Testimonies
Searching and Capturing of Houses
"what does it matter anyway?"
Rank: Lieutenant Unit: 932th redgiment of the Nahal brigade Place of incident: Jenin refugee camp Description: During combing activities in Jenin refugee camp during Homat Magen Operation we moved from house to house through walls of houses in order to protect our forces from the shooting in the streets.
Most walls were broken by hammer blows and in many cases we used explosives in order to make the initial hole in the wall.
On one occasion a soldier broke an inner wall between two neighboring houses. The wall was quite yielding and on it were loaded shelves. Although there was reason to hurry up and all the team was protected the shelves were not emptied and were destroyed with the wall. After the hole was big enough I went on with the force under my command into the next house. When I came back the soldier carrying the hammer returned with us. Right after we came through the hole he blew the TV set that was nearby with the hammer in his hand.
I reprimanded him and yelled: why did you do that?
His answer: what does it matter anyway?
At the end of the action I gave his name on to the company commander to be trialed and when he didn’t pass on the name to the battalion commander I did so myself. The battalion commander told me it was right to put him to trial but as so much time has already elapsed it would give the feeling of a scapegoat.
At that point I was already on duty with another company and didn’t pursue the matter any further.
It was about a month between the operation and my conversation with the battalion commander.
Searching and Capturing of Houses
Print
Back