Most of the time I saw violence around Katzir, before the fence was constructed, then it was simply routine – emptying the children’s plastic bags and playing with their toys. You know, grabbing the stuff and throwing the toys among us like balls.

The children cried? Constantly. They cried and were terrified. I mean, you couldn’t miss it.

Adults cried too? Sure. To humiliate them. One of our goals was this: I made him cry in front of his child, I made him shit in his pants.

You saw cases of people soiling their pants? Yes.

Why? Especially at beatings, beating them to a pulp and threats and yelling, where the guy is terrified, especially in front of the kids. They would yell and threaten and terrify so you’re afraid for your kids too. There was this once, again, an adult detained with his child, a tiny kid, about four years old. The child was not hit, but the Patrolman was annoyed that the adult was taking the kid with him so he’d be shown consideration, and told him: You’re taking the kid along so as to be pitied, let’s show you what’s what. And he beat him to a pulp, yelled at him, said: “Why, I could kill you right in front of your kid, maybe you’d feel more…” That’s horrifying. And again, there are lots of ‘respect’ stories.

And he wet his pants for sheer fright? Yes.

In front of his child? Yes. There are lots of honor stories like, I made him shit in his pants, I made him do that, such talk was routine, not anything special…

Where would this be told, in the dining hall, in the presence of the officers? Openly in public? Openly in public. I think that if an officer says he didn’t know, he’s lying. At least the senior officers knew. Again, the platoon-commanders dealt with this less, but the company-commander, the deputy company-commander, the operations officer – they encouraged this even in a big way. Again, not directly, they didn’t actually come out and say, go on, beat them up, but there was this legitimacy, otherwise it wouldn’t have happened. Again, the fact is that in Jenin there were less cases of this kind, and not just because there was less work with the population, I think.