Name: ***
Rank: first sergeant
Unit: Nachal elite unite
Description: Were you sent on any missions that were defined as reprisals?
No.

I'm asking because I've heard that the paratrooper recon-unit did go on a revenge mission after a terrorist attack, killing Palestinian policemen.
Oh, that – sure. What is reprisal? It's a question of terminology by the commanding officer. He may say it's in revenge, he can also say it's meant to prevent attacks by killing Palestinian policemen. We had an operation planned for Qalqiliya that eventually did not place, of snipers taking down Palestinian policemen.

You were meant to go in there with snipers to kill Palestinian policemen?
Yes. It was in Rosh Hashanah, a year after the troubles broke out, and the operation was planned for locating Palestinian policemen and exterminating them. Meaning we'd place snipers 100-200 up to 500 meters from the policemen and take them down. Some of them were to be taken down silently, as it were. That means you go all the way up to the outpost and take them down with silenced guns, for the purpose of killing Palestinian policemen.

Armed? Unarmed? Anyone in uniform is a doomed man?
No. Anyone standing at a checkpoint is a doomed man. Then there were still Palestinian police checkpoints.

Did you ever have to carry out such a mission?
I don't remember. I recall all sorts of… I don't just want to talk without being certain.

What do you remember?
I remember we were on a mission on foot, we passed under a Palestinian police checkpoint and thought they spotted us, so let's say if they had taken a few more steps in our direction they would have been killed, most likely. But they didn't, so we walked on.

Rank: officer
Unit: an elite unit
Place of incident: Rafah
Description:

Operation ‘Rainbow’

