was on a patrol with three other guys, and we knew that
104
a demonstration protesting the ‘Separation Fence’ was planned, organized, and
coordinated with the DCO. We were briefed that they were allowed to demonstrate,
may not destroy the fence, that we must keep them away from the fence. We
had a briefing with the regional brigade-commander. Which is an army briefing of
course, this was an activity coordinated with the army, and he said explicitly not to
use any crowd-dispersal means unless we get official confirmation. I was with the
squadron-commander who some months earlier had shot that kid, yes. Shot a kid on
a bicycle riding near the fence. (Earlier in the interview, the interviewee told about an
incident where soldiers of her unit shot to death a boy who ran away from them on
the Palestinian side of the fence.) He remained squadron-commander. In a while I’ll
explain how, but there are things that – after certain things happen, you can’t remain
a squadron-commander. Anyway, we were on patrol, and suddenly we heard that
they’re already reaching the fence and we have to get there, from within, from inside
the Territories, reach the fence. We got there as fast as we could, and I was loading
rubber bullets and everything as we drove. Okay, we get there and the squadron-
commander, behaving like a good boy after all the trouble he had got into previously,
asks for confirmation to use crowd-dispersal means. In the meantime they get to the
fence and begin to tear at it. The deputy brigade-commander had just gone out for
coffee or something. We’re sitting in the Jeep, and on the other side of the fence were
army guys, probably from the DCO, yelling at us: “Do something, do something!”
Finally it took a few minutes – three or five minutes – until we got our okay to use
crowd-dispersal. From our company-commander. The deputy brigade-commander
didn’t respond. So we got out and he threw a concussion grenade towards the fence,
and it didn’t go off. That happens. So just to get some attention, because they more
or less ignored us, he shot one bullet in the air, really in the air, and then threw a
teargas canister. Then they really let go of the fence and went back a bit. Another
patrol arrived by then, intervened and helped push them back. Then at some point we
really got them back with teargas, I didn’t shoot any rubber bullets. He gave me an
order, I jumped in. I would have shot rubber only if stones had been thrown at us. Only
if there were any real danger would I have shot rubber, aiming at legs. Again, this really
highlights the difference between the two companies. But yes, I was at standby. They
were pushed back mainly by shooting in the air, 180 degrees in this case.
Live ammo fired in the air?
Live in the air, and teargas. They moved back and then guys came to us and yelled
at us for not using physical force and not shooting rubber ammo. They did manage
to get six of the demonstrators who got within a meter of the fence. We had them
moving back, and again, we were on standby and didn’t shoot anything. But that
squadron-commander was downgraded because he didn’t function properly.
What do you mean?
He didn’t push off demonstrators fast enough.
But you said it took three minutes.
No, we got our go-ahead after three minutes, but it took us some more minutes to
push them away. But the fact that he waited, that he didn’t act right away, never mind
instructions. That was a reason to downgrade him, unlike the fact that he had killed
a Palestinian boy.
***
Testimony 75
Unit: Hebron Regional Brigade/Medical Corps | Location: South Hebron Hills
There was this confiscation of IDs. At Yatta Checkpoint or…

Which you took part in?
Re-enforcing roads was something every part of the brigade did, to show more
presence. This was in the days of brigade-commander Dror Weinberg. Basically girls
did not take part in this, but since the medical corps staff there had no officer besides
the doctor and he didn’t do this kind of duty, it was beneath him, I got a special
okay from the brigade-commander to do it, myself and a few other medics, and
an ambulance crew. We stood at the Sheep Junction, Elias Junction. 4-6 hours of
road-blocking every time. By order of brigade-operations. Sometimes orders were
to prevent passage of any Palestinian vehicle, or to check IDs, to pass along every
suspect vehicle’s number to operations, make sure the driver wasn’t wanted. You
do what you’re told because you’re no expert, you say a number and you’re told:
get his ID, make him cut the engine, and take his keys. And that’s what you do. He
stands there until your shift changes and you leave his stuff with your replacement.
I don’t know what and how, but I remember that when I got out of the army I still
had some two or three IDs in my gear that I hadn’t even noticed… There were
such checkpoints, especially at Sheep Junction, where people passed from Yatta to
Hebron, to the market. With carts and the elderly and children and everyone, whole
106
families. And there too we had to check every single ID, check their gear. And there
too it wasn’t standard procedure, at least not in my medical corps unit, but I recall
at least one case where Muslims’ prayer beads were taken. The soldiers asked for
them. Or cigarettes, we’re out of cigarettes, give us cigarettes. There were a case or
two or three, but… that I didn’t even notice.
Do you remember cases of violence towards Palestinians?
I remember many stories by Border Patrolmen. Stories I heard from them. They would
come in after a long work day, come into the infirmary, the battalion medic had some
close friends among them, and they’d say ‘listen to what we did today’ and told and
boasted and raved.
To what extent?
They’d patrol the town, someone would annoy them, so they’d bash the hood of his
car with their rifle-butt and throw in a concussion grenade, or catch someone, put
him on the Jeep, carry him around town, throw him out at the end and beat him up.
Or boys who’d thrown stones, they’d take them to… wherever, to the base, tie their
hands with plastic shackles, blindfold them, slap them around, dry them out in the
sun.
You hear this and do nothing?
No. I wouldn’t like to explain this now or make up excuses. I know myself: I didn’t
understand what was going on there, at all. Either that or I didn’t want to understand.
These children would be made to stand in front of the Border Patrol company post,
and some Border Patrolman would come along and smack him on the head. This
would happen in broad day light with everyone hanging around. It wasn’t something
that made me think: oh my, what are they doing, perhaps I should say something.
Like… It was something I felt or thought to be the norm here. Either that or I wasn’t
aware enough to say: Okay, this is out of line and I’m going to change it. Or I only
cared about my own little corner and my own cup of coffee.
***
Testimony 76
In the Border Patrol that year, a lot of attention was dedicated to human dignity. They
changed the topic, but when I was there this was it – human dignity in the Border
Patrol. Lots of lecture guidelines.
Which you give?
No, the commanders. That’s the whole point. Supposedly, the education corps NCO
works behind the scenes to support the commander facing his soldiers. Then you go
talk to the commanders and realize there’s no point.
Really? Why not? They’re supposed to understand their responsibility, aren’t
they?
They would realize it up to the point where they went out into the field. When they
were out there, they didn’t really understand at all, in spite of being the older and
stronger ones. So the company-commander wasn’t the one to trash the place and
all and didn’t shove the father when they came in, but he was there. He saw it
happening. (At another point in the interview, the interviewee described a house-
search she took part in). He waved me out of the room when I tried to understand
what had just occurred, and the situation where they kept going back to the same
shop again and again. (At another point in the interview she talked about a shop in
Hebron that the soldiers would loot on a regular basis.) He waved me out. He could
sit with me for hours over the men’s psycho-technical ranking exams (threshold tests
for commander training courses in the Border Patrol), that he wanted me to sit over
this or that, and this and that, he could answer my questions about that or the other
mission, what they do and what they look for, but about this specific point, where he
should set a personal example…
And he would still give that class?
He would, to get it over and done with. He talks, he says the things I noted down for
him to say to them.
What about setting a personal example?
That’s what I’m saying, there is no personal example.
You also need to set a personal example. Couldn’t you say something of the
sort?
I could. That’s what I would say when I talked. The talks I had with the soldiers in the
company, if I heard certain things, when certain problems arose inside the company,
with a certain soldier at home, I’d go straight away and speak with the junior officers,
the platoon-commanders. With the company-commanders I spoke less, but still. I
can tell you that the commander of the Border Patrol in Hebron at the time cared
about human dignity, that it’s really important. But when it comes to facts on the
ground, it’s all bullshit. People behaved as they pleased.
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Being out in the field is not just conducting weapon-searches.
No, it’s also standing guard-duty at the Tomb of the Patriarchs, where you meet
civilian population every single day.
How is it shown?
Disregarding people, shoving them, cursing them. I told you, I saw this picture – now
when we were in Hebron – a guy has a shop there or something, he says soldiers
picked up stuff, trying to talk to the Border Patrolman, and the guy waves him off.
It’s exactly the same. Six years have gone by and it’s just the same situations I’d see,
when the Palestinians came to talk to them and no matter what rank the commander
was – yes, yes, nod with their heads and shoo them off. Just like that. You can tell
them anything, you can talk about human dignity until you’re blue in the face, but
in actual fact they only pretend to care, they couldn’t care less. Border Patrolmen
commanders as well. I think anyone stationed in Hebron longer than… I can’t even
say how long, but you feel you’re going crazy.
***
Testimony 77
Name:*** | Rank: Sergeant | Unit: Nahal | Location: Hebron
How many detainees would reach the base every week?

