Testimonies

- Routine
http://www.shovrimshtika.org/testimonies_e.asp?cat=22




building slowly


Name: ***
Rank: First Sergeant
Unit: Nachal
Description: My Company commander that always tried strive for contact. Meaning, also when there wasn't and it was boring, he would find places to make contact. If it was a gathering of a lot of people, he would purposely drive slowly with the Jeep, wait until they would stone him, get out wit the guys , and start shooting rubber bullets. Also seperate the rubber bullets in the canister, so as to shoot single rubber bullets, which is really dangerous.

And he was allowed to do what he wanted?

That was the period, it was the wild west. The Battalion Commander would tell the Company Commander: your guys are in the territores, there is a "code red", what the say today in the US, and mangae. What do you mean "manage"? There still wasn't a seperation into areas, no rules of engagement. Everything is built slowly. How you deal with the fact that the arabs in the area are getting to you. It's like you decide, that until there isn't a constitution, then there is survival of the fittest. Who is giving orders, that doesn't matter. Whatever is decided will happen. If you are at a point when you think something is rigth, fire a round into Nablus, so you tell your Commander that you were fired at, and you shoot back. Tha'ts how your commander works as aweel, and he passes his ideas to the Battalion Commander, who probably also thinks that that is the right way to act.


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pictures of taliban


Name: ***
Rank: first sergeant
Unit: Nachal
Description: When we got back from that operation, we had loot so to speak. There were IDs confiscated, uniforms, Kalachnikovs. For army intelligence. I only remember that our staff – another thing that really annoyed me – I remember them being photographed with those Kalachnikovs, the sort of 'Taliban' pictures. I don't know what the sense of it was.


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tanks on cars


Name: ***
Rank: first sergeant
Unit: Nachal
Description: With us, there were tanks that entered the village, and ran over cars.

Just like that?
Yes. I saw it from the APC we were in. I peeped out. We were closed inside, the commander was in the cabin. I peeped out from the driver's seat. Suddenly we heard a car being crushed. I looked. I don't know if it was on the side of the road. Anyway I can't understand why a tank should run over a car when the road's open.



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waqaf boom


Name: ***
Rank: first sergeant
Unit: Nachal elite unite
Description: Did you have missions that were explicitly meant to harass the population? To train you?
We did, in Area B. Not often, practice maneuvers. Arrests. When there was still Area B and Area A and they were kept distinct. We'd walk along inside a village, I think we did not enter houses, but I don't recall exactly. As practice, yes, it happened a lot.

You didn't enter houses?
I think not. We also did this in Israeli areas. I mean, it wasn't done specifically against Palestinians.

Did you have open-fire instructions that seemed crazy to you?
At various points while closing in on a house there are varying open-fire instructions. When the whole house is surrounded, crews placed all around it, the guy who runs out of the house is considered an 'escaper' and must be stopped. If he exits running in a suspect manner, he is considered an 'escaper' and must be shot to kill. Shot to be stopped: in other words, shoot to kill. Waqaf-boom, that's what it's called. Waqaf means 'stop' in Arabic, and boom is for shooting. So Waqaf-boom literally means 'stop and release bullet'.

And for the protocol, waqaf?
No, you say waqaf. And when you say waqaf your catch is already released, let's put it that way.

And in general, entering a village?
When you enter a village, Palestinian policemen were armed at certain points in time so they were also considered enemy troops. At other times, they were not. At some points, when Palesitnian policemen participated in terrorist attacks, they were enemy troops and we had to shoot to kill if we saw any. At other times, we had to stop them, or something in that nature.

Unarmed Palestinian policeman – shoot to kill?
No. Just armed. But you have no idea whether he possesses a pistol or not.

So what do you do?
Shoot.

Did you experience such cases?
Yes, I think so. Don't remember exactly. I don't want to say this without certainty.
I think I did but I don't recall them.

In Balata (refugee camp), in the Nablus casbah, there are 'disturbances' – what are the open-fire instructions for these instances?
Shoot in the air. Deterrent fire only. (…)

Did you witness cases of prevention of medical care or delaying ambulances, refusal to evacuate casualties?
No. There was a case in which we took down several armed militants in Ramallah in a special operation, and an ambulance arrived, and instead of taking them it took away their weapons. It was then that I began to understand the sense in delaying ambulances, I beg your pardon.