The most striking thing I remember from operation “Rainbow’, before going into details, was the feeling of lack of restraint. I don’t have a milder description for it: an indiscriminate use of force.
Not only of your unit, also of other units?
Of the State of Israel, for that purpose. You may remember the story of the APC of the 11 killed and of another two killed? …at Zeytun? And as a result the operation ‘Rainbow’ was carried out. That was the story. What wasn’t told the public was that the soldiers, who came from the same place (as the killed ones in the APC) were very blood thirsty.
Were you told ‘to give it to them for what they did’, or was that only implied?
In my opinion, it was embedded in the orders and in the way things were being carried out. But, without any doubts, I had that feeling, and not only I, of really using….I think that that was also felt by the public that generally doesn’t get much of that stuff…
What happened there?
Ok let’s start from when we reached….the (Battle Plan) briefing. The briefing was attended by the commander of the southern brigade, and the Division Commander.
Battle Plan Group 2, the brigade commander introduced the mission and the idea behind in two words: (The) ‘Golani’ (brigade) entered Tel Sultan (the name of a suburb of Gaza ). And he continues, we want to get the ‘Golani’ brigade out of there and put it into Rafah. In order not to lose the effect of our intrusion into Tel Sultan, we were to take the seam line between Tel Sultan and Rafah. That area is built up and also has greenhouses.
To do what?
Look, this was very vague. It was mentioned at the start of the briefing that (a) we were to prevent passage and escape to the north of people from Rafah to Tel Sultan; and (b) as explained at the end of the briefing, to kill as many armed people as possible.
That’s the way the brigade commander expressed himself? Kill as many armed people as you could?
Yes. He said the two things. He said it in these words.
He gave a blow to the podium and Briefly: the mission is to kill the maximum number of people. There were also those saying –and I heard it from a second and third source- that he picked up a phone to *** (the head of the Southern Command, a major general) telling him ‘what in name…, what’s my mission here altogether?’ Meaning that even he himself didn’t
Did you hear that from someone who..?
I heard it from someone who heard it from someone else.
In brief: you enter Tel Sultan. (The) ‘Golani’ (brigade) moves to Rafah. (You guys) taking over some houses?
We were composed of two teams. Each team takes over a house. But before that, the whole idea of the operation was a bit ridiculous (as what I heard) at the meeting with the Brigade Commander I transmitted to the soldiers. One of my soldiers commented, I just saw on the Internet, on the phone, people saying that ‘Golani’ entered. (The soldier to me) ‘What stories are you telling me? ‘And standing in front of my soldiers, what am I to tell them? That the Brigade Commander is an imbecile? I don’t know what to say. Have no idea whatever. And everything with a feeling of terrible fear. Our first time in the Gaza strip. The first time I ever entered anywhere without a platoon commander or someone like him.
Was this your first mission as team leader?
As a team leader, left for himself, in the area. In our unit we generally like to enhance our missions by a participation of officers. But then there was a feeling of chaos. We were to enter the area during the first night but there were no drivers as ‘Golani’ was moving and they were the only ones who knew ……In short I don’t know what went on there. We finally entered the next day and took ‘Straw widows’ (Palestinian houses occupied for as long as needed as observation/command posts with their inhabitants locked into one or two rooms).
What’s the procedure taking over ‘Straw widows’? How did you ‘take’ ‘Straw widows’?
First- it’s with a D-9 (bulldozer) and apc. You don’t enter without (a D-9). The D-9 arrives, surrounds the building 360 degrees to check if there are no explosive charges, after that you punch out a hole in the wall.
Digging a ditch around the building?
Digging a small AT (anti-tank) ditch, if I remember correctly, 80cm (deep) or something like it. After that you don’t enter through the door as there have been cases where doors have been booby trapped, or something like it.
Without announcing (warning the people)?
Nothing. Without any announcement.
First the D-9 digs and then?
The Palestinians inside hear the terrible noise of the D-9, and then the punching of the wall.
Does it (the D-9) punch the hole in the wall with its dozer (shovel)?
Makes a hole in the wall. We call that ‘knock on the door’. I do remember that we had asked if the ‘Widows’ should be secret, as they were marked on a (mission) panel. The answer was: ‘Don’t worry about it. That’s the way it's being done to all the ‘Widows’. For each ‘Widow’ we do the same procedure to 5 more houses …
All around?
All around. Calculate and you’ll see that this ends up in quite a few houses, as we ourselves occupy about 6-7 houses.
How does this practice (of taking a ‘Widow’) work in your zone, aside of entering the building?
In this respect, something that very much bothered me was that every one did as he liked. Decisions were being made at the level of …..
Zone (or site) commander?
Platoon leader, at best Company Commander. Beyond him, no one knew which houses I destroyed, which I didn’t destroy, and why I destroyed them. No one ever asked any question. The same applied to firing.
According to the zone (site) commander, which were the criteria you used to order a D-9 operator to destroy a building?
Whatever (I) wanted.
The building was orange, and you didn’t like its color. Destroy the building?
Yes.
Really like that?
Yes. No one would ever ask me how we decided to destroy a building. We came equipped with Gaza’s aerial photographs, sat with the Company Commander and shone our (the jeeps) lights on some sort of an anti-tank cube. That’s the way it went. And he (the Company Commander) said ‘you didn’t like this?’ ‘Why not?’ ‘Don’t leave it’. ‘This one I’ll take down for you’. ‘These greenhouses…?’ ‘OK’ ‘Take them down’. All within two minutes.
A computer game?
Yes, in two minutes.
You, as squad commander, took down half a neighborhood ?
In my case a little older, but generally it’s a 21 year old one boy, at best….Now you’ll understand that before the operation we weren’t used to use such APC's. We were told, it doesn’t matter if the operation is delayed, you have to exercise using APC's. To see how to bring in a stretcher, how here, how there… Why can’t you spend five minutes deciding which houses to take down. That’s exactly five minutes. But you don’t have….this isn’t….
Was a Brigade Commander present?
The Brigade Commander was around at all times.
Was he aware of what went on? Of all the destruction?
Yes. I assume that the Brigade Commander knew. There was an unmanned surveillance aircraft in the air all the time. There was also tremendous pressure from the command post, which comprises actually the Brigade Commander and whoever is with him, to act and not to wait. Not to be derailed in decision making by all sort of nonsense… I told you how decisions were arrived at concerning super-sensitive issues. Aside of killing people, which is also decision we don’t take… Without balances, without breaks, without anything (that would have caused a loss of time), I also have an interesting story to tell.
All that part of ‘Rainbow’?
All of it part of ‘Rainbow’. We destroyed there… I didn’t destroy as much, but still destroyed quite a few buildings.
Do you remember approximately how many you destroyed there?
Buildings? I assume a few, four or five buildings…
Destroyed?
Destroyed completely.
And in how many buildings did you dig a ditch around?
Again, from what we were told earlier, I know there were 4 or 5 buildings.
Automatically? The D-9 operator does it automatically?
Yes, before (we) enter.
And after the operator does it, what happens next?
Usual procedure, parking (the vehicles), entering, calling inhabitants to come down.
A family comes down by itself?
No. We enter the building. No one is supposed to be outside even for a second. That also results in destruction as, I remember that once during our exit he (one of the soldiers) told something to the APC driver, he kept him about 50m (over 150 ft) away, and was showered with screams…
What does that mean he ‘kept the APC'?
He said something to the APC, don’t remember what and why, to stop 50m from the entrance.
So that the soldiers could enter the building (safely) 50m away from the ‘APC’ ?
That’s what I recall. A soldier was killed when he left the building with the old woman. That’s when we were told not to go one meter outside the building.
That also happened during operation ‘Rainbow?
It happened during operation ‘Rainbow’.
A ‘Givati’ (brigade) soldier was shot by a sharpshooter standing outside a building?
Exactly, in brief (we) were very afraid of booby traps. The guys up there, I remember he was screamed at for that (for being careless in entering a building or for staying outside). Then the APC enters the house till the optimum, that is till the ramp is also inside the house. No one is allowed outside. No one!
This means the family stays in the house and then the unit enters?
It enters, searches for others in the house, and then settles down with sharpshooters.
And the family remains in the house?
Yes.
And once inside what do you do in appropriating the building for ‘Straw Widow’? What’s the mission, what’s the orders?
I told you that there are differences of opinion on the ‘mission’. Meaning that the mission wasn’t clear. For example, if I don’t see any armed people, OK, there are no armed people passing through. I fulfilled my mission. That’s why I am there. But if my mission was to kill armed people, I didn’t fulfill my mission because I didn’t kill anyone. And pressure was all the time, four times a day, ‘why don’t you shoot?’ ‘what happened?’
Why don’t you shoot?
Why don’t you shoot. We don’t shoot because we don’t see any armed people to shoot at. This means the mission was clear. But ‘Straw Widow’ serves to place sharpshooters. It also requires to open additional access routes and that requires destroying more buildings, or especially greenhouses. During this whole episode the family is locked up in a room with a guard. Again, I assume that we do it more….we let them come down and cook.
How long were you in a building continuously?
48 hours.
Forty-eight hours inside the building? and what were your firing orders?
To kill anyone armed, or anyone doing anything suspicious, like bending down or something, that could be for laying a booby trap…
Wait a second…what does that mean ‘suspicion of laying a booby trap? On whose decision? According to your (my) decision. Observers—those on roof tops. Preferably with binoculars. If without, doesn’t matter. Fire to kill (them).
Who designates the ‘observers’ ? or is this again one of these murky issues?
Someone who looks as if he’s observing (our) tanks, stands and looks at any of our tanks, that could be from a window, from a roof top or from something like it. Fire to kill.
That’s the order you got before entering?
Yes.
Who gives the order? The Brigade Commander?
I don’t remember if in Battle Plan 2 group we received firing orders. In any case this order was given on his behalf. In other words, a widely open field, with lots left to the Platoon Leader’s discretion. During this time was there a curfew imposed on the village?
No.
Were they (the villagers) allowed to move around? That means they could move around freely on the street?
Yes.
Were there different instructions for people moving around during the day or those --during the night?
No. As far as I can remember, after a tank fired at demonstrators, some of whom got killed…we became very careful with this issue…We were told what to do. At demonstrations—to look for the inciters, and I don’t know…
And inciters were shot in the knees?
I think so, but I am not so sure. I don’t remember. In other words a very wide latitude, with lots of holes…And again, the CP (Command Post), contrary to what I’d expect from it, instead of restraining someone who sees it from 1.80m (the soldier’s height), at best with the experience of a 21, 22 , 23,24 or 25 -year old boy. So, to the contrary, instead of restraining the CP wants ‘heads’.
Was this their expression?
No. It was mine.
How does it (the CP) signal that ? ’How many did you take down’?
As told you, every- so- often they get to you on the radio.
Why haven’t you been shooting?
We weren’t shooting there. We actually shot only once, and I‘ll tell you about it. Other than that we haven’t been shooting. That is two days…..
I take it there was a lot of shooting all around?
Tanks were shooting, MGs (machine guns) were shooting, all sorts of stories…
On what?
On ‘protective walls’ (protecting from direct hits by gunfire or artillery shells), not on people. Sometimes this happened when I requested (permission to fire), as people were approaching the building (we were in) and we wanted to keep them away. From a military view this was quite difficult for me and don’t know how smart it was, as people knew quickly that we were in the building… but that’s a different issue.
What actually happened to you there?
We had two experiences, worthwhile telling about. Let’s start from the one less favorable, for me. We identified something, someone, looking through binoculars from a rooftop.
During the day or at night?
During the day. We transmitted that to the CP which, of course, authorized us to fire. Actually I didn’t have to get that OK. I deliberated, deliberated again, and ordered to fire and the guy was killed.
How did you know he was killed? Did you get a report?
No. Our snipers… I think they fired at least with two rifles if not three, the target was visible for quite a long time, not something… but static. Say 150 or 200 (m)
For snipers that’s nothing.
In short, we saw the guy…And everything is also documented. Documented in our unit. We’ve got our observations on tape and there isn’t any doubt that he…it can be seen clearly. There was some protective wall and one bullet hit low, hitting the wall, but the other two, there were three shots fired, surely hit the guy, who apparently fell dead. That was one case.
In this case you applied to your CP that gave you authorization?
Yes. Again, saying ‘binoculars’ and that’s OK. So what do you want from us?
You identified the binoculars without any doubt? I assume it happened during the day.
Yes.
Did he look in your direction?
No. There were tanks, and like them, down below. That’s the way it appeared to us. Look, Gaza was considered a playground for sharpshooters. For example, before we entered, we saw some guys from (the) ‘Golani’ (brigade) (saying) they killed 10, killed without reason, we killed there, and talks like that. Guys have been talking freely about having killed, without any reason, just people….
The second episode happened at night when we saw…. all these greenhouses across from ….actually in front of our nose, exposed all day long. At night we saw someone, a bit older, couldn’t tell exactly, played with something on the ground.
In a greenhouse, in an area that was once a greenhouse?
Yes. Among mounds of broken things and sand. Teddy Stadium (Jerusalem’s Soccer field) could have been built there….We laughed about having prepared for them the ground for…..
Soccer field?
Yes, or for a shopping mall, whatever they want. This guy plays with something on the ground. We touched base with the CP and that authorized us to shoot. At the end I decided not to shoot. Later, the next morning we saw that they (Palestinian workers at the greenhouse) came back to pick up whatever was left of the tomato greenhouse: pipes and whatever else they found there.
How did you identify that that’s what they were actually doing?
We saw it. It was nothing-just 100m from us. There were kids there picking up pipes and anything else that could be used, and also tomatoes.
Did something happen? Were you told something on your decision no to shoot?
I was not reprimanded. We left there after a very short debriefing at the Brigade CP. In other words, there as a short debriefing of about 15 minutes, plus another 2 minutes of pep talk and then we left there as if, no…as if they couldn’t have debriefed me over the telephone..
What did he (the Brigade Commander) say after you told him you decided not to fire, or didn’t you talk about it?
No. I think that even during real time I told them I wouldn’t …..
And what was their response?
OK. I also spoke with one of the platoon leaders who was with the Brigade Commander at the CP. The Brigade Commander sat opposite him. OK, it's your decision. No shooting? Don’t shoot.
What did the Operations Officer say at the end of the debriefing?
Two things: (a) we showed them that also the IDF can be brutal when necessary, and (b) we didn’t let these left-wingers screw up our operation. Don’t’ remember exactly if he said ’ left- leaning media’ or ‘left-wingers’ .
The Brigade Operations Officer or of the Command?
Of the Brigade.

