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Home » Soldiers »

Testimony - "Standing at the roadblock for eight hours a day puts everyone under this endless pressure"

 

 Name:  Tal Wasser
 Rank:  Sergeant
 Unit:  Oketz (special canine forces)
 Location:  Nablus, West Bank
 Date:  2006-2009

 

A former Israeli soldier provides a testimony to Breaking the Silence in which she describes duty at a roadblock in the West Bank.

Standing at the roadblock for eight hours a day puts everyone under this endless pressure. Everyone's constantly yelling, constantly nervous, impatient … venting on the first Palestinian to cross your path. If a Palestinian annoys one of the soldiers, one of the things they'd do is throw him in the Jora, which is a small cell, like a clothing store dressing room. They close the metal door on him and that would be his punishment for annoying, for being bad.”
 
“Within all the pressure and the stress of the roadblock, the Palestinian would often be forgotten there. No one would remember that he put a Palestinian there, further emphasising the irrelevance and insignificance of the reason he was put there in the first place. Sometimes it was only after hours that they'd suddenly remember to let him out and continue the inspection at the roadblock.”