LONDON, (PIC)
The British newspaper The Guardian reported that Israeli occupation forces are accused of using a 10-year-old girl as a human shield during their attack on the Palestinian territories. This occurred during an incursion in which the occupation forces surrounded the commander of the Tulkarem Brigade, Mohammed Jaber, known as Abu Shuja, who was martyred along with four Palestinian resistance fighters.
The article, written by Julian Borger and Sufian Taha, opened with the experience of Malak Shihab (10 years old), who had soldiers remove their dog’s muzzle and direct it at her after they forced women and four children into the street and kept her inside.
The girl pleaded with the soldiers to let her stay with her mother, but the soldiers only had one phrase in Arabic: “Open the doors.” According to Malak’s account, the soldiers pushed her toward each door of her aunt’s house, remaining stationed behind her, ready to shoot anyone who might be inside.
Despite the occupation forces denying the incident and accusing the Shihab family of fabricating it, claiming it contradicts the army’s code of conduct, yet field evidence confirms the occupation army is committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.
This was the most terrifying experience Malak had during the Israeli raid, but it was not the first in her short life, as the Nur Shams camp in Tulkarem is known for its resistance spirit, led by the Tulkarem Brigade. On July 24, a scene similar to one documented on June 22 was repeated, showing occupation soldiers tying an injured Palestinian young man to the hood of a military jeep as a human shield during their incursion into a camp area in the Tulkarem governorate in northern West Bank.
The ongoing genocide against Gaza for the past 11 months has seen the occupation soldiers documenting in sound and video dozens of clips exposing this policy, classified under Geneva Conventions as war crimes that necessitate accountability for those responsible in international courts.
On June 30, the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor published data confirming that the occupation army repeatedly uses Palestinian civilians as human shields, a pattern that extends beyond the Gaza Strip, with many similar cases documented in the West Bank.
The Monitor said that these actions by the occupation represent a continuation of a policy long adopted by the occupation army, both during escalations and during repeated incursions in the West Bank.
Since 2005, the occupation army has used Palestinian civilians as human shields as part of its official policy, ordering them to carry out military operations that pose real dangers to their lives.
Organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have previously published several detailed reports exposing the Israeli occupation army’s use of Palestinian civilians, including children and the elderly, as human shields during military operations. This tactic allows soldiers to position themselves in strategic locations during clashes.
The raids on the Nur Shams camp in Tulkarem, as well as on the Jenin camp and the Faraa camp in Tubas, represent a brutal repetition of a pattern that has persisted for decades. Each time soldiers come in search of activists, they leave behind destruction and civilians suffering from psychological trauma before withdrawing.
On August 28, the occupation army launched a military operation in the northern West Bank that is considered the largest since 2002, with large forces invading the cities of Jenin and Tulkarem, along with their camps and the Faraa camp near Tubas, before withdrawing from the Faraa camp early Thursday and from Tulkarem later that same evening.
Coinciding with its aggression on the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023, the occupation expanded its operations in the West Bank while settlers intensified their assaults, resulting in the martyrdom of 676 Palestinians, including 150 children, and over 5,400 injuries, along with the arrest of more than 10,200 individuals, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
