When we actually entered the Gaza Strip, we were motorized. As soon as we were inside we were all assembled, and the company commander in charge of that position gave all of us a briefing about how we were to conduct ourselves inside. It was late at night, dark, and we were all expected to show very strict discipline about this briefing specifically and all its practical implications. He specified all sorts of operational procedures, where we may move and where we're not supposed to be on our own for fear of kidnapping, etc. Among other things, he strictly forbade us to climb up to roofs. He explained in fact that the airforce has the 'go ahead' to fire at anyone seen on a roof. The airforce would not always distinguish. It doesn't always have the ability to establish at such short notice whether someone seen there is a civilian, a soldier or a terrorist. As far as it is concerned, a person seen on a roof is incriminated. It was made very clear to us that being on a roof is incriminating as such. Namely, no one, including Israeli soldiers, has any business being on a rooftop, and anyone seen there is perceived as an enemy. He even gave us the example of some Givati commander whose force we had replaced, who was simply sent back to Israel because he went up to the roof to defecate. So he was thrown out of there. This was seen as an extremely serious incident as far as the higher command was concerned. We were told that this was in effect throughout the army, for all forces on the ground – unequivocally forbidden, no exceptions. No Israeli soldier has any business being on a roof. Going up to a roof equals suicide.

Because our own forces would take him down?
Yes. Which means that there are in fact airplanes and other means that simply fire at persons detected on rooftops. We knew there were all kinds of helicopters and various other flying objects up there. We heard them all the time. We saw them all the time. And they have fire-power, they're not playing around. Whoever climbed to the roof was doomed. This was put to us in the strictest sense possible. It was also made very clear that it is in effect for all the force, namely everyone on the ground knew about this.

Nearly no one ran into the enemy. I know of two encounters during the whole operation. The soldiers, too, were disappointed for not having had any encounters with terrorists. The defined situation was that sparing our forces was of primary importance. This means that if we detect anyone, we disconnect, summon a helicopter and take down the house. That was the clear definition and that is how it was done. As soon as we detect anyone, our forces improve their position and get into defense layout, and a helicopter takes down the house. No direct contact unless it happens at the first moment of the encounter. At least in the paratroopers' designated area, there were hardly any encounters at all.

Were there definitions for identifying things?
Not as far as we were concerned. I don't know whether things were clearly defined, but as for the language, it was "suspects, lookouts, people standing on roofs and looking towards our forces, making suspect movements on the roof, bending down, looking out beyond the rim" – such were definitions of suspects that were enough to call a UAV or helicopter.

You said there were orders to take down people seen on a roof.
As far as I know, I'm not certain what is considered suspect and what proper rules of engagement are. We responded to anything that seemed suspect to us. A helicopter or a firing *** was activated passed on detailed reports of what we see. A *** would arrive, connected to the command post at and then the people at the central command post could see what was going on and if it looked suspect to them, they would activate it.

Were there many such cases?
Yes. Around ten – during the fighting. I think the air force was working the hardest. Especially in the routine daily warfare.

Were there more cases of identification that you recall?
As soon as forces entered the area at night, everything became suspect. You can't identify too much at night and anything that moves you engage in order not to take risks. It was not defined this way officially, but it was obvious. Any movement on the ground at night was doomed. That's how things ran.

Do you recall identification of specific houses?
There was a house from which six people came out after it was bombed. That house was bombed by a different unit and there were escapees.

What was done with escapees?
I don't know. They were within range of the UAV. The higher commanders decide.

Tell some of the stories of houses you took down.
The day before our advance, so our forces were already rather far from us. About 300 meters. We identified movements in a window of a house about 400 meters from us, clearly visible. It took a while until the UAV arrived, 3-4 hours. It was strange, seeing movements so near. A helicopter arrived, it too detected movement. We didn't speak about suspects, but two missiles were fired at the whole house.

How many people had been inside?
I don't know, but at least three ambulances arrived eventually.

What happens after the bombing?
A hole in the wall, bursts of fire inside, and demolition of the whole house.

You spoke about a house that was bombed before the ground unit went in. What happened there?
It was dark. Movements were detected inside a house above their entry route. They entered the previous evening and claimed they had been targeted with anti-tank fire from one of the houses. So all the houses were fired on. There was massive fire. This was also shown on the news. People were shown lying on the beach and the houses from the west eastward, and in the next entry there was movement identified that entailed aircraft fire on that house. 5-6 escapees came out of the house. I don't know what happened to them. Perhaps they're no longer with us.

