We were very gentle [when dispersing protests], and we got lots and lots of criticism for it from the settlers. At a certain point they kind of said to us: Fine, you’ll leave and you know that Golani [soldiers] will arrive after you and as soon as Golani [soldiers] arrive then it’ll change. They were really hostile towards us in their attitude. They ask us to disperse a riot in an area where as far as we were concerned we could contain it, that is, at the entrance to Yasuf. Dispersing the riot in this kind of situation, is to go crazy, it means shooting all kinds of [tear] gas. It’s investing energy and entering into a level of friction that we have no reason to do. What we do in a situation like this, [is] we stand a hundred meters [from the protestors], they start advancing, we shoot a bit of [tear] gas, they retreat, and that way they are also staying at a distance where they’re not endangering us with Molotov Cocktails and things like that. In order to do more than this, and that’s what the settlers wanted, we have to really push them inside, which is like, already a much higher level of violence, to expose ourselves to much more violence from the other side.

These comments/demands, do they come from an official in the settlement or could it be just a random settler who stops you and says: Listen, you didn’t do the right thing at yesterday’s riot?It’s a lot like from the CSC (Civilian Security Coordinator, a settler in charge of the security of the settlement, appointed by the Ministry of Defense) but also their reconnaissance person, like, there’s someone who’s like the reconnaissance person.

And how do you react to this?At this point we’re already just a month away from leaving the place and we’re super indifferent to them, a kind of mutual loathing developed. They would also [often] make problems for us.