Testimony: "It's a question of mood, how the commander shows up"
Name: | Anonymous |
Rank: | First Sergeant |
Unit: | Nahal, 50th Battalion |
Location: | Ramallah, West Bank |
Date: | 2015 |
A former Israeli soldier provides a testimony to Breaking the Silence describing night raids on Palestinian homes in the occupied West Bank.
Interviewer: Can soldiers decide what the arrest will look like?
Soldier: Really, really. It could look like two completely different pictures. Like, an arrest is an arrest [but] it can be a polite, reasonable thing that happens or it can be a barbaric incident, regardless of the situation.
Interviewer: What are the variables? What would turn it into one or the other?
Soldier: The mood. In riots, in arrests, or various other kinds of entries into homes, it’s a question of mood, how the commander shows up, whether he’s in a combative mood that day or shows up in a good mood. It changes the picture for everyone taking part in the arrest.
Interviewer: And how does that apply in practice?
Soldier: In the house he can decide to turn everything upside down without us searching for anything. Go into a room: take everything out of the closet.
Interviewer: Are you saying that because it happened?
Soldier: Yes, yes, sure, sure. There was an arrest when we went into a home, we arrived in a very combative mood, right away neutralize the father, get rid of the mother, their son wasn’t at home, he probably went to pray or something.