There was a mosque, and we won't go into all those traditional reports about why was there still a mosque, those are for internal discussion. But on the whole, most of the mosques were demolished. That too, earlier – in Tze'elim (army base) – that brigade commander I mentioned explicitly told us we should not hesitate to target mosques. Nothing is immune, nothing and no area. He explicitly mentioned mosques. This specific mosque was one of several in our designated area, which wasn't too wide.
It contained several mosques, most of which were hit. At some point, during the regular searches, we heard and saw – not I, personally, but the deputy commander who kept his head out and said, "Did you see that? They blasted a mosque." Then I was told it was probably targeted by a helicopter. Not sure who fired. They blasted the whole minaret, that top part of the mosque, where the muezzin stands.

Why? Had it been a source of fire?
No. Not that I know of.

Your tank is supposed to be monitoring that area from a range of 500 meters.
We saw no fire. I repeat, from my own personal point of view I saw no reason whatsoever. Could be that an alert was on about some anti-tank fire source at the top of that minaret. I don't know. I know that as far as I see, there was no fire originating there, and at some point the minaret was taken down.

This happened in daytime?
Yes.

You were there for a week, and on some days the air force would bomb?
No, the air force bombed all the time, not necessarily the neighborhood facing us, but we would hear bombing constantly, not just a burst of machine gunfire here and there, but massive bombings by the navy and air force. They would constantly shell various areas in the Strip. Not necessarily in our designated area, but you constantly heard them firing.

That's why I ask you specifically about your own designated area, if you could know what they were doing and why. We don't know the reasons for fire all around, that's why I'd like to focus on what you actually see.
Occasionally in our designated area there was longer-range fire. Not within the specific area which we were monitoring but rather a kilometer to a kilometer-and-a-half away. You don't hear any fire before the Israeli army fires. We saw no resistance there except for that one incident with the anti-tank crew and the rumor about mortar shells being fired at us once. Assuming it was correct; besides these two incidents we faced absolutely no fire, and did see our own side firing at the other side.

There was this concept of deterrence, deterrent fire?
It was talked about in our maneuvers, that there's nothing to prevent us from firing for deterrence. There was nothing to deter so we didn't need to do that, but it was certainly discussed in the briefings, deterrent fire. Fire to take down heads. You see a position which you cannot monitor and you suspect there's something there, shoot without finding out what's there first.

What's a position?
If you see sand bags, you shoot without the shadow of a doubt.

How do you define it?
You run into a curve in the road and know there's an angle from which you cannot monitor a certain area, first you shoot, see if anything happens, then you proceed…
When we say 'dead area' we mean a building. If you don't know what's in that building, you fire at it. Such were the general instructions, in fact we weren't in these situations so I don't know what happened there, but instructions were definitely that if you get to a T-junction and have to make a right turn and behind you is a building and you have no idea what's in it, you fire at the building and then turn right. This kind of thing. No doubt, preventive fire was allowed.

So for that same mission of fragmenting the Gaza Strip, we actually received orders to control some high point, and that while we were there – we didn't know how long – we were to raze as much as possible of the area. Such razing is a euphemism for intentional, systematic destruction, enabling total visibility. Razing was meant to give us the advantage of full control over fire and lookout, to see exactly what was happening throughout the zone. So that no one could hide anything from us. Two reasons were actually mentioned for this destruction. I'll talk now more about the destruction of houses because that is the main problem here. One reason may be termed operational. Meaning a house is suspected to be booby-trapped, contains tunnel openings, is wired in all sorts of directions, or has signs of digging. Or we have some outside intelligence information about it, making it suspect of all these things. Stemming from this operational line of thinking, is a house from which fire is opened, whether light arms or mortars or missiles, grad rockets, all those things. These are houses we demolish. You could say this is a pretty natural extension of the normal army procedure I know at least in the Gaza Strip. A house that has often been a source of fire has sustained a shelling, or even been demolished entirely. But then we were told there are houses to be demolished for the sake of "the day after." The day after is actually a thought that obviously we're going in for a limited period of time which could be a week and it might also be a few months. But it's not a longer span of time without defining what it is. And the rationale was that we want to come out with the area remaining sterile as far as we're concerned. And the best way to do this is by razing. That way we have good firing capacity, good visibility for observation, we can see anything, we control a very large part of the area and very effectively. This was the meaning of demolition for the sake of the day after. In practical terms this meant taking a house that is not implicated in any way, that it's single sin is the fact that it is situated on top of a hill in the Gaza Strip.

