What was it like, coming out of there?
What was it like? Going in, the atmosphere was 'gung-ho' and the whole country was behind us. While inside, all of that disappeared… Listen, coming out of there I did not feel any heroic elation or sacrifice, just that it was sickening and unglamorous and boring and stupid. People suffered. I didn't feel I had done anything significant. I still convinced myself that "Okay, I was in Gaza, I can tell the guys and I'm done."

And erase some of it.
Yes. There are all kinds of situations like the removal of families (from their homes), things that have to be done but are not comfortable to live with. During other patrols in the territories too, I had some difficult situations on the ground: arrests, checkpoints, searches. In that respect, Gaza was no different than many other places. It was not different. But again, I'm leaving there with the echoes of all that talk about how human life just becomes nothing.

So what are you left with?
How people are able to watch others die or suffer, how terribly easily you can grow indifferent to this.

Were you indifferent?
Yes, it's like you can turn yourself off. The guy's dead, let's move on.

Did this indifference scare you?
It didn't scare me, it was more of a 'warning signal.' What I saw and how I took it. It sobered me a bit.

You're saying it gave you new insights.
It taught me that even I can see such things and accept them. That I would not be haunted by nightmares. When I think about the whole situation logically, whether this is just or not, people are suffering.

But their suffering was far from you. Except for some specific cases.
Well, you just can't contain all the suffering that was there. Again, I'm not saying the operation was unjustified. I thought it was justified, I wanted to restore peace and quiet to the inhabitants of the South (of Israel). It is impossible to conceive of such an extent of suffering as that which we inflicted on Gaza, but…

 
Did you see this as you actually entered the city?
Yes. Imagine you're seeing, like you said, 'downtown Afula,' that's an excellent description. You see tanks shelling, a hole here, a hole there, a tank shell entering the wall of a building and the whole floor goes up in flames. It's kind of like WAR. I can't say it crazed me or anything but you know… I saw people suffering, I saw others responding to it and observed myself responding to it – and that is what I take with me in particular, how people can be indifferent to suffering or see it as trivial.

What bothered you most about this operation?
Bothered me? Many things. Firstly, all that destruction. All that fire at innocents. This shock of realizing with whom I'm in this together. My mates, really, and that's how they're behaving. It was simply amazing. Inconceivable. The price of all the draft dodging. You have all the radical lefties who don't enlist for some reason or another, or stay close to home, and this is what your combat units look like.

What disappointed you in the guys who were there with you? They're still your pals.
They're my pals, because there's no other way, I have to be friends with them. I don't have much choice. I live with them. But the hatred, and the joy of killing, no… "I killed a terrorist, whoa… We blew his head off…"

So the atmosphere there was laid back, no pressure, no reservations? There was nothing to hold the men back?
When your company commander and battalion commander tell you, "Go on, fire!" the soldiers will not hold back. They are waiting for this day, the fun of shooting and feeling all that power in your hands.

You were feeling it?
The way you feel with your finger on the trigger, where in one slight pull you can take down half a building. So yes, you feel it.

So you come back very disappointed?
Very. But I didn't have any other expectations. I don't kid myself. It's your army, after all. At the end of the day it's 60 nineteen-twenty year olds for whom vulgarity and violence is a way of life. It's not… There's nothing to hold you back. I wasn't too surprised.