Interviewer: You entered the village?

Soldier: There were lots of forces there. Us, and the front command jeep with the company commander, battalion commander, his deputy and the command of another three companies, three patrols. The village was swamped with army personnel. We drove the company commander’s jeep along quite a main street in the village, next to the mosque, several times. Suddenly we were showered with stones and didn’t know what was going on. Everyone stopped suddenly, the sergeant sees the company commander get out of the vehicle and joins him. We jump out without knowing what was going on – I was last. Suddenly I see a shackled and blindfolded boy. The stoning stopped as soon as the company commander gets out of the car. He fired rubber ammo at the stone-throwers and hit this boy. The boy was holding his belly and tried to run or throw another stone, there are several versions of this. This is what I was told afterwards, I didn’t see it myself.

 

The company commander punched him, very fast, made him fall on the ground and the medic and communications man tied him up and blindfolded him. All this happened within 20 seconds from the moment the vehicle stopped until I saw him shackled. He was put in our vehicle and you saw he was filthy from the stones. He asked: 'What did I do? Why me?’ I tried to talk to him a bit, gave him some water on the way, and he asked again why he was detained. I told him he had thrown stones, he said he hadn’t, and so back and forth a few times. Finally I told him: 'You’re lying, shut up.’ The sergeant also got annoyed and said: 'Don’t talk to him.’ Two guys there were excited by their first action in Hebron and had their pictures taken with him.

 

Interviewer: Did he object?

 

Soldier: No, he was blindfolded, he didn’t know. He asked for water so one of the guys said: 'Water?’ and gave him a hard hit on the head. I argued with the guy a bit and with the two guys who were photographed. At some point they talked about hitting his face with their knees. At that point I argued with them and said: 'I swear to you, if a drop of his blood or a hair falls off his head, you won’t sleep for three nights, I’ll make you miserable.’ I took it hard.

 

Interviewer: How did they respond?

 

Soldier: They knew I was like that, I never hid it. They laughed at me for being a leftie. 'If we don’t show them what’s what, they go back to doing this.’ I argued with them that the guy was shackled and couldn’t do anything. That he was being taken to the Shabak and we’d finished our job. A few weeks later, I heard one of them saying things that sounded different: 'If someone’s shackled, why should I touch him?’

 

Interviewer: So why did they want to abuse him?

 

Soldier: Because they were caught up in a storm of action, wanted to show the Palestinians who’s who, and the adrenalin kicked in. Mine did, too.

 

Interviewer: You rode on and out of Idna?

 

Soldier: Yes. Maybe other jeeps picked up more people. We took him for a medical examination and that was that. The argument about whether he should have been beaten up or not continued for some days. It became the business of anyone who was there, and people who joined around, from the platoon. Most said the Palestinians should be beaten up so they’ll know what’s what, because that’s the only way they’ll learn. I was really surprised. I knew that’s the way minds worked in general, but I thought that *** would be more humane. But there’s no humane advantage there at all. Later I heard worse stories about places where guys who wanted to beat up Palestinians were not stopped at all, in other battalions. After a while, still I looked alright, compared to others.