Were you alerted to operational duty during your advanced training?Yes, once to the Hill of the Fathers, a Jewish settlement in Hebron, for a weekend, Friday-Saturday. It was the first surprise, the first time I got to know this idea of Hebron, Kiryat Arba. It was very scary, I remember.

Why?Because for the first time we were on guard duty outside our base. Actually we were doing it in an outpost. Also, I had never been to Kiryat Arba before so I never knew how crowded that place is, and how the Arab houses are so close across from the Jews' houses, and how that neighborhood works, and the roads, and how it's all one on top of the other. As soon as we got there, we were posted on guard duty. Made the guard rounds on Saturday. Friday night I was posted on the roof.

Of the police building?No. The outpost was this kind of duplex apartment where you climb up to the roof, in the Hill of the Fathers.

We're talking about early 2004?April-May it was, one of them. So the surprise was to be standing there on Friday night, on the roof, wearing a bullet-proof vest and helmet, alone in the middle of the night, standing guard while behind you, in the window behind you, just meters away are Palestinian homes. It's terribly frightening because you're exposed. I mean, you're exposed to everything that goes on, and it's scary, right, because until then I had only stood normal guard in the base and on watch towers and such. It's very scary. It was the first time I really had to confront the… How shall I put it? I came from a rightist background, from the love of the Land of Israel and the Holy Land and the Greater Israel. Up to that moment I had held those views that we should live everywhere in the country, but just standing there on that roof on that Friday night, I was thinking and trying to understand what sense it makes that we are posted at such a place because… I thought, God forbid someone hurts me now and I die, even if I sound extreme, perhaps, it's not that far-fetched. The houses in front of you, when you stand on that roof, the second floor of the house right across from you, those are Arabs' houses behind you, Palestinians'.

How far apart are the houses?A gunshot away. There's this netting fence, but it's within close range. I can't tell you in meters.

One kilometer?No. I think it's less.

Half a kilometer?Even less, because it's like a neighborhood, if you visualize a normal neighborhood with houses facing each other.

A rural neighborhood?Crowded, as Hebron really is. Not terribly crowded, but pretty crowded, and, you know, you keep your eyes constantly open. You don't let yourself fall asleep even for a moment, have to stay alert. Suddenly you realize you're in the middle of Hebron, in Kiryat Arba, I don't know how to define it. What I started to tell you - I found myself thinking that if, God forbid, something would happen right then and I die, the next day someone else will come along and stand there instead of me. I mean, nothing happens. What I'm trying to say is that you come and, how can I put it? As I said, I think. If something happens to you, tomorrow someone will be standing there. No change. I mean, they won't go away. The Palestinians won't leave. So living in those crowded conditions with that danger, our presence there in fact, is problematic. I'm not saying we should or shouldn't evacuate, but it's a very tough situation. Not like a checkpoint. It's an outpost, I don't know, not just that one, on principle it's pretty scary. At least I was very scared and I started thinking about that aspect, that perhaps we shouldn't be settling everywhere. It was the first time a religious, rightist fellow like me with very strong ideology suddenly thinks about this. It's surprising. You suddenly begin to ponder it.

Were there incidents at the time?I don't recall anything in particular.

I don't just mean shooting incidents.Now that you mention it, of course I remember. How could I not?