GAZA, (PIC)
An Israeli investigation disclosed that Israeli soldiers used an 80-year-old man and his wife as human shields in the Gaza Strip and then executed them. The Israeli digital magazine “972+” reported that the soldiers wrapped explosives around the neck of the elderly Palestinian man and forced him to explore buildings for 8 hours. After releasing him, another military unit shot him dead.
“972+” cited the Israeli investigative magazine “The Hottest Place in Hell,” stating that a senior officer in the Nahal Brigade—whose name was not disclosed—wrapped explosives around the man’s neck to use him as a human shield and ordered him to explore abandoned homes, threatening to blow his head off.
After the man fulfilled his purpose, the soldiers ordered him to flee with his wife toward southern Gaza Strip. However, when another battalion spotted them, they opened fire, killing them immediately, according to the Israeli magazine.
Soldiers at the scene reported that this incident occurred in May, 2024, in the al-Zeitoun neighborhood southeast of Gaza City. The investigative magazine recounted that the soldiers were searching homes in the area when they encountered the elderly couple, who informed the soldiers, speaking Arabic, that they could not escape to southern Gaza due to mobility issues. Their children had already left, and the man needed a cane to walk.
One soldier mentioned that their commander “decided at that moment to use them like mosquitoes,” referring to a recently revealed practice where the army forces Palestinian civilians in combat zones to act as human shields to protect soldiers from gunfire.
The soldiers claimed the elderly man carried out his task for 8 hours, then ordered him and his wife to walk southward into the Gaza Strip. According to testimonies they provided, the magazine alleged that the soldiers did not inform nearby Israeli military units that an elderly couple was about to cross through the area.
This was not the only incident where Palestinian civilians were used as human shields; the digital magazine noted another case in which the Nahal Brigade also killed a Palestinian who had received permission to stay in a building with the soldiers. He was shot by an Israeli military commander who had not been informed of his presence, according to the magazine.
