We had a situation in which a cab driver regularly arrived with a wounded child.

Wounded?Yes. Once he arrived with a kid whose chest was all bloody, he had to get to hospital. We checked him very quickly, and sent him on his way. After an hour he came back with a carload of passengers in the other direction. The next day he arrives with another child, this one with a fractured arm. So you know, I mean what do you do before you come, break their arms? I mean what is this? For the third time, you're already so numb, you tell him: Wait, you're not crossing. I'll call an ambulance. That child is suffering and wounded and I don't know what – apparently if this was a question of life and death he'd be let through – but that child with no matter what, fractured arm or cut leg, never mind: right now he's in pain. So the ambulance takes time: You notify the war-room, the war-room notifies the DCO, the DCO notifies the Palestinian Authority, I don't know, the Palestinian Red Crescent, whatever, they ask the nearest hospital to send an ambulance, the first available ambulance goes out. I mean, this story takes an hour.

An hour?An hour, I don't know, depending.

So you summoned an ambulance?Yes, we called for an ambulance through the war-room and even that was a story in itself to begin with. Because the war-room did not want to call an ambulance. A very right-wing guy sat at the war-room, and he wouldn't call an ambulance. "Why? What's the matter? Let him walk." and we told him to go blow and call an ambulance, that's procedure. Later he was scolded by the officer at the post, but never mind. That kid sits there waiting with tears in his eyes, at the checkpoint, for the ambulance to arrive. Again, it's not a life-threatening situation, but it hangs heavy on you. And the awful part is that it doesn't do it right then and there, because you're supposedly in your rights. It hangs on you later. (...) We're taken in as recruits, undergo half a year's basic training, get brainwashed about how to take a hill in war time. No one ever talked to me about coping in the Occupied Territories. No one ever – ever – prepared me for a situation in which I will have to choose between the life of a child and the fate of state security. And that's what it's like for you out there. If you let everyone through who comes with a kid and a fractured arm, you'll be letting terrorists through before you know it. They have no inhibitions. They'll stop at nothing. They simply won't. So you have to choose, between this and that. It's surreal. That was Checkpoint X. That's what it looked like. I can't say it did me any good, that checkpoint.