Rank: officer
Unit: an elite unit
Place of incident: A Palestinian checkpoint north of Halamish (a West
Description:

2001- End of summer

I remember one evening something ‘from the movies’ showed up (Something unbelievably fantastic, as if from the movies, IEN): to go to the check point north of Halamish, I don’t remember exactly the name of the checkpoint, and kill a few Palestinian policemen there.
About when was that?
Sometime in the summer of 2001.
The end of summer 2001?
Yes, something like it.
End of summer?
End or middle.
As if ‘what the fuck’ as it‘s called, what was the story? I don’t remember if there was any attack or something like it.
You were just given an order?
In a briefing, I actually wasn’t in the squad that was to do it, there was something about sharpshooters and other garbage. I don’t remember why I wasn’t part of the squad at that time.
But you were there, with it, when you were given the task?
Yes, but I don’t remember the order, and I don’t want just to blabber. But I clearly remember that was one of the first things I said to myself and I remember that I also said it to my platoon comander later (not there) that the thing appeared to me totally unreal.
The idea was to get to the checkpoint, to kill all the Palestinian policemen at the site?
To kill the Policemen and then have a tank destroy the checkpoint.
Was it carried out?
No. To charge them with something, I don’t know what. Finally, it wasn’t carried out. In short, I don’t know much about it. We were sent one night to an observation point (or ambush) (to catch) some infiltrators. That was my first experience where, for me, two things happened: I understood that, without judging, something (we were supposed to do) didn’t quite make sense to me, and for the first time I also spoke up.
What were you told when you spoke up?
The usual replies, in this case our platoon commander wasn’t really someone you’d expect to…
What do you mean by ‘usual replies’? Something in the style of tasks?
Yes. We do whatever we are told to do. We don’t select our tasks, it’s war here and there.

Rank: first lieutenant
Unit: Paratroops
Place of incident: Church of the Nativity
Description:

One month after defensive shield operation

They transferred us to Bethlehem, to the church of Nativity.
What were your orders – the open fire orders?
We were supposed to shoot whoever came out – doesn’t matter if he’s armed or not.
Whoever exits the church of Nativity – Boom?
Yes, at the back gate… We were at the back of the church. There was this gate.
At the gate in front of you, everyone leaving the church – doesn’t matter whether or not he is armed – if he tries to escape, your orders were to shoot in order to kill him, or did you have to shoot him in the legs?
Shoot to kill. This is it. We’ll get to the situation [I want to tell about] in a moment. The orders were very clear. There are wanted people inside. People who are not wanted would go through the main gate, so everyone who leaves through the back gate really has to be a wanted person. We sat there for a long time. A month. We have a house [we got hold of], and know the place really well. We have outlooks to another force, a reserve force sitting in front of us. We find all the help we need. In short, we sit there and it becomes a routine.
[Does the routine include] vacations?
Vacations, yes. You already know. Like, bring supplies by armored troop carriers, and we are being rewarded, and all sort of such things. At this house…– Oh! It was also in Nablus… – there is a family, so we close them up in one room and… In the house in Nablus they had a whole floor for themselves; we were large… Like, it was a big house, and they had a floor. When there was a day to release the curfew to let people get supplies – because it took a long while – they went out and got back. In Bethlehem this was a really luxury house, like watching the church of Nativity. They had several floors in the house. So [we let them use] one tiny room. A very… beautiful house. And this went on for the whole….
Did you play with the computer inside the house?
No. No. All the while we were there, and during the entire time of our activity – also when we were in Askar and Ballata, and did all sorts of search operations, and suchlike, we had this procedure in our unit: every place you get to in which you are required to stay, you fold the furniture aside, all the chairs and carpets…
Mattresses on the floor?
There weren’t mattresses all the time. But we were allowed to keep the carpets so we wouldn’t have to sleep on the floor. So such things [like playing with computers] did not happen… we also did not take any showers there. It was forbidden. Use the bathroom, yes. But… in his house. I should also mention that this house… cleaning… we were very good about it. Anyway, one time a person escaped through the back gate.
From your direction?
Yes, from our direction… The outlook spotted him. It was daylight and all. He was covered from all directions. Captured him. In another incident there was… At times people [Palestinians] would throw food inside [the church]. They somehow managed to get from our side, and people would throw food inside.
And what were the orders about those people?
To capture them. Suspect arrest procedure. The situation I was part of… At all times there was a force of ours there. We were inside the house and there was this open place, which was constantly occupied by a force of ours. So there was a movement outside [from the church], and the outlook spotted it. They advanced, sat there for a while, and then they got back in, or something like that. Then they are spotted again [by the outlook]. My force comes out – there were four of us. We sneak up and get there. We have an outlook, so we know exactly where they are. We are positioned right above them. Me and another soldier, and another couple, on two terraces. Four of us. We are one terrace above them. We spot them crawling out on the floor. We can’t say whether or not they are armed. – It wouldn’t have mattered if they weren’t. To make things short, we open fire at them. Me and another soldier. It was also the suspension… All sorts of reasons. The fire was not successful, operationally speaking.
Did you hit them?
We hit them, but didn’t kill them. Because, it’s true. It was a situation where almost… you are positioned above, and they are crawling. In short, there was the first bullet, and then automatic fire… It doesn’t matter. We wounded them both. They just evacuated them outside.
Our forces?
No. They took them outside, and then we took over. They were transferred to a hospital, I guess an Israeli one. I’m sure it was Israeli.