Close to the fence or inside?
It could be either. I mean, this hill could be, I think, between half a kilometer to over one kilometer. I don't remember precisely so I don't want to say, but it's at a reasonable distance. This hill, this point that is strategic, the reason it is so important is that anyone occupying it can easily fire at Israel, as well as controlling the westward direction towards Gaza City. Anyone on the top of that hill sees both the sea on one side and the Israeli border on the other. So that is how strategic this spot is.
…Each company was assigned a certain designated area. With time, I mean every two days, or three days, it would be moved up. Meaning we came from below and began to climb that hill I mentioned. Every time there would be some advance made. We wanted to control the area, too, while advancing. We kept wanting to move because we were threatened, but there was also constant destruction. In my own experience, having spent over two years in the Gaza Strip in the days of Gush Katif before the disengagement, during the Second Intifada, I never knew such fire power. They were using every weapon I know, at least. This means they were demolishing houses with bulldozers of course, who were working very hard, but also with artillery, helicopters, tanks, air planes, mortars. And naturally special units of the Corps of Engineers, who perform regulated blasting of houses as it were. There were constant explosions and we could no longer differentiate between tanks and artillery that we heard from the border, for we were relatively close to the border. We heard the firing from the border and the explosions in the Strip. There was constant destruction. I can't say whether every house I saw was ruined for the first reason I mentioned, namely on operational grounds, some incrimination or another, or for the sake of 'the day after.' What I do know is that a soldier who took a position and was designated a certain area, let's say 130 degrees for which he was answerable, the way this area was defined was usually from this house, let's say, the house with the red roof to that house with the arches. These boundaries were changed on a daily basis, at times even in shorter intervals. In other words, I get off my position and the boundaries are fixed one way, then when I got up again those boundaries are no longer relevant, for the house no longer stands. The right boundary of my designated area no longer exists. It's gone. So now my designated area has changed. It's deeper, or less deep. It's different. A tree was there, now it's no longer seen. The boundaries keep changing and that's what kept happening, not once, not twice, not three times. It was actually routine.

 
When your company occupied houses, there was no fighting going on in your area, right?
No, usually we did not see a living soul. Except for our soldiers of course. Not a soul. The first time we saw Palestinians was several hours after the ceasefire. After the ceasefire was declared. Then, at a distance of about one kilometer, we saw several people moving around in an orchard. But besides them we saw no one. There were cases of mortar shelling in our direction. There were occasions when snipers took shots at us, but visually there was nothing. It is important to stress that on the other hand, it was obvious to us that there were terrorists in the area. That is clear, too.

While your company is present, there are demolitions going on in your designated area?
Sure… I was talking about what took place in our own area. I remember a house that was shelled by an 81mm mortar which is something I had never witnessed before. Except for maneuvers at Tze'elim (training base), and that too was 'dry.' I never saw any use, certainly not operational, in urban warfare, of 81mm mortars. I never realized there was such an intention. 81mm mortar has a high arcing ballistic trajectory, meaning it fires indirectly. When I fire my weapon I am aiming directly at a target. I mark my target and shoot. I mean, I can fire over a hill, hit something indirectly. The great disadvantage of this kind of fire, however, is that it is less precise. The mortar is a weapon that wreaks great damage and is imprecise. The smaller mortars are still very harmful and less precise than artillery, let's say, which I think, from what I've heard, is a bit more precise. But they cause a lot more damage. Much greater damage. In fact, the 81mm mortar is a rather primitive weapon. A mortar is not much more than a pipe that fires a shell that is fed into it. This is rather primitive. And it's best righting means is by correcting its hit. In other words, you see where it hit and say, okay, correct 2 cm. to the right, 3 cm. to the left. Eventually you hit the target. I was so surprised, we know it's so imprecise and still make operational use of it.

Was there much use made of 81mm mortars in your area?
At least twice or three times out of my own outpost, and a series of bursts each time. In other words, not a single shell but several. I'll say, even if prematurely, that I have the feeling the army was trying out something for real here. There was no need for such intense fire, no need to use mortars, phosphorus ammunition. Others as well as myself have a certain feeling that the army was looking for the opportunity to hold a spectacular maneuver in order to show its muscle. This is the only reasoning I can see for using mortars operationally in urban warfare. Nothing else to my mind can justify this. Nor is this any justification, naturally.

