‘Neighbor procedure’ is when during an arrest mission, you usually order a neighbor to leave his home and ask him to go into a house and call everyone that’s inside to come out, everyone in the house where we believe the wanted man is staying. (…)

That’s how you called it, ‘neighbor procedure’? Yes. In our briefings we were simply told to order a neighbor out, etc.

Who gives those briefings? The unit commander. Anyway, you order a neighbor to come out of his house, ask him to go to the house of the wanted man and to call all the residents in there to come out. In other instances, the neighbor was also asked to enter the house after they had gone out, in order to check that no one was left inside. Just to check that no one’s there. Now, there was a lot wrong with this, beyond the fact that, on the most basic level, the ‘neighbor procedure’ was outlawed by the High Court of Justice in November 2002 or a bit before that. I remember this because it was outlawed just a bit before I enlisted, and there was a mess because, I think the General Staff recon unit carried out some arrest mission and the neighbor got killed, they killed him – the Palestinians in the wanted man’s house killed their neighbor – so it was outlawed altogether. And that’s it. Now, besides the fact that it was altogether outlawed, sometimes women and children were used for this purpose. Children.

Do you recall a specific case? Yes. I think it was in Tul Karm, or maybe Qalqilya. I think it was Tul Karm. It was a complex of several houses, several floors high. We got all the people out. There was no one there, the guy we were after wasn’t there. There was concern that he was still inside, etc. So at first, neighbors were used, and later they used some kid. Bilal. I even remember his name, Bilal. I remember because I was very angry about it, they kept sending him in to check whether there really wasn’t any one inside, to open all the doors, turn on all the lights, open all the windows.

Who decided to send him in? I don’t know and there was a reason – I assume it was the unit commander – but also, usually commanders didn’t want to put me on the operative team, because they knew what I thought about it. I mean, there was some kind of briefing before an operation where I was a squad commander, and they said: Okay, ***’s squad will go here and call out a neighbor. I went to my commander and said: Listen, I don’t know what the unit commander thinks and all, [but] I’m not doing it. I won’t get into this business of ‘neighbor procedure’, both because I don’t agree with it personally, and because it’s against the law.

What were you told? My commander said: No problem, don’t do what you’re not prepared to do.

What did he say about it being illegal? He didn’t talk about that. Later, I had a talk with him about it, told him what I thought. I told him I intended to take it to the unit commander and then the battalion commander and then the Military Advocate General’s office, if need be. And that’s what I did. I went to the unit commander and had a talk with him, as well as with the battalion commander.

What answers did you get from them? That they know it’s illegal but even so, they’re still willing – I’m quoting my unit commander here: I know it’s illegal, but I’m willing for that neighbor, or that mother, that woman, to be killed so that none of my own combatants will be killed entering a house. He gave examples of an operation we had where the wanted man had locked himself in, and a dog was sent in several times and didn’t detect him, and the mother was sent in several times to open the doors. She did, and every time the dog went in and didn’t find him. One squad noticed that every time, she didn’t open a certain door on the roof, so they forced her to open it. The guy really was there, and the next time the dog came in, he killed the dog. The commander gave this example, which in his opinion saved the life of a combatant, and for that, he was willing to risk the lives of, you know.

That’s what the unit commander said to you? Yes. On the other hand, the battalion commander said to me – before our talk, I got hold of the actual wording of the ‘neighbor procedure’. At that time, the procedure was allowed by the High Court with a lot of reservations, and I got hold of those reservations and studied them beforehand, and told the battalion commander: Here and here and here we’re not doing it properly. That meant us using children and women, and not always asking them whether they want to do it. Sometime they were forced with threats, etc.

What kind of threats? We’ll arrest you too, and such. Not threats of physical violence. Arrests, that kind of stuff. Harassment, basically.

You come up to someone and say: Come with me. Does he say: I don’t want to? No one said they didn’t want to do it. When you bang on someone’s door in the middle of the night, put a gun in his face and light, and tell him to take his clothes off and turn around, check that he hasn’t got a weapon and then begin to ask him: Who lives here, who lives here, go there – he doesn’t say, I don’t want to. But when the person later on says: I don’t know, I’m not this and that, and you think he’s having you on a bit, so I’ve heard guys saying to him: Too bad, because we’ll take you in, too. There was all sorts of stuff like that, and the battalion commander said it was legal. That battalion commander has a degree in law. He claimed it was legal and we started arguing about the reservations etc., and he said: In certain cases, you’re right and we do need to improve them. I know that on that day, a very extensive operation was planned and right after my talk with the battalion commander, all the commanders of all the units in the battalion came in for a talk with him, and the first thing he did was brief them on clarifying the ‘neighbor procedure’, that permission should be requested, and women and children must not be used, etc. That same day, things were still alright. The next night we entered Jenin again, and again a boy and a woman were used. After several times when they went in like that, I heard them saying on the two-way radio that no one is to make women and children enter a house any more, only [male] adults and only with approval of the operation commander. So those were the changes that were made, although I know that later, after my release, I wasn’t following any more.

Which would be November? 2005. Let’s say I was out of operations a month earlier because of my final leave, and for personal reasons, so I know that after that, too, there were instances of using ‘neighbor procedure’. I don’t know whether children were used then. I’m sure that this procedure is still in use today.