Rank: Lieutenant
Unit: paratroops elite unit
Place of incident: Nablus
Description:

2002

There has bee a situation where a few people got killed – like, bodies that were in our range.
On the street?
On our street, right under our noses… and every now and then someone would come to pull the bodies outside. He apparently managed to pull one body out. The unit commander – who joined the force I was then with – he said that if it happened once more [a body pulled out] then we are to shoot the guy; even though he is not armed. It was evident he wasn’t armed. His job was to extract the bodies; that is all he does. And this was a direct command from ***.
And did the guy get back?
The guy… no. We changed shifts in command. First the unit commander, and then me, and then the shift changes. Suddenly I hear some… I don’t remember if it was a crowd-noise or shooting… shooting or something similar… I get there and I discover, I realize that… I asked what they shot at.
At the body extractor.
Yes, I don’t think they hit him, and I tell them (the unit commander is not there at that moment) and I tell them explicitly.
You cancel the [unit’s commander’s] order
Yes, I…
You tell your soldiers not to carry such an order out?
Yes, I explicitly tell them “Don’t shoot. If he is unarmed, don’t shoot.”
And he [unit commander] doesn’t know that you actually…
No, he doesn’t.

Date: 2/19/2002
Rank: lieutenant
Unit: Paratroop Reconnaissance Unit (SayeretTzanchanim)
Place of incident: Palestinian check point in the Nablus area
Description:

We heard about the (Palestinian) attack at Eyn Arik from our radio news reports. The following night….we received the Operation Order. For the same night. The Order called to approach three Palestinian checkpoints, manned by Palestinian Police in the Nablus area, from what I remember: approach three positions, and shoot at the Palestinian Police.
Who gave the order? The commanding officer of the Unit?
The commanding officer. The Brigade Commander was also present.
Who is the Brigade Commander?
Brigadier Cochavi. I remember him as he hung around there. I don’t remember whether he himself gave us the Order. It was a very rapidly drawn up Battle Plan.
What exactly were you told in that Order?
Again, I don’t remember an orderly drawn-up Order. We didn’t sit through any briefing , maybe only officers did, I don’t remember. But I do remember we were told to shoot at the Palestinian policemen.
Was ‘revenge’ mentioned?
We used it, indeed. That was at our level and at the level of the unit commander. Again, I don’t remember if the Brigade Commander used that term… but that was what we were told. Even if it wasn’t spelled out, it was clearly implied. It was definitely there—just so you’ll understand the situation, these were Palestinian policemen that we advised about our operations.
You mean before IDF soldiers begin the operation?
Yes, a day before (an operation) that would be done at the level of liason officers, not at our level, so I don’t know exactly, but yes, these were policemen we advised about our operations, we know exactly where they are, where they are sitting, it’s not that we’ve never run into them, we don’t go through the checkpoints, but I know that if there is an operation planned, then we tell them ahead of time, and then they pretend, as if-I don’t know more details as this isn’t exactly in our domain. But this is what happened. We came to kill Palestinian policemen. I was part of the commander’s unit squad. There was another squad with two officers and another squad with one officer.
Each of the two squads went to a different checkpoint?
Each squad was designated for a different checkpoint, but our activities were synchronized. I’ll give an account of the other units. The unit commander took the more active checkpoint where we were assigned. There was no one at one of the other checkpoints, and, in my opinion, there was one policeman at the (third) other checkpoint who was shot. Also a car approached (the checkpoint) and they (our guys) shot at it. I remember that that shooting was questioned as we weren’t supposed to shoot at vehicles. I am telling you about the two checkpoints where I wasn’t present.
And you know what happened there from the questioning?
From the questioning, one checkpoint was deserted, while at the other checkpoint there was one single policeman.
Was he armed?
I don’t know, and it’s irrelevant in any case.
And that was never (mentioned) in the questioning?
It was not investigated, as also the issued firing order were not at all depending on whether (the others) were armed or not.
Regardless of whether armed or unarmed, shoot?
Yes, at Palestinian policemen.
I understand. You were told to identify Palestinian policemen by their uniforms? or anybody at the checkpoint?
We didn’t raise the issue of how to identify Palestinian policemen. Anybody present at the checkpoint. We didn’t raise any questions at this point. I remember that the only issue raised during (the subsequent) questioning, other than the deposition by the second unit, was the issue of why did they fire at the approaching car. (The witness described the event after he reached the target area).
At first, we had no intention of ‘improving’ the position (e.g. the Palestinian checkpoint), and we began shooting propelled grenades on the position, aimed by whoever was aiming…. The idea being to keep them (the Palestinians) tied down, to tie the position down…
Shooting propelled grenades at a checkpoint?
At a checkpoint without knowing what happens there. We only shot at the checkpoint if someone directs us to it.
Indirect fire?
Indirect fire as we didn’t’ see the target. The guys who saw the target were with the commander.
Did the Palestinians respond (firing)?
It’s like this. One of the policemen was killed. I don’t remember if he was klled by us or by the other team who approached the checkpoint by advancing from cover to cover, or from grenades we fired. In any case they reached one side of the checkpoint where the dead policeman was. Maybe they killed him as they were entering the checkpoint and they ‘confirmed a kill’ several times (by shooting at the lying down victim at close range).
And he responds by firing?
Yes. A battle actually evolved. Don’t remember how it finished. They (our squad) could have reached the position from two sides of a separating wall, but they didn’t use that opportunity because he (the Palestinian) continued shooting. How is it then that they nevertheless succeeded… I don’t remember.
Yes, at some stage they finished their grenades….I think that’s because they also came from the other side, they reached him from the back. From the front they couldn’t hit him because of a wall, but the same happened from the back: there too was a wall and they had to make an opening in it. At the end, some sort of battle erupted, with other soldiers participating. The reason for repeated ‘confirmed kill’ was that they were all the time …. close to the body of the first (Palestinian) policeman who was inside the…. They, four of them, were all the time inside the position…
Everyone performed a ‘confirmed kill’?
Correct. On the same…they were all the time in the heat of battle…., as they described later…., in the heat of the battle.
He was in back of them?
No.
The unit commander came , performed… how did it happen?
They are inside the position, they are ‘opening’ the position and then, it seems, everyone (of the four) passed near him (the policeman) and it seems more than single bullet was used in the ‘confirm kill’.
One bullet ‘opened’ the position, a ‘boom’ followed, what next?
Yes, something like it. As if they were all the time near him…but, again, I don’t really remember.
And the second guy, after they reached him?
They killed him.
Killed him and performed a ‘confirm kill’, from what range?
Ranges were very close. I don’t know if he had….the range was very close. That’s it. And then they started understanding what happened. One was slightly injured by a bullet in his shoulder. A very slight injury. And we started…We met again after our return. Everything that happened had been recorded.
Everything seen from the observation point?
They recorded it from the observation point. The (recording tape) cassette turned into a hysteric hit.
In the unit?
Not only. The first thing is of course our playing the tape, today with these small instruments… There are small instruments that connect to other means (night vision equipment) where you can see it really well and enlarged, as if everyone identified the game he was playing there. The unit commander has been taking it everywhere.