There was something every day. Any time there was an arrest, and there were lots of
those in Hebron. Every day. At any time of day. Any day. That’s why it turned…
Turned to what?
It’s like in the beginning – I say it as I look back now, recalling the changes I went
through – at first you’re afraid and then you pass by them as if they’re: Yuck! They
brought some more in? This never ends? What, them, again? It gets to be like
peanuts.
Peanuts?
Something like that, you know.
Comes and goes?
Yes.
How long does it take to get used to it?
Not long. I think it’s because it would happen every day, I have these flash memories
of all those events. I remember they once brought in a young woman.
Shackled?
No, like that. Brought in by two women-soldiers, to their quarters at Harsina, and our
rooms were the first ones there, where I was. We had these four rooms and toilets and
showers. So they brought her in, I don’t know what her story was. Something, I think
someone beat her up at home. She ran away from her father, and she had a knife in
her bag. But I do remember that afterwards they told us she ran away from home for
some reason, that her father beat her up, it was – well, Palestinians. She was taken
to the bathroom and I was asked to go in with her, because I was armed. At first it
stressed me out, and I said… no, at first. Straight away, the first thing I said was: Ugh,
I’m not going in there with this Arab. No way. After that I also felt a bit, I was a bit
scared of her. Like I’m going in there alone with her, to the bathroom, and she came
with a knife, and I don’t know if the knife was taken away from her or not, it wasn’t.
And so we’re standing there arguing who’s going to escort her to the bathroom.
Who’s arguing, the girls?
Yes. And she stands there waiting, watching us with this strange look, she was really
miserable.
How old?
I think she was twenty-something. I remember it always started with “Yuck, these
Arabs, Ugh, these terrorists.”
Does that change at some point?
No, that’s the way it always was, there.
***
Testimony 78
How many girls were you?