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kill kill kill


Name: ***
Rank: first sergeant
Unit: Nachal elite unite
Description: What was the atmosphere like in your unit? How did the commanders talk?
Kill, kill, kill, kill. We want to see bodies.

What do you mean?
I mean that in our briefing before going home on leave, we're told: don't accept rides, but if you do get a ride and someone tries to kidnap you, get back with two bodies. Or before entering on an operation in Balata (refugee camp in Nablus), then during our preliminary talk with the unit commander, right there already wearing our bullet-proofs and all our sophisticated gear, with people looking on, in a tight circle, he's telling us that we might sustain casualties and we should handle it properly, and on the other hand, he wants to see bodies. We should bring back dead terrorists. And there's no smell he likes better than a freshly fired gun. And something else about how he likes the smell of burnt flesh. But I don't remember it exactly so I wouldn't swear on it.




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driving on cars


Name: ***
Rank: first sergeant
Unit: Nachal elite unite
Description: Tanks and armored vehicles crush many things. I happened to be present… The last time a friend of mine drove an APC was in basic training. We were already in a very advanced phase of our service. This was during Operation Defensive Shield, in Ramallah, I believe. Until then, for transport, we had all sorts of special vehicles in our unit, but no APCs. So they told him: You've had experience driving APCs, you're authorized, right? He says yes. And what can he do, it had been two years since he last drove one of those things. You can imagine how he drove that APC. Not out of any evil intention or anything like that. Here and there he ran over cars. At the entrance to Ramallah as well as to Jenin we had incidents of running into electricity poles. Again, this was not intentional for it hurt us, it slowed down our advance. It was a result of a certain lack of skill during this operation. We were required to enter in APCs and didn't really know how.


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'neutralized'


Name: ***
Rank: first sergeant
Unit: Nachal elite unite
Description: What did they teach you in anti-terrorism training?
'Terrorist in sight', that's what it's called, when you run into them. It's some sort of code. It used to be 'hostages'. So you reach the terrorist, you confirm the kill. You don't confirm the kill, you confirm the guy has been 'neutralized', no chance of his getting back to you because he's been shot in the head. That's confirming he's neutralized.

You ran into him, pushed him down to the ground, get close and shoot him at close range?
No. It wouldn't be fair to say this. Especially not in my unit. I don't remember which case it was. I think it was Beit Rima, my first entry into the Occupied Territories. A Palestinian policeman arrived, I don't remember whether he was armed or not, he was shot in the legs. There was no reason to kill him because he was neutralized, he did not lie there with a weapon in hand or anything. He surrendered. Raised his hands. He was screaming with pain. He crawled over to a paramedic or a medic to get medical care, and he did. That's not murder. In combat you must make sure that you come out alive. So you confirm that he's neutralized.




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The Day-to-Day


Rank: first sergeant
Unit: Givati
Place of incident: Gaza
Description: What is important to me to emphasize is that at a conceptual level I don't think that from this entire testimony it would be possible to deduce too many rare instances of folks who went wild, that would really make headlines. But I think that it is exactly in the quiet things, the day-to-day, the orders, the security approach, that is perhaps necessary-- I think that here is the problematic thing, exactly the point. That in order to really make possible a normal life, it is necessary to enter into these things, most of which, as much as it doesn't sound nice to say, I think are necessary. I think that in order that the lives of Israeli actors will not be in danger, it is necessary to operate the checkpoints. In order that a soldier's life will not be in danger, we will make noise and throw shock grenades and even shoot towards suspicious points to get heads down because at the end of the day it is necessary to understand that an officer who has entered with soldiers into the Strip is responsible for their lives and that is something he will never forget and a person who has never taken on such a responsibility does not know what it is about and as soldiers and as officers we will prefer to make noise and case damage rather than at the end of the matter go to the funeral of our soldier or friend and that is the point. This is what I think-- the bad is good and the good is bad. At the moment, this is the reality in Gaza from what I know it is less about the rare instances than the routine, the routine itself, this day-to-day, and this day-to-day has its own logic, is necessary, and cannot be ignored.


