How long were you there, all in all?Two weeks. Every night we wanted to get back, and on the night we did get back – I’ll never forget this – there was [Prime Minister] Olmert’s speech and we were pissed off. We took a radio from the house, put in a battery and listened. We’d listen to the news every hour, you listen for the slightest change. You notice how slowly the time passes. There was Olmert’s speech and we listened to it sitting in our bullet-proof vests in the living room, just like in the movies.

 He gave his speech and we got pissed off and at night, all the commanders had a meeting and my commander came back and said, “Guys, we’re getting out of here tonight”. He said we were leaving right now, that we should pack up and be prepared to leave. You’re in shock, prepared, but in shock. We got ready and waited to be told, we waited for an hour and guys started falling asleep, and then we were told we were getting out. I didn’t talk about it for months, but it was one of the happiest days of my life, despite the hell of carrying that heavy gear – because you go in step by step, but you leave in one go. We broke the fence, too, and walked another two kilometers on foot, which is a bummer with all that gear.

Did you have any talks after leaving there, with your commanders?I don’t recall any talks.

No general forum?There was a forum, but no one talked with us about how we felt.

Didn’t you have to go through a debriefing?No. Some army journalists came along, we stayed on for two more days because they thought we might go back in, but we knew we wouldn’t. So they came and interviewed people. I remembered being asked and saying that I didn’t get to do it, I don’t exactly remember what I was asked.

How about I summarize and you tell me if I’m right: You didn’t run into any civilians at all?I only saw them from far away.

Those people with the white flags walking towards Gaza City?Yes.

And did you have any actual encounters?We hardly had any. We were fired at twice..

During most of the operation, your force hardly fired?We didn’t fire much. I fired once. I held suppressive positions twice, and fired from one of them.

What happened in the other?In one of them I fired, like I told you – someone asked if they were civilians (the interviewee said earlier that while firing, one of the soldiers asked the commanders whether they were certain that there were no civilians within firing range). In the second,I didn’t fire, because it was very far and MAGs were being fired.

Fired at what?Windows, houses.

Windows that were being fired from?Houses that apparently they know there were terrorists inside, and later they also fired back at us from within them.

How far were they from you?Pretty far, 200-300 meters.

When you went on ‘initiated actions’, what were the missions?I told you, some places had to be fired at and then searched.

When you were holding suppressive positions, you fired at places and immediately afterwards you entered them?Yes.

Sounds pretty boring for a war.Boring is good. Most of the time it was quiet. When you’re in motion it’s a bit more scary because you’re exposed, you move between houses. At first it’s scary, then you’re not as frightened, because you see and hear that there aren’t a lot of casualties. We were constantly warned that they wanted to kidnap a soldier. So that was the reason there was always someone standing guard at the door of the house.

Were there tunnels?Yes, I saw one tunnel and I know that guys entered a house and discovered some tunnels and explosives. We were nearby, it was amazing. When you blow up a house and you’re close by, it’s a powerful sight, you feel the whole blast in your body. In our house, we were next to the rear windows and they shattered, too. We wanted to take photos, we put a camera on the window sill, and it flew out. All the dishes in the kitchen were shattered by the blast in the next house.