First there were four of us.
In a company of how many?
60. This whole thing with girls, the Border Patrol is terribly proud of having female
combatants and all. There are many guys, and there’s a special problem with, there
are a lot of Druze and Beduin guys in the Border Patrol and they have a mentality
110
problem with the fact that suddenly there are girls who are their equals. In general,
some of the girls are squadron-commanders and these guys’ superiors. Again, there
are guys that have adjusted and have no problem with that. But often it spells trouble,
in many situations. So not all of them brutalize people, not all of them are full of hate,
but the atmosphere legitimizes such things. And the girls, there was another one with
me who wouldn’t take part in the fun, so they would pester her no end.
Why didn’t she?
She too didn’t believe in this. She was sort of a lefty and I guess it was against her
principles. There was some story that took place there before my time, but they used
to make fun of her because of it, that one day they caught a group of illegals and
one of them asked for some water because he had a headache, so she offered him
an aspirin. And that became a running joke for at least half a year after I got there.
And this incident had taken place before I arrived. Like, what are you doing giving an
illegal an aspirin? Next you’re going to be taking care of him. That was like the worst
disgrace. Such was the general attitude.
The officers were a part of this?
They were really, like it had nothing to do with them. “We don’t know that.” Like see
nothing, hear nothing, say nothing, but it was obvious. Once every few months the
company-commander would give this lame speech that he won’t tolerate this and
that. But they hardly dealt with this, it wasn’t a topic of discussion at all, and not for
lack of incidents. I mean, if it was the children, or… When it suddenly came up for all
sorts of reasons, say like that video (at another point in the interview, this interviewee
described a case in which soldiers were filmed brutalizing children), how much did
they deal with it? Talked about it for two days and that was that, okay, let’s carry on.
***
Testimony 79
People’s motivation had to be constantly pumped up, this was critical. We had
serious motivation problems at the checkpoint, at Erez Crossing. Insane. The number
of AWOLs we had there, or I don’t know what they’re called, when the soldiers ditch
the base and go home? A guy runs away, home. And jail, every second person would
go to jail for refusing an order. There was a real motivation problem.
What orders did they refuse?
They got sick of working like a dog. There were times they were working four hours
and resting four hours. They were slaving away for three years. The soldiers, some
of them did three years at Erez Crossing. These are sit-down jobs, without the
combat glamour. They go home with nothing, not even some badge to be proud
of, just their regional brigade insignia. So that, and slaving away, and being on short
leash, and having to clean up for inspection a month before their discharge. No
scheduled promotions, no platoon sergeant, like a company of slaves, really. So one
had to pump up motivation. How do you pump up motivation? The soldiers would
be allowed, the way the commanders put it – I sat in on commander briefings about
a year into my time there. Every day the commanders would sit together. And there
was this expression: Okay, let the soldiers let off some steam. Let them release a
little. Let them take the Jeep, say, without a commander, no mission, just go to some
industrial zone and harass the Palestinians.
What was the Jeep’s mission?
Nothing. The commanders would take it just to make the rounds and often take the
girls from operations along – I often rode out with them, or soldiers, whoever he felt
like having along.
So they would let a soldier work off some steam away from the checkpoint?
Take him along on a mission?
No, he’d take the Jeep and he could then drive up to Ashqelon to eat out. Once he’d
go for shawarma in Ashqelon, another time he’d go – for example, there was this
slight mission to pick up some illegal at Erez and throw him off in Gaza. That’s right,
illegals would reach us at the checkpoint, they’d come walking. Then he’d have to
pass them over a few kilometers over to the other side, to Gaza. Cross that whole
huge checkpoint compound. Not inside the crossing. One can also drive around it.
So say they let the soldiers take some illegal and drive him over to the other side.
Let’s say they did it often.
What other activities for letting off steam?
Driving around, making the rounds in the Erez Industrial Zone, just for kicks. Look
around. Going visiting, like visiting other outposts, it’s all the same level, you know.
Get away from the checkpoint for a while.
Yes, but say this was the command Jeep. Now the soldiers, what I meant to say
about the soldiers at the checkpoint, what happens is that the officer can’t stand it
any longer either, so he goes up – everyone always wants to leave the checkpoint
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and go up to the base. So he leaves someone in charge at the checkpoint, say a
sergeant, to be the commander of this huge checkpoint. And then also there’s this
point that soldiers should also be allowed to exercise their own judgment, because
there are officers and commanders there all the time, a whole base right on top of the
checkpoint. It’s not this godforsaken couple of concrete blocks at some roadside, it’s
state regulations on this checkpoint of ours. Extremely controlled. So sometimes they
step back and say: Okay, let them handle it for a while. Once I spoke to one of the
commanders. I asked him why his soldiers were detaining some woman for I don’t
know how long, many hours. It was nighttime and she had been waiting there since
morning. So he said: “My soldiers know what they’re doing. Just let them handle it.
They know. Let them be.” That’s what he said. (…) The soldiers were usually clinically
depressed, really. They were in terrible condition. They hated their job, they hated
being at the checkpoint, they would get drunk at night just to forget they were there
and did everything they could to get away every night, to Ashqelon, over the fence,
just to get away and not be there for a while.
***
Testimony 80
As an education corps NCO of the battalion I did lots of kitchen duty, and on one
Friday night dinner, the auxiliary company came back with spoils, I think it was two
terrorist bodies, and I recall coming out the dining hall door on my way to my tent,
and I saw them holding it, holding the body and getting their picture taken with it as
if it were hugging them, they were striking poses for the camera and laughing. There
was simply a dead body lying there near the dining hall, where people wash their
hands before they eat.
***
Testimony 81
Name: *** | Rank: Sergeant | Unit: Golani Infantry Brigade | Location: Gaza Strip
How was the checkpoint run?

