To get authorization to open fire, does he need to be armed, or with binoculars? I think he just needs to be there.
When you say open fire, what does that mean? Shooting to kill. This is combat in an urban area, we’re in a war zone. The saying was: ‘There’s no such thing there as a person who is uninvolved.’ In that situation, anyone there is involved. Everything is dangerous; there were no special intelligence warnings such as some person, or some white vehicle arriving… No vehicle is supposed to be there – if there is one, we shoot at it. Anything that’s not ‘sterile’ is suspect. There was an intelligence warning about animals. If a suspicious animal comes near, shoot it. In practice, we didn’t do that. We had arguments about whether or not to do it. But that was just a general instruction; in practice you learn to recognize the animals because they are the only ones wandering around.
During the period that you were there, did you see an armed Palestinian? Nothing, I didn’t see a single living human being, except for the guys in my platoon and a few from the Armored Corps.