When Israeli soldiers meet Palestinian children

[Little Tich]

Source: Times of Israel Blog
By Marc Goldberg

They threw stones and glass bottles at us, we fired rubber bullets and threw gas and stun grenades back at them. So the running battles of Qussra were conducted. Usually around the time school ended.

It was Summer 2004 when I was posted to the area near Nablus that included the small village. By night we would go into Nablus and make arrests and get into occasional brief firefights, by day we would spend eight hour shifts driving through the area in a humvee. Everyone knew that when things got too boring we could just drive into Qussra in the hope that there would be some stones and bottles thrown, giving us the chance to break out the riot gear and really get stuck in.

It was a game and the game had rules:

1. Never fire the first shot

2. Never use live fire…unless calling a timeout

3. Never leave the close proximity of your own vehicle, never be alone

4. Never meet the enemy up close

5. Never get filmed by the media

Not firing the first shot was simple, we just rolled around town poking into every nook and cranny until we felt the first impact on the car, then we broke out with the stun grenades. Live fire was pointless, we weren’t there to kill people, we were there to play.

Read more: http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/when-israeli-soldiers-meet-palestinian-children/