After we got out of there, we had a talk with our unit commander. All kinds of things came up and professional issues were also addressed. Some people said that the crew was not sufficiently prepared, and they also brought up moral issues that troubled them such as using civilians. He denied this, but I don't believe him when he says he's not aware of this happening on the ground. This procedure of using civilians exists, he knows about this. 'Neighbor procedure' is an official army procedure; it's just not called that any longer. The brigade commander was on the ground the whole time. He even came to visit us one day. An official army procedure means army instructions.

How do you feel about what went on there?
Personally I'm unhappy about it. I do my own thinking. I don't think I'd be willing to go again, I certainly don't intend to serve in the Occupied Territories any longer, for several reasons. I don't know what I'd do in a similar situation in the future. I'm certain I won't hurry out there again.

What kind of feeling do you have?
Personally, I'm not feeling good, I'm not identifying with it. There's a general atmosphere of mobilization behind these things that I find extremely dangerous. My personal feeling about having been there and taken part in it is very uneasy. There's a general feeling, there was some talk about it when we were inside, but I also think outside, talk of us not having a choice. Anything we did there, we'd answer ourselves: there's no other choice, but this is how we shirk our responsibility. You bring yourself to this kind of deterministic situation, a moment that not I have chosen, where I no longer have any responsibility for my own actions. Even if eventually your choice is the right one, you must admit you chose it. You had another option. You always have another option. You have to admit you chose to go into Gaza. As soon as you did, you've brought people into a moral twilight-zone, you've forced them to handle dilemmas and part of that confrontation failed. About things I know and have witnessed myself, too, I know they're a 'gray area' morally. You can insist on saying they are wrong and you could also say that there were certainly more extreme events, and these were bad choices, and that people were forced to make those bad choices by having to face such situations. As soon as you say "there is no other choice," you're immediately shirking your responsibility. Then you don't need to investigate, to look into things. That was my feeling about it then, and still is today.

It was the first week of the war, fighting was intense, there were explosive charges to expose, tunnels in open spaces and armed men inside houses. Warfare was slow and basically a very small area was occupied. Every unit, every force had a rather small designated area of several dozen houses only, which they had to take over, and that took a whole week. That is warfare and that took a whole week. They really moved slowly. Close in on each house. The method used has a new name now - no longer 'neighbor procedure.' Now people are called 'Johnnie.' They're Palestinian civilians, and they're called Johnnies and there were civilians there who stayed in spite of the flyers the army distributed before it went in. Most people did leave, but some civilians stayed to watch over the houses. Perhaps they had nowhere else to go. Later we saw people there who could not walk, some simply stayed to keep watch. To every house we close in on, we send the neighbor in, 'the Johnnie,' and if there are armed men inside, we start, like working the 'pressure cooker' in the West Bank.

Every unit is familiar with a different kind of 'pressure cooker' practice. What do you mean by it?
I'm not sure either about the 'pressure cooker' procedures there, they could be different. Essentially the point was to get them out alive, go in, to catch the armed men. There weren't many encounters. Just a few. In one case, our men tried to get them to come out, then they opened fire, fired some anti-tank missiles at the house and at some point brought out a D-9, combat helicopters. There were three armed men inside. The helicopters fired anti-tank missiles and again the neighbor was sent in. At first he told them that nothing had happened to them yet, they were still in there. Again helicopters were summoned and fired, I don't know at what stage of escalation (in the use of force). The neighbor was sent in once again. He said that two were dead and one was still alive, so a D-9 was brought and started demolishing the house over him until the neighbor went in, the last armed man came out and was caught and passed on to the Shabak… The commanders tell what they saw and make sure we know how things work on the inside. They also talked about things that bothered them. They said that civilians were used to a greater extent than just sending them into houses. For example, some of them were made to smash walls with 5 kilo hammers. There was a wall around a yard where the force didn't want to use the gate, it needed an alternative opening for fear of booby-traps or any other device. So the "Johnnies" themselves were required to bang open another hole with a hammer. Talking of such things, by the way, there was a story published by Amira Hass in Haaretz daily newspaper, about Jebalya where a guy tells exactly the same thing. It's the guy who was sent. I saw him afterwards, the guy who was made to go into that house three times. He also told us about being given hammers to break walls.

So you say that, from your own experience, there's truth in these publications.
Yes. It was ludicrous to read it and then hear the response of the army spokesperson that the matter was investigated and there are no testimonies on the ground and that the Israeli army is a moral army. It raises doubts about the army spokesperson's responses in general when you know for a fact that these things actually did take place… Sometimes the force would enter while placing rifle barrels on a civilian's shoulder, advancing into a house and using him as a human shield. Commanders said these were the instructions and we had to do it… Anyway, at the concluding debriefing, he (the unit commander) said he didn't know about these things, and the guys, commanders who had been there the first week, said they saw civilians being assigned to break walls and enter with rifle barrels on their shoulders. He said he didn't know this and would look into it. I think nothing substantial had been done about it, I'm also in touch with one of the officers there at present and I don't know if an investigation was made and nothing was found or that nothing was cleared up. Several weeks later, the story came out in the paper about these exact incidents, where they were given hammers to break walls, in our area, this I can say with certainty.