I was near Beit Hadassah and some group of tourists from France arrived, at least fifty people, something like that. And there are few buildings near the fence, near Beit Hadassah, of Palestinians, and there was a Palestinian flag there.

On the other side of Beit Hadassah? Yes. On their side (the Palestinians). They [the tourists] saw this and went crazy. They started shouting "The nation of Israel lives, the nation of Israel lives," "Death to the Arabs, death to the Arabs.” They found a ladder so that they could climb up. People from Hebron arrived, which is over 100 people, something like that, and then a riot of Jews began. Now, most of the people weren’t Israelis, [but rather] tourists. And then residents (settlers) came, left their houses. **** (a well-known settler from Hebron) and all these people. There were calls, “Death to Arabs, death to Arabs.” They started climbing up the ladder. Two of these idiots got stuck in the barbed wire fence trying to reach the flag. We had to bring them down. I was really riled up because nothing had happened and they (the settlers) – it looked like they were about to kill someone, and no one was doing anything about it. No one did anything to prevent it. The patrol… The Platoon Commander and everyone tried to calm them down, but it didn’t help. Now we had to worry about protecting the Jews who were caught in the barbed wire, so that nothing would happen to them, because now, the [Palestinian] family in that apartment was on the roof and filmed everything. They saw everything and said: look, the Jews are trying to take our flag down, they’re trying to enter our territory. And they’re right, that’s exactly what happened. They aren’t lying, they aren’t exaggerating. That’s really what’s happening. And we finally, like, succeeded in getting him, the person [caught in the wire], down. And then we were told to go to the Palestinian side, go up on the roof and take down the flag. Like, as an order.

From whom? The Company Commander. Or from the Battalion Commander, I don't know from whom, but it came from someone above the Platoon Commander. So we entered through the gate, got to the house, climbed up to the roof and tried to take down the flag. This person (the Palestinian resident of the house) – he continues to film. And in the end we didn't do it, but we went up on the roof for nothing. We really didn't touch the flag. We almost did it, we almost took it down, and we didn't and... We went back down. The Platoon Commander didn't want to do it, but he was told to do it.

What didn't he want to do? Take down the flag.

But why didn't he do it in the end – didn't take down the flag? I think he got some order not to do it in the end. Just for there to be a strong presence on the roof. [To show] we're doing something. But in the end, we didn't do anything.

But the goal was to show the settlers that the army is doing something about it? Yes. But we didn't do anything after all. We also did it to ensure that no more Jews would go up there. They moved the ladder, came down, and got back to the area.

Were the police there too? No, the police, if they came, it was later, but they stayed on the road, they didn't go up there, only we did. Because it's Palestinian territory, and it's our area of jurisdiction, not the police's.