Forcefully, with a forceful feeling. Drunk on power, control… What is hierarchy at the
checkpoint? You always have the more veteran soldier who sits there and doesn’t
do too much. And there’s the soldier who does the actual physical job, usually two
of them, at the pedestrian checks. So I wasn’t witness myself to brutal or inhuman
treatment of people beyond the actual orders, which I don’t know how humane they
are come to think of it. But on the level of obeying orders – it’s control. It’s a sense
of ‘it’s my word that counts now and if I say fuck you then fuck you and if you’re not
polite to me or if I don’t like the way you’re looking at me, I’ll fuck you. And if I want to
hang you out to dry here, I will. And let’s say someone complains it’s too hot in here,
or asks what’s happening – they make him wait. Like, who are you to talk? You’re
nothing. It can be just dragging things out, or enjoying actually doing things very
slowly and fuck around and pick up IDs and laugh at them or stuff like that.
Did they play games at the checkpoint?
Plenty. What are games? They had games like stretching time. That was really strong.
They’re sitting there and you have this huge waiting line and the weather is scorching
hot. Kisufim Checkpoint is right next to the army post, I’d walk there. So I was
walking and I would want to spend some quality time with my soldiers. So through
that I’d actually experience what they would be doing. Wasting time. You’re not
concrete, not professional, it’s not like you have some… You’ve been at the social
security bureau, haven’t you? There’s a very correct way of talking, you can’t play
around with anything that’s irrelevant. At the checkpoint it’s not like that. You do what
you please. You talk any way you want, you do whatever you want, you exercise your
judgment any way you want. Unless there’s something extraordinary and then of
course you get on the radio, but in general you’re your own boss. And that’s a pretty
intoxicating feeling for an 18-year-old kid who may have had his head bashed in the
bathroom, I don’t know. It definitely shows.
***
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Testimony 82
Name: *** | Rank: First Sergeant | Unit: Oketz | Location: Nablus
Did you run into instances of exploiting power positions at the checkpoint
– what was that smile, now you’ll wait here for four hours?
Not quite like that, but he did something out of line: today you don’t get through the
checkpoint, you stay on that side.
What does that mean, out of line?
He didn’t listen to the soldiers, he tried to pass although they told him to wait in line,
stuff like that which I think is reasonable. Like, I mean, he made trouble – he won’t
pass. If everyone started to make trouble like that we’d have a problem because
still we’re much fewer than they are. So that’s okay. Something that is just arbitrary,
I don’t think I’ve seen. I haven’t witnessed such use of force… Confiscating car
keys, I have seen that. Also, the Border Patrolmen. But it was for, say, 20 minutes or
something like that.
We were at a checkpoint once, also near Nablus, but from another direction, I don’t
remember what it was called, I was only there once. The guys there were real fanatics.
This was Duchifat or Haruv (units constantly in the Territories), I’m not sure which.
I forgot their unit name now. I saw the same soldier on the same day saying to various
Arabs: Give me a cigarette. Not: Hey, got a cigarette? He’d say: Give me a cigarette.
Also making people wait endlessly. There was a case of a guy who would make
someone stand and wait. I was there for four hours that day, no, five hours. The first
two hours there was someone he made stand aside, like on the vehicle checking
lane, he made him pull over and wouldn’t let him pass. I don’t know why, he was
there already before I got there.
Did you ask why?
“He was out of line, so he’s standing here.” The soldier was playing this big he-man
and running the checkpoint.
What rank?
Nothing, maybe a sergeant. A 19-year-old with some authority so he got excited.
***
Testimony 83
I remember coming out of Hebron feeling suffocated.

Why?
You suffocate because you can’t take it any longer. On the one hand you’ve got
these, the Jews because of whom you’re there, protecting them. I remember the first
time I saw Tel Rumeida, and it’s nothing when you come to think of it. The Jews live
there in such conditions, completely surrounded with Palestinians, and we’re there
to do it, to watch over them. So on the one hand these are the people who throw
eggs and tomatoes at you, curse you and your mother and all, and on the other hand
you’ve got that population and you’re supposedly destined to be their enemy. You’re
supposed to hate them and you’re somehow expected to navigate between the two.
The commanders, too, no one in Hebron Border Patrol really wanted to be there.
No matter whom you talked to. The company-commanders only sought chances for
promotion and getting re-assigned elsewhere, they didn’t want to be there. No one
wanted to be there. So how could you ask some company-commander or platoon-
commander to discuss this with his soldiers?
But he’s there, what can he do?
Nothing. Pass the time until…
How do they pass the time?
Nothing, look the other way. Say, okay, do it your way.
***
Testimony 84
I recall once I thought it was a trifle but I remembered it while watching the film “To See
If I’m Smiling.” I sat with guys from the auxiliary company, I don’t know if they were
just back from some mission or something, but we were sitting together, I also liked
to sit and listen to their combat stories and be let in on things they did. It fascinated
me. If I can’t do it myself, at least let me hear about it from the source. So we sat
there and they played around with these prayer-beads, and then someone came in
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and said: “Hey, look at my loot,” something like that. He either said that or I asked
where it was from. I remember asking, and knew that these were prayer-beads. So
they said: “From the Arabs.” So I say: What do you mean, from the Arabs? What, you
bought them? “No, we took them.” But it’s theirs, I said. “Okay, what do you mean
theirs?” As if it was all right. And I thought, no, that’s not all right. It’s theirs, after all.
Did they do anything to you, that you took them? “No, we just took them, we always
do.” I didn’t know there was such a phenomenon. After seeing that film I suddenly
realized, this was a phenomenon indeed. And then suddenly it hooked up, and it’s
most weird when I link it to things that happened in the Holocaust, when skullcaps
were taken off men’s heads. Come on, this is important, have some respect. But
these are the things that make you think it’s okay. When these combatants say it’s
okay, and they suffer more than I do, they’re out in the Territories all the time and
staying out weekends and all, so what they do is all right.
***
Testimony 85
Were people creative?