…The day after?
That's something we didn't really understand, we didn't quite know the meaning of it. In a way, we got the rationale. I explained this – the army wants us to have that advantage when we leave. But it created certain confusion, it blurred things. I mean, you see a house, so what do you do? How? I felt the orders here were somewhat amorphous. I could say that in a personal talk with my battalion commander he mentioned this and said in a sort of sad half-smile, I think, that this is something that will eventually be added to 'my war crimes.' Meaning that he realized there was a certain problem about this. I know that this order was carried out in practice, for some of the houses that were demolished had not been incriminated. There was even a certain barn there that was blasted. Houses that stood there, harmless, and were demolished in various ways and modes. This was a general framework for destruction. That was my own feeling, but again – it's a feeling. I only know with certainty that destruction took place, in different ways and by various means.

You had served in Gaza for years, was this destruction in any way similar to what you'd known before?
No, no way. This was on a totally different scale. This was fire-power such as I had never known. I can't say that when I had been in Gaza the airforce wasn't used. But no, the ground was not constantly shaking. I mean, there were blasts all the time. Whether distant or near, that's already semantics. But our basic feeling was that the earth was constantly shaking. Explosions were heard all day long, the night was filled with flashes, an intensity we had never experienced before. Several D-9 bulldozers were operating around the clock, constantly busy. This was a very different scale of intensity than we had known. Much greater… Look, when we were fired at, we did not actually see the enemy with our own eyes. On the other hand, we were fired at and we fired back towards suspect spots. What is a suspect spot? It means you decided it was suspect and could take out all your rage at it.

There was an alert about a woman suicide bomber, and as a result of this alert the instructions were stricter: not to let civilians get close to soldiers. If one does, he is taken down. We're not to take risks in this respect.

Was suspect-arrest procedure practiced before taking them down?
In the clear situation then yes, and if the person would still approach, he would be taken down, regardless whether armed or not. The point was the close approach. Usually we tried not to be in any contact with civilians. If there were people in the house, we had no choice. But the point was not to come in any contact with them. Because we had capacities, the point was to concentrate on our things and disconnect as quickly as possible. On the morning of the third day, there was a certain house about 300 meters from our own line – which would be an unstable range both day and night. At night, it's the houses where our forces go in and out – so 300 meters from our house people were detected moving. In the morning we detected four men, ages 25 to 40, with keffiyehs, standing outside and talking. It was suspect. We reported to intelligence, specifying the house they were about to enter. Intelligence passed this on to the Shabak who answered that this was known as a Hamas activist's house. This automatically gets acted upon. I don't remember what was used, whether helicopter or ***, but the house was bombed while these guys were inside. A woman came out, holding a child, and escaped southward. In other words, there had been people inside, but as for the procedures, I think things went according to the rules: there was identification along the standard definitions, it was close range from our own forces, within which anyone detected as suspect gets acted upon as soon as the Shabak okayed it.

Were they armed?
No. The report specified that they were unarmed. But that's not the point. The point is that four men standing outside that house conferring look suspect.

And that takes place 300 meters from our forces?
200-300 meters. And it's on a hill. Our forces are downhill, and they're standing above, say two-thirds of the way up.

What was the objective of this operation?
It was very clearly defined: to gain control of the area, there would be no Qassam fire while we were on the ground; aiming to strike a real blow at Hamas, to the terrorist organizations in general.

How are you situated to begin with, are there secondary defense positions? Houses?
My own company, of our battalion, goes in first. We wait for two of the battalions to occupy their objectives, they finish, then we follow.

The targets are fields?
No. A neighborhood. Not quite a kasbah, but residential.

Is it a rural area?
Yes. City outskirts. We're situated facing a main road. The whole cover thing starts, massive fire, auxiliary fire, and then my company goes in. We hold the line of houses across the road, following heavy fire. At the first phase, we open fire in every zone.

What do you see in front of you? What does this zone contain?
The company's designated area includes a strip adjacent to the houses. There's no resistance to speak of. Some explosives are found in a house, weapons, significant stuff like that, but no real resistance. Behind there's another strip of gardens and small orchards, fields.

You go into every house?
Yes.

…You go in, reinforced by mortar fire, heavy equipment, machine guns and all?
First of all, going in we have artillery and air force cover, combat helicopters, everything. And mortars too.

So you position yourselves and then what? Begin a sleep cycle and move on?
Begin setting up defenses. Sand bags, drill shooting holes in the walls, build up outposts, plan the defense of the house. At the end of the day the platoons are set up in the houses. Each house becomes a small army outpost with positions, and we rotate.

