Soldier: 'Neighbor procedure’ is used when an arrest mission takes place and usually a neighbor, a resident of the neighboring house, is summoned and required to enter the wanted person’s home and call its inhabitants to come outside.

 

Interviewer: That’s what you called it, 'neighbor procedure?’

 

Soldier: Yes. At the briefings we were simply told to order a neighbor out.

 

Interviewer: Who gave those briefings?

 

Soldier: The unit commander. Anyway, in other instances neighbors were required to enter a house after its inhabitants got out, to make sure no one stayed inside. There are many problems with this procedure beyond the fact that had been a ruling made by the High Court of Justice in November 2002 or a bit earlier against using the procedure. I remember this because it was a short while before I was recruited. The ruling was brought about after a big to-do about some arrest mission where the neighbor was killed – the Palestinians from the wanted man’s house had killed their neighbor - so this procedure was outlawed completely. Besides being illegal, at times use was made of women and children for this purpose. Children.

 

Interviewer: Do you recall a specific instance?

 

Soldier: Yes. I think it was in TulKarm. There was a rather complex structure of several multi-storey houses. We got all the people out. No one was the wanted person. We feared he was still there, inside. So at first neighbors were used, then some kid. Bilal, I even recall his name. I remember because I got very angry over this. And they kept sending him into that house to check that no one was inside, open all the doors, turn on all the lights, open all the windows.

 

Interviewer: Who decided to send him in?

 

Soldier: I don’t know – I suppose it was our unit commander – but usually commanders wouldn’t assign me to the team carrying out the mission, they knew my views on the subject quite well. I mean, there was some briefing: before an operation where I was squad commander, they used to say, **’s squad will go here and get a neighbor out. I approached my own squad commander and said: 'Listen, I don’t know the unit commander’s view on this, I’m not going to do this. I will not handle this business of 'neighbor procedure’, both because I object to it personally, and because it is against the law.

 

Interviewer: And what were you told?

 

Soldier: My own squad commander said: 'No problem. Don’t do anything you aren’t comfortable with.

 

Interviewer: What did he say about it being against the law?

 

Soldier: They know it is, and still they – I quote the unit commander – 'I know it’s illegal, and I am willing to have that neighbor killed, that mother, that woman, so that none of my men will be killed entering that house.’ He cited examples of missions where a wanted man locked himself in, and several times the army tracking dog was sent in and did not detect him, and several times the mother was sent in to open doors and shed did, and every time the dog went in and found nothing. There was a squad there that noticed shed didn’t open a certain door on the roof every time, and forced her to open that door. The guy was really there and the next time the dog went up, he killed the army dog. The commander gave this example because in his opinion he had saved the life of one of the combatants and he was willing to risk lives [of Palestinians] over this. Unlike him, the battalion commander told me … Before my talk with him, I got a copy of the 'neighbor procedure’. At the time it was accepted by the court under a lot of conditions. I got hold of these conditions and studied them beforehand, and told him: 'Here and here and here we don’t carry it out properly.’ Meaning, soldiers had used children and women, and that means their participation was not always based on their willingness. Sometimes those neighbors were threatened, coerced, etc.

 

Interviewer: What kinds of threats?

 

Soldier: 'We’ll arrest you, too.’ Things like that. No physical violence threats. Arrests, stuff like that., let’s say harassment.

 

Interviewer: You approach someone and say: 'Come with me.’ He answers: 'I don’t want to?’

 

Soldier: No one said they wouldn’t. When you knock on someone’s door in the middle of the night with your gun pointing in his face and shining your light into his eyes and tell him to strip, turn around, check that he is not armed, and then begin to ask him who lives here, who lives there, go here – he will not say he is not willing. But when later the person says: 'I don’t know, and this and that,’ and you think he’s selling you short, I’ve heard guys answer him: 'Too bad, we’ll pick you up, too.’ There were all kinds of things like this. And the battalion commander claimed it was legal. He has a law degree. He claimed it’s legal and we began to discuss the conditions and stuff, and he said: 'In some instances you’re right, and we do have to fix things.’ Indeed that night of my discussion with him in Jenin, again children were sent in to do it. So a request was sent out on a radio that this time no one use neighbor procedure at all. I know that a very large-scale action was planned for that day, and right after my discussion with the battalion commander, all the commanders of all the battalion units were summoned for a talk with him. The first thing he did was to brief them on clarifying 'neighbor procedure’ – that permission should be requested, and that women and children should not be used. So on that day, everything still worked out ok. The next night, we entered Jenin again, and again a boy and a woman was used. After a few times, I heard over the radio that no one was supposed to send women or children into such a house, only adult men and only with the permission of the commander on the ground. So those were the changes. Although I know that later there were cases of 'neighbor procedure,’ I don’t know whether with children or not, but I’m also sure that today this is still done.