The truth is that the Shimshon Brigade did the worst of the things I saw. That house where they destroyed a wall, they went like crazy looting it . . .
What do you mean, “looting”?
They, say, they shat on the . . . they shat on the couches, they stole.
They shat on the couches?
Shat on the couches before they left, just shat on the couches. They stole suits, they lifted all of the suits in the closet.
You saw that?
I was there. I left the house with them.
They just put a suit in a backpack?
No, they just, like, threw the suits in the APC.
Okay.
They’d leave behind, like deliberately, a house that was totally wrecked. They’d turn the house upside down, like when, when the family’s locked in a room . . . they’d just turn their house upside down . . . And also how they . . . their arrest procedures were very, very violent . . .
What do you mean? Give me a specific example.
We ran into some . . . we were separate forces for a while, we’d come from one place, and they’d be stuck with, with the tank in some alley, they couldn’t get out . . . So they were with the tank, and there were some four cars in front of them, blocking them, and a porch. Like the whole entrance to a house, an old Arab house, and they drove up with the . . . they drove the tank over the cars. Of course, they could have got out by reversing, but . . . they decided they had to turn around, they drove over four cars with the tank, they just went up, they turned around, and took off the whole entrance to the house with the back of the tank. They took down half a house, like with the tank, and left. And say, also that . . . I got there and they’d detained people, like there were, we’d round people up and all the men had to come to . . . before we’d break into the Mukata’a, [the administrative offices of the Palestinian Authority] the commercial area, they’d announce that all the men had to go somewhere where they’d all be checked, and then we went into the Mukata’a, and then they were allowed back. And when they got all those men, they just . . . they’d make them undress to . . . undress down to nothing. Anyone who hesitated a bit, they’d start beating him, pushing him, hitting him, shooting in the air . . . things like that. And then they released them. These are people who came, who were told they had to come and they came of their own volition. And by the way, when we went into that Mukata’a, it was supposed to be, the way the Shimshon commander had characterized the mission in the briefing, he said, “Some of you won’t come back,” just like that. “Some won’t come back, there’s going to be some insane fighting.” When we went in they didn’t fire at us once, but those Shimshon guys were firing all over the place in fear. With the . . . acting like they were in their APCs.