What missions are sent out?
No significant missions came out of the house. Days afterwards, for example, every time we'd move houses, we'd fire on the houses around, on every zone we'd enter. We'd move houses and set up anew, platoons would change around, it's not such an insane change. I happened to stay in two or three houses in our ten days there.

Did you see any people in the neighborhood, at all?
Yes. These are the outskirts of Gaza City, not a village. At first there were civilians in the houses we entered. In the first house that was taken, there was a family which we assembled in one room, and after an hour or two, that same morning, we were instructed to make them leave and walk into the city.

The 120mm Mortar (a type of mortar shell fired by the IDF in Gaza) is a relatively new system which Giv'ati does not yet possess.

What was the old one like?
The old one had wheels to turn. It takes half an hour to get a shell out. In the new system the computer does the whole calibration process. I have a map, an aerial photo. A code map. I am given a reference point. I click it into the computer. It's a touch screen. I have a keyboard. I click the reference point. It shows me where it is on the map. I press, the mortar is aimed and my subordinate simply fires.

How accurate is it?
Highly accurate. 95-100%.

What's a hit?
I don't remember the hit radius, if it's 30m over 50m, or 50m over 75m for two bombs. Don't recall it.

Do you remember what the killing or wounding ranges are of this thing?
Several dozen meters. It's a very targeted thing. There's chances of shrapnel but…

The question is what you mean by targeted.
If it hits it can create a hole the size of a dish and scatter shrapnel all around.

What are the targets?
Most of the time, they were open spaces. Once I was allowed to fire and I realized it was really inside a neighborhood. Houses. Then I finally understood. Most of the time we were firing at launcher crews in open spaces, but it didn't take much to aim at schools, hospitals and such. So I see I'm firing literally into a built-up area. I don't know to what degree it was still inhabited because the army made considerable attempts to get people to leave, but I understand that…

Did you hesitate while pulling the trigger, or did you ask again?
I don't know about hesitating… It feels terrible that we fired there. But we'd always get a phone call about the results of our hits. We were not told we had killed innocents, but we were told we hit three launcher crews. I don't know how many men are in each crew. But we killed the bad guys and the head of the Hamas high-arc ballistics section, so yes, you're proud of yourself and your abilities. You feel like a Defense Force. We are hitting innocents and our artillery fire there was insane, but on the other hand you hear about shooting out of Gaza and you return fire immediately.
What's an insane amount of artillery?
Ten of our bombs for every one of theirs.

Every time they fire, you fire ten rounds at the same spot. Isn't one enough?
Scattering.

What do you mean?
They fall next to each other, that's also part of the calculation – two shells falling together expand the hit radius. Also, I suppose part of the consideration in both open and built up areas is the tunnels. The first shell hits the floor, the third might penetrate.

But what do you mean by scattering? Do you never fire a single shell alone?
No. About three at a time. It is, after all, a large grenade, and you need to launch several in order to hit.

And they don't all hit the same spot, is that the scattering effect?
Exactly.

… All the targets you fired at, was that strictly in response to their firing at Israel?
Or to bombard places before entry.

In general, they fire into Israel, their spot is located, you return fire, and usually into open spaces?
There were days we fired only into built-up areas, inside Gaza City itself.

How is open space defined?
According to what I saw on the map, no houses. Empty.

You see aerial photos?
We saw aerial photos only some of the time. The computers were updated. Part was on maps, part on aerial photos. I don't remember exactly.

… You said you do a 'security funnel' check?
Yes.

What is that, a security funnel?
It means our forces are not present in the area. Our computers are not really updated about every IDF action. So the check was made for us before we received our reference point.

So what is a security funnel for our own forces?
300 meters under fire. Something like that. A scattering and a last bomb. Then the area is approachable.

Were such security funnels also considered for Palestinians, or was that not relevant?
Civilians? If it's open spaces, I suppose there were not many Palestinians at that time. As for identification areas, that’s already about the instructions they received to evacuate their homes.

So how much do you estimate you fired altogether?
Upwards of 620 shells. It's written somewhere in the briefing. We evaluated all our hits, all the good things and bad things as well as the number of shells fired.

All explosive?
Yes. I can send you pictures, some of them funny.

… When did you fire for softening the resistance?
Most of the time firing was for softening resistance I think. I don't know quite how to distinguish it. We simply received orders. If we hit terrorists, then I guess that was the purpose. But if we are told that IDF is supposed to go in at night – we take this to mean firing to soften resistance. But we are not told prior to opening fire each time.