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Sets of car-keys piling up


Rank: First Sergeant
Unit: Engineering company, Nahal brigade
Place of incident: Jericho
Description: I served in the Jericho area. There was a curfew at the time. There was a flat plateau – a sort of field – through which Palestinians would go out and break the curfew. The IDF dug sort of moats there afterwards to prevent the egress.
I was commanding a jeep patrol whose task was to catch the curfew breakers. It was like a game. We would apprehend them in the field, bring them back, and they would return… because the sector was a few kilometers long they would pass and we managed to apprehend about one in five. If we stopped a vehicle, we would take the keys. These were our orders. They would tell us: take the keys and "dry up" the people for a while. The time it took us to "dry up" the people was decided upon arbitrarily, according to our shift changes and meal times, and it could take between 2 hours and a whole day.
After some time there were a few dozen sets of keys piled up in the jeep… I remember that it got me so mad, that I would stop a taxi driver for the hundredth time - after telling the driver a number of times there's a curfew and he can't pass – until I got highly motivated to confiscate car keys. I felt I was punishing them.


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Keys


Rank: Staff sergeant
Unit: Battalion 202, paratroopers brigade
Description: Was the process of confiscating the keys organized?

What do you mean organized!? And even if it were organized once, it would eventually disappear… you would change it… when we were in the deserted house, it was forbidden to pass there. A car would pass-" hey'! That! Why?' and we would take the keys, the spare keys. ‘Go home on foot, your car is here, come back in two days.’ We would put the keys upstairs in the deserted house, and than another guard would come, and take their ID card. They took a lot [of ID cards].

Did they get their keys back?

Many times they didn't.




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"I did not think"


Rank: Staff Sergeant
Unit: 401 Armor unit
Description: What does “crazy mess in the territories” mean?
Crazy mess…I was in a combat division in which – how to say it in Hebrew? - "there was neither law, nor judge" in this division. Everybody does whatever he wants. And I, specifically, did whatever I wanted. And ‘to do what you like in Rammalla’ means, for example, that you have the possibility to drive on the road… you drive on the road and there are cars on the sides and you intentionally drive over the car. But I am not talking about 1 or 2 tanks. I am talking about a lot of tanks. I had a lot of commanding officers and many of them were like this. And in Rafiach , when I used to come there, I would just wake up and shoot 2000 cell.
What is 2000cell?
2000 cell are 2000 machine-gun bullets. Out there they used to shoot at us a lot. Really: every day. Grenades, missiles, everything. So there was this order that every once in a while all weapons have to shoot towards a wall, so it doesn’t hit the houses or anything else. But the freedom that we’ve had…we fired a lot. And 2000 bullets, automatic fire, directed at the whole city, at houses and at doors, was something that everybody did, not just me. I do not know why I did it.
What were you thinking when you did it?
I do not know. I was with the gun. I did not think. In the army I never thought. And I used to come home and tell about it to my friends, which means I was not ashamed of it. Nothing. I did what I was told to do. And besides, everybody did it. That was the custom - officers and such, everybody knew. It never happened that they had told me to shoot here or there… and I would stop to think ‘what if’… First I took the shot; later, if I thought at all, it would always be too late. I never thought while I was doing that.




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it has to be normal


Rank: Officer
Place of incident: Gaza
Description: 2002

I would visit many times in the situation room and in the rooms the lookouts and see all this footage. The first time i was shocked, I saw a movie from the lookout, it showed some old Palestinian farmer that got near, probably by mistake, to the fence. You just see a tank shell that hims him and blows him up. I watched the Palestinian and looked at the soldier who was looking at it and i thought of the soldiers in the tank. When you are out of it it seems illogical, nut when you are inside...

Did anyone say anything about it, anyone who was watching the movie?
No.

It seemed normal?
Yes. When you are inside, it has to seem normal, otherwise, you can't cope.


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Preventive Fire


Rank: First Sergeant
Unit: Battalion 55, Artillery corps
Place of incident: Telem area
Description:
Incident description: In the Telem region there was often information about possible terrorist activity in the area and we would go out and fire “warning” shots. I remember one instance when we fired blindly on an olive grove without checking out the area first.




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Stun and Smoke in the Bakeries


Rank: First Sergeant
Unit: Battalion 55, Artillery corps
Place of incident: Telem area
Description:
In the Telem region when we would return from operations we would throw stun and smoke grenades into the bakeries that opened between 4:00 and 5:00am in Tarqumia because people in the village threw stones.








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1500 rounds


Rank: First Sergeant
Place of incident: Rafiach
Description:
Often we received orders to fire warning shots every quarter of an hour in the direction of the city of Rafiach. Once I fired over 1500 rounds from a machine gun at the houses in the city.