Rank: Two First Sergeants
Unit: ‘Maglan’ (name of unit)
Place of incident: Refugee Camp, Tul Karem
Description:

Chanukah, 2003

There was a mission…It was our unit’s wildest mission ever. We, that is our squad, was given the honor…. I’ll describe it, it went like this, inside Tul Karem’s refugee camp, every time the IDF entered the camp, shots were being fired at it. Our unmanned surveillance aircraft and our intelligence reported that that in every corner of this square camp there were beggars, like in Harlem, New York, surrounding a campfire, and as it was winter and quite cold, these people were trying to warm themselves. There were about 10-15 people at these campfires. As soon as the IDF entered the Camp, these characters climbed roof tops and started shooting. They also alerted ‘wanted persons’ (e.g. people wanted by the Shabbak [Gen. Security Service] for interrogation) to get away which made it quite difficult to perform arrests at that time. Actually it was quite impossible to catch anybody under these circumstances and hence it was decided to have the whole squad sneak into the camp on foot.
On foot?
Yes on foot. The four lit campfires we spotted were quite near each other, and near the only two or three vehicle access routes into the camp. We were told to also post sharpshooters…Our firing orders were that each squatter around the campfires should be shot just like during a liquidation operation.
Without pretense? Without arms?
Yes, even unarmed people were to be shot.
Everyone around the campfire?
Yes, everyone present at the campfire during our entry at 2AM or 3AM was to be shot to death. Regardless whether…
Regardless whether or not he was armed?
Even if he was unarmed. That wasn’t considered of any consequence. Intelligence reported that there were about 10-15 people hanging around, regardless of age, regardless of anything, everyone that….
Boom?
Boom. The idea was… we were discussing that at least two of our guys would be firing at the target (e.g. at the squatters) and then we would throw a grenade or something like it, and get out. This was quite a different mission from the ambushes we had done in the past, more in the order of a mission by the Gen. Staff’s Reconnaissance Unit (Sayeret Matkal-the IDF’s most elite unit). Two days earlier ‘SHALDAG’ (another special unit) did it in a different part of the refugee camp but was discovered during the approach and failed. In the shooting that followed no one was injured.
They simply walked away?
Yes, they simply walked away but, of course, lost the element of surprise. We tried it once before, approaching the refugee camp, but were not given clearance to enter. That time we had an unmanned surveillance aircraft, with radio contact, but there were too many people on the rooftops and therefore it was decided not to let us enter the Camp. We were deliberating…particularly due to shooting orders… anyone… armed or unarmed….
Did you discuss it only among yourselves?
We discussed it within our squad. In the defense of our squad I should mention that the whole mission appeared to us to be totally crazy endangering the squad (unjustifiably). We were not a squad of blindly obeying morons saying that ‘if we were the best squad we would have ‘gotten’ that operation…’ On the contrary we were resisting being sent to die (for no good reason at all) and quite willing to let someone else do the (crazy) job. The ‘job’ was not resisted by some other guys on moral grounds but simply because of fear, while we were mainly concerned about the moral aspect, so as to think less about the fear from the mission itself.
Because no one really knew who is over there (at the campfire)?
Correct. These are people who assist ‘wanted people’ to run away. Of course there is no comparison. It also happened during….Today I am not sure that a projectile wouldn’t have been fired then at the squatters. During that period there were many less ‘targeted executions’, as there are nowadays. At that time a projectile would have been fired every second, and quite likely that a projectile would have been fired at the squatters. But then….Clearly this mission was not described as an ‘execution’. If it were one, a projectile would have been fired (at the squatters). Rather, it is described a ‘Confrontational, or violent patrol’. (e.g.a patrol aiming to draw fire, or, in this case, to shoot) Let’s say everything went as planned, how would they explain it tomorrow to the press? ‘The IDF encountered a group of armed people, (as probably there were some armed people there), and someone got wounded’, and that’s the whole story. Did you understand? And that’s the end. No mention that we came to execute.
What were you told in the briefing?
It was not described as an execution mission. Absolutely not.
How then was it described?
Like I said. Firing orders for this particular mission: Entrance (into the camp) at 2:30AM. Anyone present in the alley at that time was to be shot. There are no innocent people there. That’s the mission. No one described it as an execution mission.
Finally, we entered the Camp, encountered one of our guys injured and withdrew. The whole thing was like a competition with SHALDAG (another unit): they didn’t succeed but we were supposed to…!

Rank: Captain
Unit: Navy
Place of incident: Gaza Strip
Description:

First two weeks of Operation Defensive Shield

I served in the (Israel) Navy as a commander of an armed high-speed reconnaissance boat (‘Devorah’). I had some operated cannon on board, one of whose functions was to bombard the shoreline. There was a plan to be put into action, if necessitated by circumstances, of bombarding specific targets on the shoreline of Gaza. And such circumstances arose. The Plan was not put into action earlier, but as operation ‘Defense Shield’ evolved, the battle plan was carried out.
Before that, I would like to state that the following is my recollection, in other words, I am telling it from my vantage point. All facts mentioned represent my point of view that is the vantage point of the captain of the boat.
(Before the operation began) the Deputy Naval Commander and representatives of the other forces taking part in the (‘Defensive Shield’) operations planned for each day, gathered for the briefing. Such meetings took place every evening during the following week or two, and included representatives of the Navy, of the Air Force, of Helicopter units, and of various participating combat units, myself, representing the boat as well as people from units on the shore, Intelligence, etc.. The gist of the meetings was to stress the fact that all of us were now partners in combat. I had the feeling that a green light was given for an operation with a wide participation of IDF’s combat units.
‘He’ said ‘I want two dead every night’, presumably from the shoreline under attack. ‘I want at least two ‘terrorists’ every night’

Who said that?

The Deputy Naval Commander at the time.

