GAZA, (PIC)
International reports and documented evidence show that the use of Palestinian civilians as human shields by Israeli occupation forces (IOF) to protect soldiers or Israeli equipment is not an isolated incident. Instead, it is a repeated and systematic policy, constituting a blatant violation of international and humanitarian laws.
Since 2005, the occupation army has used Palestinian civilians as human shields as part of its official policy, ordering them to carry out military tasks that pose real risks to their lives.
In Jenin, soldiers from the occupation army were seen tying a wounded Palestinian youth to the hood of a military jeep as a human shield during a raid in the northern West Bank city of Tulkarem. Activists on social media circulated an image a few days ago showing occupation forces using a young man as a human shield while besieging a house in Azbat al-Jarad in Tulkarm.
The ongoing war on Gaza has documented numerous instances, captured in photos and videos, revealing this policy, which is classified as a war crime under the Geneva Conventions, warranting accountability for those responsible before international courts.
In early July, Al Jazeera published images showing the IOF using Palestinian prisoners as human shields during ongoing battles in Gaza. The footage shows a prisoner being forced to enter and inspect a tunnel after being tied with ropes, with a camera fixed to his body and given flashlights.
Other scenes show another injured prisoner, his body bloodied, naked, and barefoot, being used as a human shield along with another prisoner with a camera fixed to his body. They were forced to enter a destroyed building where the bodies of martyrs lay on the ground.
Further footage reveals two Palestinian prisoners used as human shields after being forced to wear Israeli military uniforms and search the rubble of destroyed homes for explosives and tunnels.
On the evening of June 27, the IOF documented a full-fledged crime against a civilian family consisting of an elderly mother and her four sons by storming their home in the Shuja’iyya neighborhood in eastern Gaza City, firing bullets and grenades at them, then detaining them near Israeli tanks in a dangerous combat zone, resulting in the mother’s death under a tank’s tracks in front of her son, according to a report by the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor.
On May 2, Al Jazeera aired breathtaking footage captured by an Israeli drone that had been shot down in Gaza in December 2023. The footage shows a Palestinian wandering the empty streets of Shuja’iyya, passing by the body of an unknown Palestinian, and then opening classroom doors (likely searching for prisoners or explosives) under close surveillance by a large Israeli drone and a smaller one following him like a shadow.
On May 5, footage documented the use of three Palestinian children as human shields during the army’s raid on the Tulkarem refugee camp. The army forced the children to walk in front of them in buildings and alleys of the camp, searching homes and ordering residents to leave. In two cases, soldiers placed their rifles on the shoulders of two children and fired shots.
On March 20, the army used Dr. Yahya Khalil Dib al-Kayali (59 years old) and several family members as human shields after storming their home, forcing them to stand on the balcony during an exchange of gunfire with militants in western Gaza City. During the army’s raid on the Al-Shifa Medical Complex in March, civilians, including patients and displaced persons, were used as human shields, exploited to fortify military operations inside the hospital, and sent under threat to surrounding homes and buildings to evacuate residents before the army raided and destroyed many of them.
A displaced Palestinian at the complex said the IOF ordered him and three other young men to enter several rooms inside the Al-Shifa Medical Complex after cameras were fixed to their heads, moving them by issuing remote commands to specific locations to check them out. A medical staffer’s wife reported that the army forced her to leave the complex alone towards Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, seeing her husband used as a human shield to open sections of the Al-Shifa Medical Complex for several continuous hours. She fears for her husband’s fate, suspecting he may have been killed.
The term “human shields” refers to a military and legal concept where a group of civilians or soldiers is used to protect sensitive sites during wartime (military centers, strategic facilities, dams, bridges) by placing them around these sites to create a moral dilemma for the enemy, preventing it from targeting the protected locations.
The concept extends to the indirect use of civilians as human shields, such as when one party conducts military operations from civilian sites like schools, hospitals, religious places, and residential neighborhoods, inevitably turning civilians into human shields.
Organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have previously published detailed reports exposing the Israeli army’s use of Palestinian civilians, including children and the elderly, as human shields during military operations to allow soldiers to establish strategic positions during clashes.
The Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions (Article 7) explicitly prohibits the use of human shields, especially prisoners. The 1929 Geneva Convention obliges the controlling party to evacuate its prisoners as quickly as possible and to keep them away from combat zones to prevent their use as human shields.
