#human shield

Over the past year and a half, there’s been a lot of talk of “human shields” w.r.t. Gaza - with the general claim being that Hamas systematically uses civilian infrastructure to hide military equipment and personnel (thereby justifying the destruction of said infrastructure). However, there is another dimension to the human-shield argument that I think more people should know about, which is that the Israeli military has been using actual human shields throughout its military campaign in Gaza . CNN , the Associated Press , Haaretz , the UNRWA , Reuters , CBS , Defense for Children and many other groups have all reported on the use of Palestinians as human shields - allegedly called the “ Mosquito Protocol ” with the mosquitos in question being a euphemism for the victims. As reported by the Associated Press: >“ The two Israeli soldiers who spoke to the AP — and a third who provided testimony to Breaking the Silence — said commanders were aware of the use of human shields and tolerated it, with some giving orders to do so. Some said it was referred to as the ‘mosquito protocol’ and that Palestinians were also referred to as 'wasps’ and other dehumanizing terms. ” >“ The soldiers — who said they’re no longer serving in Gaza — said the practice sped up operations, saved ammunition, and spared combat dogs from injury or death. ” … >“ 'Once this idea was initiated, it caught on like fire in a field,” the 26-year-old said. “People saw how effective and easy it was.’ ” >“ He described a 2024 planning meeting where a brigade commander presented to the division commander a slide reading 'get a mosquito’ and a suggestion they might 'just catch one off the streets.’ ” When a building is suspected to be booby-trapped, or an area is suspected to be a potential ambush site, the abducted Palestinian is (allegedly) forced at gunpoint to enter the area before advancing soldiers. The AP report also argues that rather than this being the result of individual bad actors within the lower ranks of the IDF (as had been argued previously in response to earlier reports from other sources) - this is systemic tactic often ordered by commanding officers: >“ One soldier told the AP his unit tried to refuse to use human shields in mid-2024 but were told they had no choice, with a high-ranking officer saying they shouldn’t worry about international humanitarian law. ” >“ The sergeant — speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal — said the troops used a 16-year-old and a 30-year-old for a few days. ” >“ The boy shook constantly, he said, and both repeated 'Rafah, Rafah’ — Gaza’s southernmost city, where more than 1 million Palestinians had fled from fighting elsewhere at that point in the war. ” >“ It seemed they were begging to be freed, the sergeant said. ” (emphasis mine) While it is wholly illegal to use anyone as a human shield - regardless of their status, it should be emphasized that many of these human shields (again, “allegedly”) were not captured militants, but random Palestinians abducted by the IDF. From CN N: >“Is raeli airstrikes earlier this year forced Mohammad Saad, 20, from his home in Ja balya, in northern Gaza. From his makeshift home near Khan Younis, between blankets strung from rafters, Saad explained that he was picked up by the Israeli military near Rafah, while attempting to get food aid for him and his younger brothers.” >“ 'The army took us in a jeep, and we found ourselves inside Rafah in a military camp,’ he said, adding that he was held there for 47 days, and during that time was used for reconnaissance missions to avoid putting Israeli soldiers at risk. ” >“ 'They dressed us in military uniforms, put a camera on us, and gave us a metal cutter,’ he said. 'They would ask us to do things like, 'move this carpet,’ saying they were looking for tunnels. 'Film under the stairs,’ they would say. If they found something, they would tell us to bring it outside. For example, they would ask us to remove belongings from the house, clean here, move the sofa, open the fridge, and open the cupboard.’ ” >“ 'I usually wore the military uniform, but for the final mission, they took me in civilian clothing,’ Saad said. 'We went to a location, and they told me I had to film a tank left behind by the Israeli army. I was terrified and scared to film it, so they hit me on the back with the butt of a rifle.’ ” >“ Bullets rang out as he approached the tank, and Saad said he was shot through the back. Miraculously, he survived, and was taken to Soroka Medical Center, in Israel. When he was interviewed by CNN two weeks later in Khan Younis, he lifted his shirt to show the wound where the bullet entered his back. ” As reported by the New York Times : >“ After Israeli soldiers found Mohammed Shubeir hiding with his family in early March, they detained him for roughly 10 days before releasing him without charge, he said. ” >“ During that time, Mr. Shubeir said, the soldiers used him as a human shield. ” >“ Mr. Shubeir, then 17, said he was forced to walk handcuffed through the empty ruins of his hometown, Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, searching for explosives set by Hamas. To avoid being blown up themselves, the soldiers made him go ahead, Mr. Shubeir said ” . >“ In one wrecked building, he stopped in his tracks: Running along the wall, he said, was a series of wires attached to explosives. ” >“ 'The soldiers sent me like a dog to a booby-trapped apartment,’ said Mr. Shubeir, a high school student. 'I thought these would be the last moments of my life.’ ” Haaretz : >“ After two or three days in which a teenager was used as a human shield by soldiers, they asked to speak with the battalion commander and told him they no longer wished to take part. Some also raised doubts about another issue – the need for the order to burn buildings after the buildings were searched. ” >“ The term 'international law’ came up a number of times, but the battalion commander reportedly had one response to all the soldiers’ questions: 'A soldier doesn’t need to take an interest in the laws of war. You need to think about the IDF’s values and act according to the IDF’s values, not the laws of war.’ ” >“ The next day the teenager was released. He was taken to a checkpoint and told to walk south. 