Did he say terrorists? Did he say dead?

I don’t remember exactly his choice of words. I had a feeling that this (command) shouldn’t have been given that way. In other words, there is an objective. If it's achieved, fine. If not, than so be it. You can’t specify you want so many victims every night as this gives you a feeling of revenge, of a revenge mission, to return, say, with 4 (dead) Palestinians . That’s it. And then plan the operation… Intelligence provided every time new targets, featuring (the renowned Palestinian) ‘Force 17’. Here was a target… there was a (Palestinian) position…, all sorts of positions and targets on the Gaza shore. All these were of course targets designated as ‘hostile sabotage activities’. Everything contained in these targets was of that category. Every person within the target area, if armed, (and every person in the target area was assumed to be of course armed), was a legitimate target. All together, we shot about 2 or 3 times on these targets. We couldn’t see any people the first time and hence we did not have a legitimate target. We did see one guard, two guards, but you need a concentration of people at the target site for shooting to be effective.

The bombardment was not accurate?

It was not sufficiently accurate. To shoot at a single person is obviously ineffective as you most likely will miss. Even if you hit, it's only a single person. In brief, there was some sort of a (Palestinian) patrol on (the Gaza) shore and we waited for the duration of the night for a ‘better constellation’ (an opportunity to shoot).
There are usually units of Naval Task Force 13 (a Naval commando unit) closer to the targets who then report whether or not there are armed (Palestinian) people around and provide data by means of night-vision instruments. The Ashdod base commander, Col. *** was aboard that night, and being the highest ranking officer aboard, he had to give clearance before we could start firing. One of the days the Chief of Naval Operations, Gen *** was aboard.

On your boat?

Yes. Briefly, that evening we spotted a patrol on the shore that went down to the beach outside our target area, on the beach itself. About 3-4 people sat there at the beach and lit some fire and we noted some action between the (Patrol) group and the fire. This meant that someone armed came to the beach, exchanged weapons and sat down by the fire. We got the impression that the bonfire was lit by people who were part of the patrol and that there was movement with weapons from the position on the shore. This implied that if the people in the position were engaged in ‘hostile sabotage activities’ then those sitting around the fire were of the same kind. We had no other identification of these people, no idea who they were, whether they were armed or not, we just didn’t know.
Naval Task Force 13 signaled that they saw weapons at the site. Under these circumstances, I as the boat’s commander, ordered to shoot as the target appeared legitimate. I wanted to shoot, wanted to carry out the shooting from a boat that hadn’t engaged in combat for a long time or killed a saboteur, and this represented a real opportunity. All of us (on the boat) felt very excited. Night after night boats returned from nightly duty without firing a single shot, and now we had such an opportunity. Our feeling was imbued by the aura of ‘Defensive Shield’, the (suicide) attacks preceding it and the tension. No wonder I wanted to shoot. I said ‘legitimate target’ and on that had the occurrence of all other ranks up to the rank of the one giving the order. And we started firing. Now, in retrospect, I have doubts whether my order was justified as we really didn’t have a clue at whom we were shooting. We saw people getting hit, others- pulling wounded away, seeking cover behind sand dunes while we continued shooting aiming at hitting as many as possible, even those carrying the wounded. The problematic issue was that we didn’t really know who sat around the fire. It could have been the kid brother of someone who sat there, it could have been… we don’t know. They were figures to us, black figures in a ….
.
And that was based on Task Force 13’s report that they were armed?

Yes, supported by our spotting of an armed person within the target area. We saw a connection between the two groups (one at the target area and one at the bonfire) which gave rise to the decision: it’s OK. Let’s go it’s alright! We were all aching for a bombardment at that time. After all we wanted to provide 2 bodies every night. That’s all.
Look, every day and night we faced the same problem: is he armed or isn’t he. Was that a jeep? Did you spot anyone entering? Armed or not? What’s he doing? And they (Task Force 13) provided the most reliable info. We asked them time and time again (for verification). The guy who was on my boat asked them: ‘Wait a minute- could you see them accurately? What’s here, what’s there? What exactly do you see? Where did the jeep stop? What was it doing? Every time to suspect and to decide whether the target was legitimate or not.
The story continued on. We bombarded again, in cooperation with attack choppers. This time the target was to shoot at escapees. And again, without any positive identification of the figures we were shooting at. And lately, there’s been no distinction between armed and unarmed people. You don’t know who is there. People from surrounding areas have started to come, helping the injured, while we continue shooting at the same area. We don’t aim at anyone specifically, but we shoot at running figures with an objective of hitting as many as possible, like in a Video game. Click, click, click! That’s it. And we had permission for what we did. I repeat; as a commander of my boat I wanted to shoot under the circumstances. In my eyes that was legitimate. Otherwise I would have refused, saying that it was not legitimate and would not have given the order to shoot. It passed all ranks, and in their eyes it was legitimate. Now I see the whole issue as problematic. Very problematic.
In this particular instance (when you fired) was there a higher ranking officer on board?
Yes, I recall it was the Chief of Naval Operations.

Did he give the order to fire? Was he in contact with Task Force 13 ?

There was a ranking officer on board, who also had contact with the Kirya (General Staff Headquarters). The actual ordering authority could have been mine, approved, I think by the Chief of Naval Operations, or the Deputy Chief, as the case may be. The highest ranking officer could possible be sitting in the Kirya, but there is someone who directs operation at sea. And that goes up through all ranks, till the ……. I think it’s the chief of Naval Operations who authorizes the shooting.

Rank: First Sergeant
Unit: Giv’ati Infantry Unit
Place of incident: Gaza
Description:

Middle of 2004

I would go around talking to the guys. I would sit a lot with all of them and talk to them. Surely, we have been to houses we took over for observation missions, we went to all the houses, and in each we talked, sat with the snipers. Sit and talk inside the houses. That’s the way they were.
Once we went to *** outpost, on the Philadelphi route. Our aid-company was placed there. I go up – in *** there are cameras on top of the outpost, which record; there is video there. He plays a film for me, and says: “Look. Look what he did today.” There is a film there of… They discovered a tunnel. Ok. They dug the tunnel, bulldozers – they [Palestinians] wanted to dig a tunnel that leads to the outpost. We marked all the ‘extermination-zones’ to which they [Palestinians] are not allowed to come close. We decided that every one who comes close we shoot a warning shot, and if he doesn’t run away, shoot towards the legs. For, after all, this is a residential area.

Whoever comes close to the route?

To the tunnel. Because the tunnel was closer to their area. If they got close to the route they would have been killed. But the tunnel was close to their houses, so it was decided that no one is to come close to the tunnel. Perhaps there is ammunition there; they didn’t want them to come close to the tunnel. So one man came close to the tunnel. You could see him. An older person – about 30 or 40 years old.

Unarmed?