Again, hassling Palestinians was the creative part of heating up the ground, let’s say.
What’s that?
It’s done a lot in squadron-commander training in the Border Patrol. You stand and
have to run in place, mustn’t stop.
How do you say it in Arabic?
They’re addressed in Hebrew. They’re forced to understand Hebrew. You don’t
understand me? I’ll hit you.
Finally they understand?
Look, many of them know Hebrew, at least partially, and some of the Patrolmen speak
Arabic because there are a lot of Druze and Bedouins on the force, so sometimes
they spoke Arabic. But there were quite a few Patrolmen who wouldn’t speak Arabic,
even if they did know the simple words for ‘hand over your ID’ which we all knew.
“No, I won’t speak Arabic. He’s entering my country, let him speak Hebrew.” Even
the simplest things. And really, it was routine. I mean, the specific events I remember
were the one with that kid, and also detaining older people for a long time.
How long?
Sometimes for an hour. Sit here for an hour. Stay.
What do they do while they wait?
Nothing. Sit.
Can they let them go?
They can. But they’re passing the time. They don’t want to let them go. Lunch is
here, wait, we’re sitting down to have lunch. You sit here, wait.
***
Testimony 86
When the checkpoint was closed, demonstrations started. We had a new chief,
a deputy battalion-commander. He didn’t know the open-fire regulations, so he
shot someone in the chest instead of in the legs. He didn’t know that our open-fire
regulations were specifically to aim at the legs.
A deputy battalion-commander doesn’t know the open-fire regulations?
They would change every day. They were hard to follow. What are open-fire
regulations? We get a call from brigade HQ, and we’re told: today the open-fire
instructions are to shoot anything that moves, or, today it’s at the feet, or whatever…
This was a heated time in the region, not necessarily at the Erez Crossing itself, but
it affected it us a great deal, everything that went on around us. The checkpoint was
a relatively quiet place until the October Intifada began, we didn’t feel it yet. And then
tens of thousands of Palestinians were barred from entering Israel and people still
showed up wanting to get in, to work, so they had to be kept away somehow. And
this turned into crowding, and stone-throwing. Or let’s say first of all someone threw
stones, okay, but it started happening on a daily basis, so snipers were called in.
I don’t know how far they stood, but they stood there, placed themselves to watch
the checkpoint area below, the people. And they kept getting different instructions.
Say once there was some confusion even in the snipers’ orders. I don’t know, yes,
it was like this, open-fire instructions, first of all they’re not that interesting, because
if you keep changing them every other day, no one really pays them any attention.
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That distance doesn’t look so big. So okay, I can hit and say I was shooting in the air.
Understand? It’s not that relevant. It’s not something that was really right.
Did you note down the open-fire instructions?
We would write them down, in our logs. Too bad I don’t have those logs, operations
logs. I’d get you piles of them. No, we threw them out. You know, just like, at the war-
room. Why waste time? Let’s go to the war-room, get out some of those operations
logs, it’s all written down there, really: this woman waited for so and so hours, a kid
was killed, the sniper hit him accidentally, it’s all there.
A kid hit accidentally, that’s how it’s written in the log? That goes straight to
Military Police investigations.
Well, no, the record is not that carefully detailed. What they do take trouble about is
say, beeper messages. My own commander at the time, in Border Patrol, I once sent
in a message, when I was still pretty new there: At the demonstration this morning,
our forces, I don’t know if they returned fire, anyway they must have done something.
Shot somehow because a child was killed, a child was taken down. I don’t know if he
was killed, he fell. So I wrote down ‘a child fell’ on that beeper. I sent the message.
My commander was furious. He really yelled at me never again to write down ‘child.’
I said: He was eight years old, that’s what the Palestinians said, shouldn’t I write
‘child’? Of course I didn’t use these words with him. But I was supposed to say
youth, never ‘child.’ Since that time, for two years, I never wrote down ‘child,’ even
though children were still getting killed.
***
Testimony 87
Name: *** | Rank: Lieutenant | Unit: Nahal | Location: Hebron
As an NCO in Hebron I’d make the rounds. I’d go in with the patrols to the casbah
area, teeming with life, with all its fruit and vegetable stalls, a real market, with heads
of oxen and camels and all that stuff. A year later, coming there as an officer, I saw
none of that any longer. The casbah was deserted, not one stall open. All those
Palestinians’ shops, there were no longer Palestinians’ shops, everything was shut
down. One of the things I most clearly remember from Hebron is graffiti. Everywhere
you look there’s graffiti, extreme text of one kind of another.
***
Testimony 88
I tried to reach them from another place, not the self-righteous one. I tried to make
them trust me by showing them that I wasn’t that. I would listen, I simply don’t recall
now but I would listen a lot to their frustrations, their problems, what a downer it was
to be stationed in Hebron. To do 8 hour-8 hour shifts running. I thought, and do so
now too, that if I had to do it all over again, I think that’s how I would choose to act.
I was constantly trying to calm them down…
Even though it didn’t work?
Yes. I think that had I stayed there longer, I don’t believe I would have managed to
change much, but perhaps I’d change a little. I told you, every time I see those films,
the only thing I want is to be education corps NCO in Hebron once more, and reach
these people again, and somehow try to reach them. Again, from a place of, like I
say, as soon as I realized how problematic their situation was, I also realized I couldn’t
change the world, I can’t revolutionize anything, you know, on the spot. I could try
to reach people in a way that will perhaps make them do things a little bit differently,
perhaps they will start thinking. I remember I told the welfare NCO: as far as I’m
concerned, it’s good enough if they give a thought to what I told them, later. Like, just
hear me out, get through this barrier of: you’re a girl, you’re army, you don’t know
from nothing. That’s why every week I went down to the Cave of the Fathers, so they
wouldn’t say ‘you have no idea what it means to be there, you don’t understand, you
don’t see things with your own eyes.’ But in moments when we weren’t picked up
to return to our base, or had no other way of traveling, and had to stay down there
for two-three hours, I’d go crazy. I realized I don’t understand a thing. You can think
you understand, and you still don’t understand, but that’s why I think this should be
handled very… On the one hand they’re placed inside a highly problematic system,
and again I think they’re in contact with the population which is a problem in itself, it
enables them to take out their tensions, they even kept fighting between themselves.
Plenty. I keep remembering those you see starting up in jest as it were, but the
conduct itself is brutal. Somehow I think man’s brutality comes out in the toughest
situations. And I think the Border Patrolmen I lived with for half-a-year were people
whose very language is violence. They also communicated violently with each other.
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Verbal aggression, plenty of dirty talk, and all those slaps and claps on the back,
no wonder they always get there and that’s what they do. Go down to the post and
that’s how they behave, for as far as they’re concerned it was just an extension of
their natural behavior, just taken further. Whether it’s the Palestinians or each other.
Never in their lives would they beat up Jews.
Was there something extreme they said that crossed the line?
There was no line. No line. There was no line. I’m telling you, if I were able to remember
why I say this with such certainty, then it was even more so. But I can’t recall. I’m telling
you there were no limits. If there was a line, it was individual. Not something dictated.
Are there rules?
The rules are just for appearances. There are no rules. There are would-be rules. I
don’t remember, I tell you, I remember that situation where he waved me off, because
I remember him sitting on the edge of the table and I came to talk to him, I approached,
I spoke to him and then: Go on, let it go, like leave me alone with that stuff. And he
could talk to me for hours on end, this company-commander, for hours, and all the
while I was trying to reach them, having them appreciate me and not regard me just
as a girl who came to talk with them. To reach them. In a million other things they
could be totally open with me. Talk with them about sex, about their wives, about this
or that – no problem. But when it came to raising this subject… I mean, it was very
important for them that the soldiers be looked after as far as their welfare status was
concerned. But about what happens on the ground…
And about the way Palestinians are treated? No talk?
As I told you, even if Hebron Border Patrol was an assignment no one wanted, as
