Soldier: We had an evening of mapping, which means a disgusting evening of mapping. The function [of mapping], on paper, is to map each house and say who lives in it, so the Shin Bet knows about every house, little by little, who lives there, so they have the information. I think it’s just some kind of deterrence. 

 

Interviewer: Why is it deterrence? 

 

Soldier: Because when we’d go inside a home, we used to explain to them that we were there for that. There’s always one interpreter on the team, they send someone who speaks Arabic with the team, and he explained why we were here. And then they [the family] said: what, why didn’t anyone document this? A month ago, they came to us and another time before that. We go back to them every so often, all the time, because nobody writes it down. Or really because there’s a very large security body and often things get overlooked. 

 

Interviewer: What did you do? 

 

Soldier: What you do is you go into a house, at first you knock on the door, you don’t break in, you knock a lot on the door, trying. Most times they don’t open, people are asleep, people don’t want to open and stuff like that. And then usually once we take out the breach kit and they start to hear you trying to break in then... 

 

Interviewer: A hydraulic breach kit? 

 

Soldier: Yes, the moment you bring it and start hooking it up, there was also an electrical one that makes noise, then they hear it and come downstairs, open the door before you break down their door. You say, “everyone inside”, you stand every person by the window with his ID, holding it by the side of his head and take a picture of every person who lives in the house. 

 

Interviewer: Do they say why these houses specifically? 

 

Soldier: They tell you these are houses the Shin Bet doesn’t have any information about. 

 

 

Interviewer: In terms of the structure of the house and things like that, do you deal with that or only photograph the people?

Soldier: It sounds logical that we were supposed to do that, but I don’t remember actually doing that.