No. He wasn’t armed. Just walking about – I don’t want to say he was innocent, I don’t want to make any assumptions. He was walking in the general area of the tunnel. They shot him. He got a bullet here, and fell down.
In the chest.
Yes. He fell down, then stood up, made a few steps, and then dropped dead. I tell them “Why?!” He goes: “No reason, he just got close, they killed him.” I say, “Why didn’t you shoot his legs? Why the chest? Chest is good, and legs are no good?” – It wasn’t from a great distance, and this was a sniper shooting. – “No reason. You know…” I ask, “No one knows about it, right?” – “Obviously not.”

How come no one knows?

A sniper is at his post. Also in ‘Rainbow in the Clouds’ operation, when a sniper shoots, they report shooting.

Does he report what he sees?

He reports shooting. First of all, ‘Rainbow in the Clouds’ operation was a jungle. There were shootings all the time. One does not have to report shooting. In ‘Rainbow in the Clouds’ operation there was shooting all the time.

Whose? Both sides?

Yes.

They would shoot at you and you would return fire?

They shot less. We shot more. You know

Rank: First Sergeant
Unit: Armored Corps.
Place of incident: Dir- Al- Balah
Description:

I was in Dir-Al-Balah. We were to enter Dir-Al-Balah…

Why get inside?

It was after some mortars had been shot, and the order was: every person you see on the street, shoot to kill. It was relatively early night.
Who gave the order? What was his rank?

Either a platoon commander or a reserve unit battalion commander. We got inside, and saw this man. My commander who was new and very enthusiastic… he said “shoot”. We shot. And when we saw the man fall the commander verified his kill with tens of heavy-gun bullets.
When you say, “We shot”, were you using the tank’s guns, or did you shoot a shell?
No, just the guns.

Fire from tank-guns. And then the commander verifies the kill… At what distance?

70 meters.

When the kill verification was over… did the commander take the heavy gun and shoot some more?

He shot another heavy-gun bullet case. The guy was certainly hit by bullets by then. He first falls, and then the commander empties a bullet case on him.

Now, I would like to go back to the open fire orders.

It was a time when the procedure would constantly change. Generally, in the big operations we were involved… Every person that was on the street was not supposed to be there. So every person that is on the street – armed or unarmed – boom, we shoot.

And this was the order after mortars were shot?

Yes.

Do you know of your having killed somebody?

Yes. For sure. I would open a newspaper every day and see how many were killed. I wouldn’t understand.

And how was this treated?

Sort of like a meat market.

Rank: First Sergeant
Place of incident: Nablus
Description:

End of 2003

Let’s start with the things you want to tell, the things lying heavy on your heart. I ask you to tell everything, what happened, how you felt, what do you think now…

What disturbs me most, and what bothers me most is the lack of value of human life in the OT (occupied territories).Of course not that of Israelis. When my friend was killed, I caught myself suddenly saying ‘Wallah’ (exclamation of surprise) here’s a man gone, in the middle of his life. A person who’s life has stopped. All the aspects of a human being: his aspirations, what he was, what he said, the happy moments of his life, his friends. A man’s life has lots of aspects, and all of a sudden, everything stopped. And then it dawned on me that this was the death of a human being and that you start thinking ‘Wallah’ what about all these people we killed ? And my team killed….innocent people, or at least apparently innocent people. Some were killed by mistake, really by mistake. But what’s a mistake? Really—say ‘we are sorry’. We killed your husband, your daughter, your child or your grandfather or whoever else. And there were those executed on orders that, in my opinion, were illegal. As I told you, the most disturbing thing to me is that there is an absolutely Wild West in the OT. Brigade Commanders, Regiment Commanders and Company Commanders do whatever comes to their mind. No one checks them, and no one stops them. We got in- for many nights in the (Nablus) casbah - and our firing orders were: between 2 to 4(AM) anybody spotted in the casbah, is doomed to die. These were the words: ‘doomed to die’.

Who spoke these words ?

Words we heard from the CC (Company Commander) in the briefing. The CC gave us a briefing before every mission. Sometimes he said between 2 and 4 whoever wanders around the casbah is doomed to die, or sometimes between 1 and 3: doomed to die.
Our team entered (the casbah) and took over a building. From this building we advanced in a worm-like fashion, you know, blowing up a wall, going from house to house, blowing up another wall and entering another building. Like a worm, in the casbah and at Balata (refugee camp), that are highly crowded areas, avoiding crossing the alleys that were a ‘killing zone’. Whenever you crossed one of these alleys your chances of coming out alive were not good. Therefore we developed a tactic of avoiding the alleys altogether and passing through walls of buildings. As buildings are very close to each other, and have mutual walls. So you take a dynamite brick, attach it to a wall, explode it, and climb through the hole in the wall. This is a very slow advance. When you reach a strategic building, commanding its surroundings, you set up a post there to observe the surrounding alleys and roof tops.

What do you do with the family in the ‘strategic’ building?

I know all the stories, and heard from here to eternity about the non-human treatment of these families, and all sorts of plunder. I want to state here for the protocol that in my unit there wasn’t anything like it. We were always… we blew a hole in a wall, we entered homes, we gathered the entire family, not by shouting, but quietly. We tried to calm them down. Placed them in a room, we locked them up and placed a guard. Every time they had to use the toilet, they asked us, and they did with someone accompanying them. We moved furniture aside, sat on the floor, took up positions, built MG and sharpshooter positions in the highest windows or rooftops.
This means that destruction of a house entered by our forces only meant destruction of only a wall?

Yes, in the operation ‘Defensive Shield’, only destruction of a wall. After that things changed. During ‘Defensive Shield’ we cleaned up houses. The houses we left were cleaned. We made sure to clean it. That was the way with my team.
[….]
I don’t remember how long it took to conquer the entire casbah, maybe a week, maybe two. It happened during the battle of the casbah. We entered, continued advancing in the ‘worm fashion’, took over a strategic building, set up positions there, and one of the sharpshooters identified a man on the roof. The man was on a roof about two roofs away from us. I think he was between 50 to 70 m from the sharpshooter. Unarmed, I looked at the man with a night vision binocular. He was unarmed. It was 2AM: an unarmed man on a rooftop, turning around. We reported it to the PC (Platoon Commander) who ordered ‘Take him down’. He (the sharpshooter) shot and took him down. The PC, in a radioed message, actually sealed the man’s fate to die. An unarmed man!


Did you see that he was unarmed?

I saw with my own eyes that the man was unarmed. He (the sharpshooter) also reported… the report said: ‘an unarmed man on the roof’. The PC interpreted it that the man was an observer. He interpreted that the man was an observer, meaning the man was not directly threatening us, and he ordered us to shoot the man and we did it…I myself didn’t shoot, a fellow soldier shot and killed him. And you start thinking that in the US death sentences are imposed, and on every sentence there are thousands of appeals, as they take it very seriously, judges, academically trained people, and there are demonstrations, and so on. Actually a 26-year-old man, my PC, imposed a death sentence on an unarmed man. Who was he? What’s that ‘an observer?’ So what? Is that enough of a reason to kill him? And how did he know he was an observer? He obviously didn’t know. All he knew was that there was an unarmed man on top of the roof, and he ordered to kill him, which, in my opinion was an illegitimate order, and we carried the order out, and killed a human being. The man died. In my opinion that was outright murder. And that wasn’t the only case.