far as they were concerned, they were doing everything because they must. I don’t
remember any incident investigations that ended up with any conclusions. I recall
some investigations that were… I remember reading them in retrospect. I remember I
was terribly shocked at how this would happen all the time. How constant these little
incidents were. But it’s not something that was regarded very…
Did this shock wear off at some point?
Yes. I think that now, in retrospect, I can really think about it. About leaving there
feeling suffocated. Think about it, I wasn’t there for long, just half a year, it’s not a long
time. Not for someone who does not do this Sisyphean job day in-day out, okay?
When you’re living this 8-hour/8-hour shift plan, half a year is a long time. But the
fact that you somehow adjust to the stress, to the fear, you get used to it all being so
sensitive, to things happening without…
So in what shape do you get out of there?
Mainly want to get away. I just wanted not to be there. I told you, suffocated. When I
went back now, if when you’re a soldier it feels like home, there’s this sense of there
being something terribly special for me about the Cave of the Fathers, and I’m not
into religion in any way. I mean it energetically, there’s something energetically very
strong about Hebron. When I came back I recalled how I got out of there feeling only
the urgent need to get away because I’m not… because you’re put in a position
where you just can’t do anything.
***
Testimony 89
Name: *** | Rank: Sergeant | Unit: Nahal | Location: Reihan
And then Shaked army base, that’s where Reihan is. That checkpoint, there.
You were assigned to checkpoints?
Yes. That’s where I also got a real sense of pride, because you see them (the
Palestinians) standing there, waiting, while we get to pass through like nothing, walking
around among them, see how they’re strung out there, while we’re free to go.
What’s there to be proud of then?
That my lot is better than theirs, something of the sort. I recall that towards the
end of my army service, what really made me think twice about this feeling, all this
enthusiasm, was that apparently even *** was the person I asked this question. But
there was some operation and they came back and often I’d come to the war-room
to hear what was up. Just to hang out with the guys in the war-room, I loved to be in
on things. Really. To know what’s what, who goes where. Also because the guys from
our own group were in one of the companies there, I was always interested to know
who was where. So I knew they’d just come back from a mission. I came around and
heard they had killed, and got really excited. Even when we were in Beit Lid, still the
missions were around Jenin. So I came up to one of the guys and said, asked him:
“Did you kill? How many?” And he looked at me sort of startled, and says: “You don’t
ask such things. What are you thinking when you say this?” Suddenly it dawned on
me, I began to think about it, and realized that all this joking around, the way I see it,
all this joking about the Arabs and this and that, is perhaps a way to cope. Because
suddenly I’m talking with a person who I know with certainty has just killed someone
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today, and he doesn’t answer me, and only says: what’s with you, to be asking such
things? I recall saying to him, at first: “Why, what’s the problem? Everyone’s into this,
no? They joke about it and it’s cool, so why not tell me how many you killed? Why
not take pride in it?” That’s what I was thinking, why aren’t you proud of this, why
aren’t you telling us? And he looks at me: “You don’t talk about it, you don’t ask such
questions.” Suddenly I realized they don’t want to be like this, that this is their way
of coping.
Did you think about yourself, as well?
I felt really bad, I felt I was out of line asking such a question, and that this is human
lives we’re talking about here, all of a sudden, human lives. Not simply Arab, human
beings. I remember, not sure if this was before or after, they would catch some kid
hanging around outside the base, I recall this was in Dotan. I remember they caught
him and brought him in, and eventually he turned out to be just a kid who hung around
too much so they suspected him. So suddenly I began to think, hey, wait a minute,
not every Palestinian is a terrorist and not everyone has really done something wrong.
And after I found out that girl had simply run away from home because something
really bad happened to her (earlier in the interview the interviewee told about a
detained Palestinian woman whom she refused to escort to the bathroom), all of a
sudden I felt really embarrassed, why didn’t I help her go to the bathroom, I didn’t go
with her. Slowly you catch on…
Did anything else happen, after this process, which you saw differently?
I don’t remember. I recall that after I asked the guy how many he’d killed and how, I
remember I started feeling really bad about the whole situation.
What did you want to know, a number? More than that?
Yes, if he had done it. It seemed cool to be talking to a guy who’d just killed
someone.
You wanted to know how it felt?
Yes. I kept asking them questions. They would go out on arrest missions and I’d ask
them for details.
What details?
Where did you sleep? I remember they told me, for example, we got into a house,
“And what, you spent the whole night there?” Yes, we had to stay there through the
night. No, not asleep. So I go, “And where was the family?” And they’d tell me: We
had them in another room. They sat in another room. “So where, I mean, you sat
on…” No. Say they told me: The battalion-commander didn’t let us sit on the sofas
so we sat on the floor or something like that. So I remember saying: “What? Why
not? I mean, you deserve it, why not sit on their sofas?” This was during those arrest-
missions, that they had killed those guys.
In Hebron?
No. This was already in Jenin. Then suddenly I realized they were calmer than I was. I
suddenly felt uneasy. Here it’s the prayer-beads they picked up, and there they tell me
it’s all right to spit at a shackled Palestinian. Suddenly I realize that I’m too extreme
and they’re okay, like.
***
Testimony 90
There were actions in Umm al-Fahm. Inside the town, we made the rounds for a while.
Again, that meant suddenly going into a home, with or without official permission.
But Umm al-Fahm is Israeli territory.
So what? It’s Israeli, so you have to use more sense, you can’t beat them up because
they complain to the MaHaSh (Department of Police Officer Investigations of the
Israeli Ministry of Justice). That’s the only difference. You don’t beat up Israeli Arabs
because they complain to the MaHaSh.
But you enter their homes.
If you find a good enough excuse, yes.
What kind of excuses?
Usually, we’re hunting someone and he’s hiding out in your house. But we’re more
careful over there. Again, we were always going in to local population, but more in
Barta’a village, which is a greyer area. It was our opportunity to come in and take
stuff and upset market stalls. It happened less, much less, but there was some time
when there was also action inside Umm al-Fahm. Meaning we’d drive the Jeep wildly
inside the town.
As a show of presence?
Yes, sure.
Was that an expression you used?
Also. (…) Especially driving around at an insane speed, mostly that. Again, it was
like fun. How did someone put it? A Border Patrol Jeep coming into town is more
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frightening than an army tank.
Why is that?
Look, truth is I saw it later when I got to Jenin. It really was like that, an army tank
could move along the street and no one would even turn around, just looked on.
When a Border Patrol Jeep entered Jenin, there would be no one in the street. You
would think the town was deserted. Once in a blue moon… someone would perhaps
throw a stone, but no, not one would dare face a Jeep and really throw stones.
Against a tank – sure, what would the soldier do? A Border Patrol man is already
someone who wouldn’t…
***
Testimony 91
There was the child, the most shocking story about a tank-commander, you’ve got
to find him. Anyway, he was sitting there Saturday around noon, that most boring of
times, sitting there in ‘Magen 12,’ in his tank, and some kids threw stones at the tank,
which sounds fun, right? Kids throwing stones at a tank. It annoyed him, though.
That doesn’t exactly jeopardize a tank…
No, but it annoyed him. So he got on the radio with us: “There are kids here throwing
stones.” He was expecting some kind of response. That’s it. Eventually he did shoot,
we heard shots. I remember being surprised at the sound of shooting, because if
there is any shooting at ‘Magen 12’ you hear it at the war-room, although it’s a 3-
minute drive away. Not adjacent. But you hear. So we did hear shots. We got on the
radio to all the companies. The tank fired and the kid fell.
He fell?
Fell. They always ‘fall.’
He saw him fall?
Yes. And then he had to be retrieved.
***
Testimony 92
Name: *** | Rank: Sergeant | Unit: Nahal | Location: Reihan
I remember there was some rioting at Reihan Checkpoint – I don’t recall the incident
so very well – there was some rioting by Palestinians, and the guys, the soldiers – it
was a relatively young company – didn’t do anything. They didn’t, I don’t remember
why. Perhaps another unit came along as reinforcement. The battalion-commander
