What did you know about Firing Zone 918? This zone is marked on the map by a yellow line encircling it. I asked if residents live there. They told me no, that no one lives there since it’s a firing zone. I said that I heard there were Bedouin residents whom they want to evacuate. My company commander even said to me, “This is a firing zone that belongs to the IDF, some Palestinians and some Bedouin invaded it, and apparently they’ll be evacuated soon. It could even happen during this reserve duty, or they may postpone it by a few months.” You don’t go into the firing zones themselves during patrols, you conduct patrols above the firing zones. There’s a road that passes through the zone called, the “smugglers’ route.” It’s a road that passes through the route, and each time someone reaches the route, the lookouts roust the patrol, which heads there and arrests them. I made arrests there three times at least, usually Bedouin who passed through. Of course they’re immediately considered smugglers; you check their IDs and then you ask them to go back where they came from. They usually try and explain to you that they work here, that they’re shepherds here, but you need to explain to them that they need to get off the route. The explanation for that is the claim that they pass through this route to smuggle weapons or drugs – there’s no official warrant. You get an instruction and you go and expel them. They don’t ask questions and we don’t get questions from our side either. The lookout radios the patrol, says, “I identify people on the smugglers’ route.” You get a point on the map. You drive there, arrest them, expel them, report back. In all the cases they’re headed in the direction of Israel. Apparently they all go to Yatta. The smugglers’ route is the main route. There are at least two other hill shoulders around the smugglers’ route that are encircled by the smugglers’ route. Whoever passes through the smugglers’ route, it will take him 40 minutes to do so, and whoever goes through the hill shoulders, it will take an hour and a half.

They aren’t prevented from passing through the hill shoulders? 

The lookouts can’t see the hill shoulders. The bottom line ends with a concept called, making your presence felt. Ultimately, they send us there to make our presence felt.