Rank: Staff Sergeant
Unit: Nahal Reconnaissance Patrol
Place of incident: Qalqilya
Description:

September-October 2001

We were supposed to have an operation in Qalqilya, which eventually didn’t take place. We were supposed to enter Qalqilya with marksmen and kill Palestinian policemen. This was on Rosh Hashana,[Jewish new year], one year after the beginning of the events [the Intifada]
The objective was identifying policemen and annihilating them. That is, stationing marksmen 500 meters away from the policemen and dispatch them, some of them were “dispatched quietly”, which means reaching their post and firing them with a gun equipped with a silencer. When the objective is dispatching Palestinian policemen, whoever is standing in a Palestinian checkpoint is sentenced to death.

Rank: First Sergeant
Unit: Yael Reconnaissance Troup
Place of incident: Palestinian check point in the West Bank near Rama
Description:

February 2002

There was an attack on 6 people here at ‘443’ (designation of our position, or our-held hilltop), 6 soldiers from the Corps of Engineers. Some terrorist arrived at a (our) checkpoint and killed 6. That evening we were rushed off to a room. Suddenly our squad commander came from some two-minute long briefing saying ‘Listen….we are doing…our action is a revenge. We are going to kill 6 Palestinian policemen somewhere, revenging our six they took down’. There were about 4 positions beyond our ‘443’ under the control of Palestinian policemen, and we were sent to each of these positions to ‘liquidate’ the Palestinian policemen there.
Our briefing was also about 2 minutes long, defining our action as a revenge, while I was still deliberating, asking ‘what had they done?’ ‘who are they?’. The answer was: Palestinian policemen. On my question ‘what did they do?’ the answer was’ there was a suspicion that the terrorist who killed our 6 came through that (Palestinian) checkpoint. Suspicion, but no concrete evidence. But I was told: it doesn’t matter; they took six of ours, and we are going to take six of theirs.

That’s the expression used?

That’s the expression: ‘revenge’. Also a day later the press reported a ‘revenge action’. It was not hidden (from the public). The announcement clearly read ’revenge action’. It was a crazy ‘blood revenge’ rush. We had a long hike ahead of us to get there and we arrived on foot at around 4AM. There was no one there during the night and the check point was locked for the night. There was some sort of building where they slept, coming down during the day to the checkpoint and staying there.

And you hid in an ambush?

We waited for them in an ambush. The idea was simply to kill them all. Whenever they arrived, we would kill them, regardless whether (they were) armed or not. If they were Palestinian policemen, they were to be shot. The order was given and our six opened fire. The first firing was ineffective and missed. They (our, other shooters) were also supposed to hit the street lighting, but missed that too. We got up and fired, hitting two of theirs (the Palestinian policemen), killing the two. But they weren’t killed after all. Pardon me, they were injured: I think we hit one in the shoulder and one in the leg, or something like it, and they escaped. So we continued (shooting). I should add: I shot one in the head as he was running while another one was crawling behind. We got up and started chasing them. It was… really… I really enjoyed it. It was the first time (in my experience) that we were in an ‘advance….storm….’ situation, like in our training exercises. And we acted flawlessly. We performed superbly. And then he (one of the policemen?) ran and we continued to advance. He entered one of the corrugated sheet metal sheds and the four of us sprayed the shed with bullets. A gas cylinder there exploded and everything around caught fire..fire..fire….
Meanwhile we had a killed policeman, another one in this burning inferno, and a third one, escaping. We ran after him into a graveyard, or something like a graveyard, stood on the surrounding wall and shot at him. We killed him too ……

Were they armed?

Wait a minute. Meanwhile they didn’t shoot at us. Didn’t return fire.

Except when it all started?

No! The initial were ours.

Oh, OK.

We didn’t run into them and they never fired at us during any phase of the operation. Initially we opened fire from a distance, hitting nothing. Then we got up to storm the position, hitting one of theirs and he escaped. I hit him with another bullet. The second ran into the shed (that caught fire) while we chased the third to the graveyard. The fourth one escaped.

The guy in the cemetery was killed?

No (above he was quoted as saying yes, he was killed!). We stood on the wall, shot, and he fell. That was the end. Now the first one who fell lay on the ground and we saw only the lower part of his body. Some boulder hid him. There were three or four (of our guys) who kept shooting at the body, punching holes into it.

To ‘confirm kill’?

No. From the excitement of the battle they punched holes, punching him completely. At the retreat from the cemetery I went to check, to ‘confirm kill’ and also to take his rifle away. I reached him and he was smashed…. a completely smashed body. I turned the body around. It was a guy in his mid-fiftieths or sixtieths, very old. No arms. Later we understood, that, including the one at the cemetery, no one of them was armed.

Were they uniformed?

They wore the uniforms of Palestinian policemen but were unarmed. And we went and threw another grenade into this thing that was burning…

Rank: First Sergeant
Unit: Orev (Elite Unit) – Nahal Brigade
Place of incident: Bethlehem Area
Description:

Summer of 2003

The last straw was the brigade commander who stood in front of us briefing us, telling us we’re in a Hudna [Arabic: cease-fire], and that it was a sensitive situation. He talks about all that and a minute later he says, still in briefing: “Every kid you see with a stone, you may shoot him.” Like, kill him. A stone! It was either the brigade or the battalion commander, I don’t remember. This was the briefing. “Now, the situation here is fragile, and a stone is a murder weapon, you know what it is. I saw a woman who was hit by a stone.” I think it was the battalion commander… He saw that the brigade commander was there. It was the Ezion brigade commander, ***.

So the brigade commander *** gave an order that you may shoot a kid throwing a stone?

Yes, because it is a murder weapon, because they throw stones on the road. It was during the Hudna…

Did no one say anything?

No. I, I told you – I was almost out [of the army], for me, my thinking… And what annoyed me the most was that the guys in my crew got to the state where all they were interested in was that they had to put on their shoes for this conversation with the brigade commander – army boots. And they argued about it for hours, and one of them went and quarreled about it with the company commander. They were shouting at each other for a half hour after the briefing. And me – obviously I wanted to raise a question, but I was so frustrated with all these impervious people, and I knew that all these questions of mine would raise and opposition against me – those few people who would say “Oh, not again, not these questions again and again. We want to play soccer”, or “Oh, shut up – you and your dumb questions.” That attitude was always around me. I have always had an opposing group, so I knew I am not going to get an answer; as usual. As far as I was concerned, it was ‘over the limit’, it was really exaggerated. People said, the warriors said, lets shoot someone to finish off this stinking Hudna, so that we may quit doing all these stakeouts, and do some arrests. And here comes someone, who is also apparently fed up, from the highest command, and he wants something to happen.