arrived, but they didn’t do anything. I remember them coming back and hearing talk
about why they didn’t shoot in the air, this and that. And then I remember we laughed
at them, like this is the army so you know, faggot, wimp, stuff that really offends
a soldier, hurts his pose, his pride. I remember us laughing at them: What, how
could you not beat them up and why did you not shoot in the air and scare them? I
remember the company-commander was jeered for having such cowardly men.
So what did they finally say?
I think eventually it appeared the soldiers were shocked by the rioting so they didn’t
do anything. We just jeered at them: Ah, you didn’t do anything. You really walk
around feeling and proud and mighty.
***
Testimony 93
They’re detained for hours. You can stick someone in a Jeep, start driving, continue
your patrol. Do your routine while he’s inside your Jeep.
Why make him get in the Jeep?
Just for the sake of it. An illegal was caught inside Umm al-Fahm, so theoretically
they’re supposed to get him in the Jeep, take him back (into the Territories) and
continue the patrol. So we get him in the Jeep, but wait a minute, we were planning
to go buy some coke and rolls, so okay, we go shopping, hang around, we can
detain him for hours, there’s no instructions about it.
Where is he left eventually?
Sometimes he’s dumped near the garbage dump of Umm al-Fahm to get on his
way back, sometimes a little closer to a village relatively near, a Palestinian village.
126
Wherever we felt like it.
No logging, nothing?
Sometimes we’d log it. At other times we wouldn’t. I mean, we did have detention
report forms and all that stuff.
There’s a detention report form?
There are detention reports. Detailed. First of all, these served primarily for the
investigation department. Supposedly for every illegal we caught, we were to question
him, fill out his data, his ID number and why he came and who his employer was and
how much he gets an hour and that kind of questions.
Any other questions?
That’s mostly what I remember. Mostly about the work, I mean.
How much he gets an hour?
Yes.
And this would be written down?
They would often tell us.
How much?
A pittance, they could be getting up to twenty shekels for a day’s work. Embarrassingly
low wages, really. They worked for nothing, more or less, according to what they told
us. And there’s the detention report where the circumstances of detention must be
noted down, and if he was an illegal, we’d note the reason he was illegal. Again, there
are the would-be regulations that a person may be detained up to twenty minutes
without a report, and beyond that time a detention report must be filled out, including
detailed circumstances for its taking over twenty minutes. But it was not problem
finding such circumstances.
What did you write in these reports?
An illegal. Circumstances: inspection. Extended inspection. Log extension. No one
went over these reports one by one. We could sometimes fill out fifty reports a day.
***
Testimony 94
The high-rise buildings in Beit Hanoun, every time there was shooting out of the
orchards, there are these very tall, very white high-rises in Beit Hanoun. They’re
called the Officers’ Quarters. Sometimes there would be shooting from there too.
And we’d shoot into those houses. Later, some year or two ago, I saw a television
report on Channel 2 about a girl who was hit by this shooting and lost her two legs.
Shooting into the Officers’ Quarters was routine, standard. We didn’t think about the
fact that people lived there. That Officers’ Quarters means there are families there.
You shot in warning?
Yes, it’s shooting that… No, warning shots are when you spray the orchards… listen,
this gunfire stuff is very much up to the commander. Very much so. Really, one of the
things I realized was that both the shooting and the definition of the zone, that was
the most amazing thing, I found. Because the new commander who arrived, he’s
really a person you should interview, lieutenant colonel *** … When he came, he was
a nutcase, in short. He was the most psycho, violently aggressive. His predecessor
had been very gentle-handed to everyone, even to soldiers who brutalize Palestinians,
who beat them up. (…) What I mean to say is that the army commander who replaced
him, first of all rerouted the road. Which is amazing, re-routing the road. I think it was
set in the Oslo Accords that this is the delineation road between the State of Israel
and Gaza. So he took it, I mean it was this no-man’s-land or grey area, into which
they were not supposed to enter, true, if anyone entered it, we would shoot. There
was someone who got in and was shot. It was an insane night. We were on radio
with our commander who was following him. We heard him until he could reach the
guy and shoot. We were certain we had caught a terrorist who was about to enter
the settlement, but he had nothing on him. And what did they say? Well? A tracker/
guide. I believed it. Everyone believed it. That he’s a tracker, that terrorists sent him
ahead to learn the route and tell them where they should enter when they come to
attack the settlement.
What did they find on him?
Nothing. He had nothing on him. We said, if he’s a guide, there must be a map on
him, something. No. Weapons? A knife? Nothing at all. He had absolutely nothing.
It was really, that whole night we were like really, because the commander kept
reporting constantly: I’m ten meters away from him. I’m two meters away from him.
It was cool. Then he re-routed the road. He changed it – the base was angry at this
commander for having changed fundamental orders. So a part of this meant keeping
a really tough hand over the Palestinians. Then he changed the open-fire instructions.
He decided. He came to the brigade HQ with a lot of force and said: I am commander
not only of Erez Crossing, give me Dugit and Eley Sinai (Israeli settlements). So our
128
zone was expanded. When he arrived he decided that every single evening, without
any special reason, we’d fire at the orchards. As soon as it got dark.
Are these orchards tended?
That’s it, that’s the interesting part. I never thought about whether anyone worked
there. It’s crazy. For me these were orchards. Orchards. What are orchards? Enemy
ground. An area we have to fear. I didn’t think that perhaps people worked there. I
remember coming on shift and being informed that open-fire instructions for now were
to shoot at the orchards every night, just in order to – I don’t know – scare them. Warn
them. I don’t know why, but to us this sounded surreal and terribly amusing.
How do you know you didn’t shoot homes?
I don’t know, we must have shot homes too.
What were the zone limits of this shooting procedure?
There weren’t any. You shoot, listen, you shoot straight. You’re up there in your high
position, facing the orchards. Yes, it’s a huge area. I passed on the instruction to
shoot warning shots at the orchards, and the ridiculous part of what I’m saying here
is that this was warning fire at nothing. Nothing happened. The time simply came and
you’d shoot, that’s what’s so ridiculous. But when I passed on the order to shoot at
the orchards, everyone knew what it meant.
***
Testimony 95
Most of the time I saw violence around Katzir, before the fence was constructed, then
it was simply routine – emptying the children’s plastic bags and playing with their
toys. You know, grabbing the stuff and throwing the toys among us like balls.
The children cried?
Constantly. They cried and were terrified. I mean, you couldn’t miss it.
Adults cried too?
Sure. To humiliate them. One of our goals was this: I made him cry in front of his child,
I made him shit in his pants.
You saw cases of people soiling their pants?
Yes.
Why?
Especially at beatings, beating them to a pulp and threats and yelling, where the guy
is terrified, especially in front of the kids. They would yell and threaten and terrify so
you’re afraid for your kids too. There was this once, again, an adult detained with his
child, a tiny kid, about four years old. The child was not hit, but the Patrolman was
annoyed that the adult was taking the kid with him so he’d be shown consideration,
and told him: You’re taking the kid along so as to be pitied, let’s show you what’s
what. And he beat him to a pulp, yelled at him, said: “Why, I could kill you right in front
of your kid, maybe you’d feel more…” That’s horrifying. And again, there are lots of
‘respect’ stories.
And he wet his pants for sheer fright?
Yes.
In front of his child?
Yes. There are lots of honor stories like, I made him shit in his pants, I made him do
that, such talk was routine, not anything special…
Where would this be told, in the dining hall, in the presence of the officers?
Openly in public?
Openly in public. I think that if an officer says he didn’t know, he’s lying. At least
the senior officers knew. Again, the platoon-commanders dealt with this less, but
the company-commander, the deputy company-commander, the operations officer
– they encouraged this even in a big way. Again, not directly, they didn’t actually
come out and say, go on, beat them up, but there was this legitimacy, otherwise it
wouldn’t have happened. Again, the fact is that in Jenin there were less cases of this
kind, and not just because there was less work with the population, I think.
***
Testimony 96
Unit: Shimshon Battalion | Location: Etzyon Regional Brigade
Were you out in the field with the soldiers?