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Insufficient range


Unit: 50th battalion, Nahal
Place of incident: Hebron, Avraham Avinu neighborhood
Description:
In the Avraham Avinu neighborhood there are military posts on the roofs facing the Abu Sneina neighborhood. Before we manned the post we were instructed not to shoot towards Abu Sneina, and that even if we identify the source of fire, shooting will only be done with permission from the local commander. The Sachla"v unit post fired that night from their personal weapons to a range in which they are inefficient, and without any identification of the fire sources.




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Aimless


Unit: 50th battalion, Nahal
Place of incident: Hebron
Description:
An outpost in the heart of a Palestinian neighborhood, a whole floor in a Palestinian house.
In the post are a commander, two soldiers from the Hebron troop and two snipers.
During a reconnaissance of the Border Police 3 policemen arrived at the post and out of boredom shoot 3 gas grenades aimlessly into the town.
.





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The Sniper


Rank: First sargent
Unit: Givati brigade
Place of incident: Gaza strip
Description:
end of 2003

We sat at the post in Girit [a military post] with the truck and there was a sniper there, a Palestinian sniper, who shot at us every day. Every day he shot a bullet at our post. At one occasion, a deputy to a company commander’s hand was wounded; he got hit by a bullet in his hand. On another occasion, someone got hit by fragments. This was an excellent sniper, a good sniper. We couldn't get him, we didn't know where he was shooting from. He would shoot three times a day: in the morning, the afternoon and the evening. Each time he shot only one bullet. The orders were that each time there is fire on the post, you do…I forgot the name…a fire ball, a fire balloon.

Fire hit?
No. yes, a fire hit, in principal, there is another name for that... I forgot. Everybody stands in firing position and shoots. The Girit post is a post that overlooks the whole area of Philadelphia and Rafiah, that is, the whole residential area.

What is the distance between Girit and Rafiah?

800 meters. Something like that from the houses. You stand above and see all that. The orders were not to shoot into the houses. They said: Tell the soldiers not to shoot into the houses because somebody could get hurt.. they didn't put too much time or attention to it. I confess that me too, when the sniper would shoot, I would start to spray, I wouldn't exactly see, you're with your M16 or with the Machine gun, you don't check, you simply fill the place up with holes. They would fill up the place with holes, shoot into windows, there were soldiers who would aim especially into the windows.

Did the commander know this? The officers?
Yes. Me too. I won't say that I planned to shoot into windows but I would shoot. You shoot, you don't look.





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Never Tampons


Rank: First Sergeant
Unit: Artillery, unit 55
Place of incident: The villages of Silat and J'aba, the area of Homes
Description: There is something that I know is not legal but everybody does, and it is supported from the level of Platoon Commander and downwards and nobody will be trialed for it. When the intefada broke out I was in Homesh. We had a confrontation with the villages Silat and Dahar and J'aba. In this area they never shot tampons. They always shot singels.
A Tampon is actually a package of rubber bullets. It comes in packages of three rubber bullets that is put into a Roma, and placed on the rifle barrel. It is a known fact that is explained in the briefings, that shooting a single rubber bullet is the same as live shoot (whereas shooting a package of three is less harmful). But they always shot one at a time. They never shot in threes. First of all it was a pity to waste bullets and also because it was harder to aim a package of three especially at short range. There was an incident with our battalion commander when it was said that he shot a single bullet and killed a child at a demonstration. There was an inquiry about it and I don't know what happened in the end. What I do know is that in the IDF they don't shoot tampons. They always shoot singles. I can say this with certainty from the highest ranks to the lowest. Everybody.




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Shooting in order to identify armed hostiles


Rank: First Lieutenant
Unit: Artillary corps, 55 Battalion
Place of incident: Shaked Checkpoint
Description: The company commander and the patrol would occasionally go to Ibed in order to blow up TV antennas. Just a routine activity. Just to show that the IDF is there. To show presence. I never understood what this could be good for. It wasn't something that came as an order from above, but it was just something the battalion commander and company commander allowed themselves to do. To shoot TV antennas and street lights and blow them up.
Once, there was a mission in the village and there was nothing going on. They (the commanders) were told that there were armed people (in the village). So in order to flush out the armed people they sprayed all the flower pots in the neighborhood and then the armed people in the village started to shoot at them and that was how they knew where the armed people were.