'Then we finally realized that these weren’t really terrorists but civilians who were taken especially for these operations,’ the soldier said. ” The Guardian : >“ After they burned down his family home in northern Gaza, Israeli troops separated Ramez al-Skafi from his family and detained him. They had a particular job in mind for him, he said. ” >“ For the next 11 days in early July, the 30-year-old Palestinian said he was sent into one house after another in his home district, Shuja'iya, watched by his Israeli military minders. According to the account he gave the Guardian, they turned him into a human shield against booby-traps and Hamas gunmen. ” >“ 'I tried to resist their proposal, but they started beating me and the officer told me it was not my choice to make and that I have to do whatever they want,’ Skafi said. 'He told me that my work would be searching the houses and telling them information about the homeowners. After some extreme pressure, I was left no choice.’ ” And in my opinion, the most tragic case I had the displeasure of reading (originally reported in Hebrew by HaMakom , translated by Haaretz ): >“ The incident took place in Gaza City, in the neighborhood of Zaytoun, in May. According to soldiers who interviewed for the report, the elderly man was forced to inspect neighborhood houses for booby traps, even though he needed a cane to walk. ” >“ 'They said that they did not have anywhere to go, and that they were not able to evacuate to Khan Yunis’ in the southern Gaza Strip, one of the soldiers said. ’ The man walked with a cane, and they said that they just could not walk all the way there ,’ he added. ” >“ At that point, the squad’s commanders decided to leave the woman under supervision in the house, while the man was forced to march in front of the IDF forces, with his cane ” . >“ 'He entered each house before us, so that if there was a booby trap or a terrorist – then the device would be activated by him, not by us,’ said a soldier who witnessed the incident. ” >“ 'The officer tied the [IED] command-wire to the elderly man’s neck, so that he would not run away,’ another soldier said. ” >“ After the man was commanded to inspect houses with the squad for eight whole hours, the couple was ordered to evacuate south, to an area dubbed as a humanitarian zone. However, the soldiers said that they didn’t update other IDF forces in the vicinity that the couple was about to head south .” >“’ After 100 meters, the other battalion saw them and shot them on the spot. They died like that, on the street ,’ one of the soldiers said. ” (According to +972 Magazine , the IDF stated that the aforementioned “incident had been investigated and that 'lessons were learned.’” - though I am unaware of any actual action that the IDF took or claims to have taken) As for why this practice is supposedly so widespread, one Israeli whistleblower writing for Haaretz argues the following: >“ The highest-ranking personnel on the ground have known about the use of human shields for more than a year, and no one has tried to stop it. On the contrary, it was defined as an operational necessity. ” >“ It’s important to note that we can enter houses without using human shields. We did it for months, according to a proper entry procedure which included sending in a robot, a drone, or a dog. This procedure proved itself, but it took time, and the command wanted achievements here and now. ” >“ In other words, we forced Palestinians to act as human shields not because it was safer for IDF troops, but because it was faster. That’s why we risked the lives of Palestinians who were suspected of nothing other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. ” What we are witnessing is a systemic policy of civilian abduction and impressment, one which has been surprisingly extensively documented - all of the information I am sharing is entirely publicly accessible (albeit with a few archive links to get around paywalls). tangential rant ahead The AP’s report, which was published only about a week ago, re-ignited conversation about this. I’ve seen many people react (rightfully, in my opinion) in abject horror at this information - but, reports of these acts date back to 2023, and there were plenty of cases reported throughout 2024 (not to mention that the use of human shields in the West Bank has been documented extensively before October 7th, 2023). I don’t say this in any way to degrade people who didn’t know about this before - rather, the fact that this information has not entered common discourse in the west concerning our support for Israel is honestly an incredible demonstration of the grip that a certain narrative has on the public consciousness - that many people, even those who oppose Israel’s actions in Gaza, are genuinely unaware of this information is honestly impressive, on the part of our pro-Israel faction. And while I think that the dominance of the Israeli-aligned faction (with respect to other political blocs surrounding this conflict and the west’s support) in the political sphere and elite circles does play a role in allowing stories like this to slip through the media landscape, I also think part of the general lack of mention of the allegedly widespread use of human shields by the IDF in discourse on this matter is a result of a failure of the western pro-Palestinian movement: Essentially, I think that pro-Palestinian rhetoric in the west needs to be more concentrated. Broad claims such as “genocide” and “settler-colonialism” - accurate as they may be, just don’t seem informative and inevitably open one up to criticism that “well, you just claim everything you don’t like is gEnOcIdE!” I think it is more effective to focus rhetoric - to point out specific cases of objectionable behavior, such as the described use of human shields, the creation of arbitrary and invisible kill-zones, the abduction of Palestinians and mass processing through “court” system with a 99.7% conviction rate and no explicit right to due process, documented instances of sexual violence used as a weapon of war, deliberate blocking of third party aid, use of colonial paramilitaries, etc. Of course, many of these reports can be filed under broader allegations, but by focusing on specific instances of human rights abuses, one makes a case which is I believe much stronger and less likely to be lost in the crowd of general political discourse. Obviously, I’m not saying that no-one talks about specific cases - nor am I attempting to imply that lack of discussion is the sole, or even predominant cause of this information being shoved to the side in political debates concerning the West and her Greatest Ally™ rather, I am commenting on a broader trend within the movement which I think harms it. thats all (maybe)