Yes, every NCO does that. Again, I don’t know if it’s connected, but the girls’ job
in the army often begins and ends with being girls and smiling at the guys. It surely
130
doesn’t come as a surprise to you. It was relief, the greatest relief of all – to see girls
in the army post.
Were you told about this in your training, earlier?
No way, never. But that’s what you’re told at the battalion. When I arrived at he
battalion, the guys yelled: “Fresh meat, fresh meat!” This was on the Ketziot base.
Think about it, that enormous place, and we had arrived, two new girls. I mean, girls
in the army… now that’s a topic for research, never mind. But obviously it didn’t
make any difference if you prepared education guideline-bulletins.
132
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Breaking The Silence

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BREAKING THE SILENCE

Women Soldiers’ Testimonies

Printed in Jerusalem, 2009

Many of the testimonies in this collection alternate between a semi-external perspective,

Why are search dogs necessary at checkpoints?

Binoculars, too, are considered incriminating equipment (namely, activating open-fire

As an education corps NCO, what is expected of you?

What is done to stone-throwers?

So how do you feel, coming out of there?

Did you meet Palestinians?

You’re supposed to handle the women?

What about detainees?

Did you see weapons being cocked?

We were summoned after an exchange of fire, on some hill on Road 60 heading

Who does the inspections, is it a special assignment?

You spoke of passing around photos of bodies. In what format, cards?

Is there anything that embodies your memory from there?

There was this confiscation of IDs. At Yatta Checkpoint or…

How many detainees would reach the base every week?

How many girls were you?

How was the checkpoint run?

I remember coming out of Hebron feeling suffocated.

Were people creative?

Were you out in the field with the soldiers?

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