A recent report by the Associated Press who explained the “systematic” use of the Palestinians of the Israeli army, because human shields highlighted an illegal practice which became commonplace during the 19 -month war in Gaza and parallel offensives in the West Bank.
The report, published on Saturday, presented the testimonies of seven Palestinians who had been used as human shields in Gaza as well as the occupied West Bank, with two Israeli military officers confirming the omnipresence of practice, which is considered a violation of international law.
Responding to allegations, the Israeli army told the news agency that the use of civilians as shields in its operations was strictly prohibited and that several cases were the subject of an investigation.
So what are human shields? To what extent were they used by the Israeli army? And is Israel likely to launch a repression of any time?
What are human shields and how did Israel use them?
Under International Humanitarian Law (DIH), the term “human shields” refers to the use of civilians or other protected persons, whether voluntary or involuntary, in order to protect military targets from attacks.
The use of human shields in the war is prohibited under the DIH, but Israeli soldiers used it during the Gaza genocide.
Earlier this year, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz published the first -hand testimony of an Israeli soldier who said that the practice had been used “six times a day” in his unit and that she was actually “normalized” in the military ranks.
In August, the newspaper revealed that the Palestinians used as human shields in Gaza tended to be in their twenties and were used for periods of up to a week by units, which were proud to “locate” the prisoners to send tunnel wells and buildings.
“This is part of military culture (of Israel),” said Nicola Perugini, co-author of Human Shields: a History of People in Aline of Fire, noting the “huge archives” of the evidence provided, not only by human rights groups, but also by soldiers, who were until recently published Palestinian evidence.
“Israeli army surveys have proven during decades as non-investigations,” said Perugini, noting that the documentation of practice, prohibited by Protocol 1 to Geneva conventions, began during the second intifada in the early 2000s.
“What we now have in live genocide is the most documented archive of human shielding in the history of the different wars between Israel and the Palestinians,” he said.
“What we discovered is precisely that it is a systematic practice.”
How did Israel respond to allegations?
Throughout the conflict, the Israeli army’s response to allegations was to suspend comments, report a lack of details or, faced with undeniable evidence, to announce an investigation.
Last year, Israel refused to respond to a range of allegations presented to it by the investigation unit of Tel Aviv Tribune, which examined thousands of photos and videos – most published online by Israeli soldiers – and testimonies pointing towards a certain number of potential war crimes, including the use of human shields.
Among the atrocities revealed by the team in the resulting documentary, there was the case of Jamal Abu al-Ola, an inmate forced to act as a messenger by the Israelis. Images have shown that the young man dressed in a white danger costume, with linked hands and the head wrapped in a yellow cloth, saying to the displaced people from the Nasser hospital in Khan Younis to evacuate. His mother followed him and witnessed him to be killed by a sniper.
Commenting on the documentary case, Rodney Dixon, an expert in international law, said that Al-Ola had been used as a “military asset”, which was “in many ways the definition of the use of people as a human shield”.
This year, the soldiers postponed calls to investigate a report on an 80 -year -old man forced to act as a human shield in Gaza City, saying that “additional details” were necessary.
The joint report of the Israeli outing of the hottest place in hell and the +972 magazine has revealed a new horrible dimension of the so-called “mosquito procedure”, with anonymous Israeli soldiers telling that a higher officer had placed an explosive cord around the man’s neck, threatening to pour out if he had made a mistake.
Ordered subsequently to flee his house in the Zeitoun district of Gaza City, the man was killed with his wife by another battalion.
However, the military will recognize violations in the face of undeniable evidence causing a general indicator, such as last year’s video, the injured Palestinian, Mujahed Azmi, attached to the hood of an army jeep during a raid in the city of Jenin in the West West West.
This particular case was described as a “human shielding in action” by Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur in the occupied Palestinian territory.
In a statement, the Israeli army said that its forces had been dismissed and exchanged in fire, injuring a suspect and apprehending it. He added that the “conduct of forces in the video” was not “in conformity with the values” of the military and that the incident would be studied.
However, as Pérugini observes, the reason even for which the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, for alleged war crimes in Gaza, it is because legal experts doubt Israel’s ability to investigate himself.
Who delivers orders to use human shields?
Despite vast evidence, the question of whether the military launched a repression aimed at banning apparently systematic practice is theoretical. Even thus, the pressure for responsibility increases.
Rights defense groups say that the practice of the use of human shields takes place in the Palestinian territories occupied for decades. Breaking the Silence, a group of denunciation, collecting testimonies of former Israeli soldiers, cites evidence of what a high -ranking officer posted in Bethlehem in the West Bank occupied in 2002, called “neighboring procedure”.
“You order a Palestinian to accompany yourself and to open the door of the house in which you want to enter, knock on the door and ask to enter, with a very simple goal: if the door explodes, a Palestinian will be exploded and the soldiers will not be exploded,” said the officer, classified as adult.
In 2005, a decision of the Israeli Supreme Court explicitly prohibited practice. Five years later, two soldiers were found guilty of having used a nine-year-old boy as a human shield to check the suspicious traps in the suburbs of Tal al-Hawa.
It was the first condemnation of this type in Israel.
But the use by human shield soldiers seems to have been standardized since then, especially in the last 19 months of war in Gaza.
Indeed, there are indications that orders can come from the top.
Haaretz’s investigation from last August quoted sources saying that former chief of staff Herzi Halevi was among the higher officers because of the use of Palestinians in Gaza as human shields.
And the report of this week of the PA cited an anonymous Israeli officer saying that the practice had become omnipresent by mid-2004 in Gaza, each infantry unit using a Palestinian to clean the houses when he finished his service, and with the orders “to bring a mosquito” often issued by radio.
The report also cited an anonymous Israeli sergeant saying that his unit had tried to refuse to use human shields in Gaza in 2024, but he was told that they had no choice, a high -ranking officer telling them that they should not care about international humanitarian law.
Responding to complaints in the AP report, the Israeli army said on Sunday in Jerusalem Post that it would investigate the complaints “if additional details were provided”.
“In several cases, investigations in the Criminal Police Criminal Surveys were opened following suspicions that the soldiers implied Palestinians in military missions. These surveys are underway, and of course, no other details can be provided at that time, “he said.
In March, Haaretz reported that Israeli military police were investigating in six cases in which Israeli soldiers would have used Palestinians as human shields after the publication of the Red Cross report earlier in the year that highlighted the abuses.
Faced with growing evidence that Palestinians are systematically used as fodder for the Israeli military machine, in a war that has already killed more than 54,000 people, the military can find it more and more difficulty in kicking the biggest box of all time.
Perugini said: “When you are in a genocide, human shielding becomes a tool for something else. He is part of another type of crime, crime of crimes.”