Did you interact with the settlers? I assume that during [Operation] ‘Brother’s Keeper,’ when the boys were kidnapped, it must have been a tense time.I remember when the [kidnapped boys'] bodies were found. It was almost midnight, and all the Israelis came out of their homes. They simply wanted to find some Palestinian and kill him. So we had to protect Palestinian families, it was the first and last time we really tried to protect the Palestinians. [The settlers] simply wanted blood. They didn’t want anything else, they didn’t care. A blood thirst. We stationed positions and waited for the (Palestinian) families to come up [the street]. The Israelis came to meet them. We had to encircle the Palestinians in order to get them up [the street]. We were called traitors, [told] that we’re Nazis, that we hate Jews and hate Israel because we’re protecting innocent Palestinians. This lasted three hours until the Israelis returned to their homes. We protected the Palestinian families that went up the road to their homes. They had nothing to do with those (kidnapped) kids. Six-year-old kids, eight-year-old kids, a family with four children, a mother and a father, none of the kids was over ten and they were very scared. We encircled them for protection and escorted them on the road, because all the Israelis were out there, and tried to reach them.
Can I ask you how you felt at that? I felt like shit. I was there to protect the Israelis and they took me for granted and called me a traitor because I didn’t want an eight-year-old Palestinian who has nothing to do with the situation to be hurt because of something he can’t control. That’s the atmosphere – an atmosphere full of hatred and rage. I don’t know, it’s depressing.