What was the operational value of the checkpost?You’d write people down, take down their information. Just take their information, and then there’s a huge database of these people. Some of the checkposts were just that - going and collecting people’s information.

Would you have to make a quota?That too, yes. I think the instructions were to do a checkpost during every patrol. It took us time to get it too. It was a few dozen cars - thirty, forty maybe, that you had to do, and, it was practically on autopilot, [like,] here we go, it’s just more hard work we've been given. You just understand you have to do it. Obviously, I didn’t present it [checkpost missions] to my soldiers like that, and I obviously explained to them, but, to be honest, it's pretty stupid...

Why?Because say they found out there’s a certain vehicle that goes out every Monday between two and four o’clock at a certain exit, and it’s a vehicle that belongs to suspects. The odds that it would really do any good... Like, come on, there are hundreds of thousands of people living there, like what are the odds. I remember we tried to figure out [if there are] any behavior patterns over there, and if there’s any specific vehicle that goes out using this system, all kinds of stuff like that. Say if I were to stand here for two hours now, doing a checkpost and stopping all the vehicles coming in, what are really the odds of figuring out some sort of specific pattern people are using, how they go about their business, etc.? I don’t think so. There’s a lot of talk about visibility, like, that [the Palestinians] will see you on the ground. [That] the military is here on the ground, and we didn’t come here to play games. So we’re here, and like, that’s our way of doing it.