Palestinians say Israeli army used them as ‘human shields’: Report
Israeli soldiers in Gaza sent captured Palestinians into unexplored houses and tunnels before soldiers, in violation of international law, according to detainees interviewed by The Guardian.
Ramez al-Skafi, a 30-year-old Palestinian, told the UK newspaper that for 11 days in early July, he was sent into one house after another in his home district of Shujayea in Gaza City – effectively becoming “a human shield against booby-traps and Hamas gunmen”, according to the report.
“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 was quoted as saying by The Guardian.
Skafi was one of three Palestinians interviewed who gave the newspaper similar accounts of being used in the same manner.
US Muslim group urges probe into Israel’s use of human shields in Gaza
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is calling on the US Justice and State departments to investigate recent reports of Israel using Palestinians as human shields in the enclave.
Al Jazeera first reported on the Israeli military’s use of human shields in Gaza in June, and other media outlets have since published their own exposes on the practice.
“The State Department and the Department of Justice must investigate these credible charges of widespread and systematic human rights abuses by military forces that receive weapons paid for by American taxpayers and used against a civilian population,” CAIR’s executive director, Nihad Awad, said in a statement.
“These abuses, and the obvious and open ethnic cleansing of Gaza, violate our nation’s laws.”
The US provides Israel at least $3.8bn in military aid annually, and the Biden administration has authorised $14bn in further assistance to its ally to help fund the ongoing war.
Israel has taken human shields to a whole new criminal level
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/10/20/israel-has-taken-human-shields-to-a-whole-new-criminal-level
The use of human shields in war is not a new phenomenon. Militaries have forced civilians to serve as human shields for centuries. Yet, despite this long and dubious history, Israel has managed to introduce a new form of shielding in Gaza, one that appears unprecedented in the history of warfare.
The practice was initially revealed by Al Jazeera but, subsequently, Haaretz published an entire expose about how Israeli troops have abducted Palestinian civilians, dressed them in military uniforms, attached cameras to their bodies, and sent them into underground tunnels as well as buildings to shield Israeli troops.
