Ultimately, your mission as a soldier or border police officer is to be in constant friction with the Palestinian population. It would be interesting to hear from someone who was there about the dynamics of it, how things happen and how human nature conducts itself in such a situation. An example of that [is when] we were in the Red House (referred to as the “House of Contention” by the media, the “House of Peace” by the settlers, and "Rajabi House" by the Palestinians), and there are Jews there, in the middle of a Palestinian neighborhood. Across the street you have Abu Hamze’s grocery store where everyone shops: Jews, Arabs. They’re bitter enemies, but on the other hand they're friends on the street. So we were very suspicious of the Palestinians there, but on the other hand there’s no way you can avoid befriending the (Palestinian) kids who play on the street. It was boring so we would play soccer with them during guarding shifts. We really hated the children of the (settler) families in the Red House who shouted at us, “How come you’re not killing the Palestinians passing by there?” They saw us letting Palestinians pass by: “Why do you let him pass? Kill him.” We hated them.

How old were the kids? Six, seven, eight. We hated the Jewish kids, we played soccer with the Palestinian kids, and [at the same time] we checked the Palestinians very fearfully. We told them to throw their ID on the floor because we feared they would surprise us with a knife, and on the other hand, we knew the names of a lot of them and said good morning to Abu Hamze every morning.

What you said about the children saying all sorts of stuff to you, was this common? Yes, the kids in the Red House, there’s a checkpoint right above their house, at the entrance to the street. Only Palestinians who live on the street are allowed to enter. They (the settlers’ children) would go there all the time and shout at us, “Beat him up,” things like that. It’s simply their lives, what they hear at home, maybe. We would always shout at them: go home.

And what about their parents? I never met their parents. There were only two families there, something like that.