We had a demonstration there every Friday, regularly. There were provocations, stones thrown there, stones there near [the settlement of] Kfar Etzion sometimes. We’d be deployed in some house there in advance, to prevent the riot. Now, it disturbed them a lot, so every time we went in, they complained to the DCO (District Coordination Office). They got it. So we’d go there with a camera, enter a house, take a photo of each room and then go into the room. When we left, we took photos of the whole room as well. It got to such an absurd level that we’d, like, wash the floor if we spent several days there.

Did you keep changing houses? Every time there was a demonstration on a Friday, we’d go in on Thursday and take over some houses in order to control whatever happened at the demo, so that things wouldn’t get out of hand. Also, because you could have settlers coming up from the valley and then you could have, you would get … The assumption was that, as long as the army is there, they wouldn’t be hurt. There was no friction at Khirbet Safa while the army was there.

Who was demonstrating? The Palestinians.

Inside the village? Inside the village, they were on some hill there. The village was here, and the hill next to it, and some 500 people came there, and sometimes there were clashes.

And they would just stand there and shout? Stand and shout, a mess. You know, they would go up to Bat Ayin and then the guys from Bat Ayin would come out and go up to them. You know, a kind of game.

And what would you do? We’d draw a line for them that they weren’t allowed to cross. We’d either stretch out a piece of barbed wire or put snipers there, for that. They didn’t cross the lines too much. Once, they really did, so we shot them with teargas and we were even given permission to open fire at their knees.

Live fire? Live fire.

And was there shooting? Shooting at knees.

What? Who? It’s not as if you’re just going to shoot anyone you want. The command post gives permission to the sharpshooter who’s in position, so in a static position, if someone is identified as a main inciter, and there were 3-4 people like that, they were shot in the knees.