There were patrols at some stages, they would go in, right inside; sometimes just to provoke, I believe.

Did you take part in these patrols?I took part in some.

Give me an example of a patrol that gave you an impression that you are provoking and just provoking.You go in, drive. First, there's nothing for you to look for there. You enter the town.

Who does the briefing beforehand, a company commander?I don't remember, an officer, at least.

There's an assignment briefing? Yes, there was.

What was the purpose?I don't remember. I remember why I got the impression, It's a long time since it happened, it's suppressed and foggy, but we entered some intersection and turned around, saw what we wanted to see, God knows what it was. We wanted to go back, asked to go back, they said, "No, do some more rounds. We want you to be seen, put in an appearance".

Put in an appearance?If you ask me, putting in an appearance is a nice name for a provocation.

What orders did you follow, being there?I remember in that case they radioed us that we have to put in an appearance, but, really, by then I took less part in those things, so regretfully or not regretfully I can't tell you to much about it. I took part once or twice in those things.

You didn't have a chance to take part in an encounter? You weren't shot at in those patrols?It was in a jeep, I don't think we were shot at. Once I escorted such a patrol in a tank and they did fire at us.

The tanks entered Bethlehem on this deployment?Yes, into the outskirts.

Were there cases of vandalism?More in Gaza, I remember. Listen, first of all, any tank driving on a road is unhealthy, the very fact that it is going on a paved road. There were some really clumsy commanders who shaved electric poles.

Intentionally?No, as far as I know unintentionally, by mistake. There was quite a bit of destroying vegetation, also what you call "exposing" that I saw masses of. This was usually done by the engineering corps. All the D-9s, and also just where tanks go, when you arrive at a new they make a very wide lane to drive on, usually where there was some vegetation before. They would do a patrol of sorts, very close to the populated area, so they would shave the vegetation with it. Beyond that, there were cases but not a mass destruction of property.