Israeli Soldier Use Palestinian Civilians as Human Shields in Gaza
Israeli forces are said to be employing the Palestinian noncombatants as ‘human shields’ while approaching and demining the tunnels and buildings in the Gaza Strip, as has been indicated by an Israeli-founded non-governmental organization and a broadsheet.
It is not clear how prevalent this procedure has been in different military formations in Gaza; however, Nadav Weiman, the executive director of Breaking the Silence, a group of IDF veterans that records and documents abuses by Israeli armed forces, stated that it seems to have turned into an ‘informal protocol.’
Warbling the Silence has collected statements from Gaza veterans of the now-persistent 10-month fighting about how civilians are kidnapped, put in Israeli army uniforms, and paraded into hazardous zones. Such accounts are consistent with Haaretz’s expose that even the chief of staff’s office was privy to such practices. In the Haaretz report, one source quoted said that senior military officials are aware of the practice, and the soldiers are told: “Our lives are more important than their lives.”
These civilian human shields have been called “shawish,” an informal slang used by the Israeli soldiers that means lower-ranked soldier. These civilians, most of whom are young men, are usually stripped naked, their hands are tied behind their backs, and they are provided with camcorders before being led into tunnels and broken-down structures. For instance, one of the soldiers recalled that the Palestinians who accompanied them were told that they would be free to go once they helped with a single operation.
Video documenting Palestinians, including some in IDF uniform, being used in this manner was shot and aired by Al Jazeera in July. When the Breaking the Silence organization started receiving testimonies, it was convinced they were unique cases. Yet, when similar testimonies from different units of the Gaza Strip appeared, they became more credible.
The concerns as to the legalities of using civilians as shields have been expressed time and again by many soldiers, although the using of civilians as human shields is both international and Israeli unlawfulness. Also, in 2005, the Supreme Court of Israel put a halt to the policy of using Palestinians as human shields following a petition against the military’s “neighbor procedure” in the West Bank whereby civilians were forced to lead soldiers during raids on houses.
There are also internal debates in the Israeli military about the use of human shields, which Haaretz sometimes covered, showing that more people in the military were not completely ignorant of the ethical and legal implications of their actions. The IDF has firmly declared that taking human shields is forbidden and assured that clarification of orders has been made to the troops, as the Israeli authorities will investigate the Haaretz report.
Discussions about the IDF’s employing of civilian human shields are growing amidst the continuing debate on Israel’s military operations in Gaza, where civilian infrastructure such as schools and hospitals have been targeted on the grounds that Hamas uses such facilities and the people in them as shields. Groups such as Breaking the Silence by Nadav Weiman thanked me for such claims, which, as he was quick to note, are hypocritical given that Israeli forces are doing the same.
