Israeli forces ‘systematically using Palestinians as human shields in Gaza’

Seven Palestinians spoke to AP about being used as human shields in both Gaza and the occupied West Bank, in a report published on Saturday. Two Israeli military officers also confirmed the practice. 

“They beat me and told me: ‘You have no other option; do this or we’ll kill you,’” Ayman Abu Hamadan, 36, told AP. 

Abu Hamdan said he was held by Israeli forces in northern Gaza for two and a half weeks last summer. He said he was forced for 17 days to inspect homes and holes in tunnels as Israeli troops stood behind him.

An Israeli officer said there were times when close to every single platoon had used a Palestinian to clear locations before Israeli forces went in. 

One Israeli sergeant said that his unit attempted to push back on using Palestinian human shields in mid-2024, but were told that they had no choice in the matter. 

The sergeant told AP that his unit used two Palestinians, including a 16-year-old, for a number of days. 

Israel’s military told AP that it strictly prohibited the use of civilians as human shields. It said it was investigating a number of cases of alleged Palestinian involvement in missions, but would not elaborate further. 

‘Mosquito protocol’

There have been multiple reports of Israeli use of Palestinians civilians as human shields since the war began in October 2023. 

A senior Israeli military officer told Haaretz last month that human shields were being used “at least six times a day”. 

According to the article, Israeli soldiers routinely force Palestinian civilians to enter Gaza homes ahead of military operations to ensure that no explosives or combatants are there.

This procedure is known with the codename “mosquito protocol”, which the officer first came across in December 2023, two months after Israel launched its devastating onslaught on Gaza.

The Israeli army normally uses dogs for these missions, the officer wrote, and there had not been a shortage of dogs at the time the use of Palestinian human shields first became known to the officer. 

The Israeli army last month launched six investigations into widely reported allegations that its soldiers use Palestinians as human shields. 

The use of civilians as human shields is strictly prohibited under international humanitarian law and constitutes a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. 

In February, Israeli website HaMakom revealed that Israeli troops strapped explosives around the neck of a Palestinian man in his 80s and forced him to be a human shield, before killing him and his wife. 

An Israeli soldier told HaMakom that after explosives were placed around the Palestinian man’s neck, he was told “that if he does something wrong or not the way we want, the person behind him will pull the rope and his head will detach from the body”.

“That’s how he walked around with us for eight hours, even though he’s an 80-year-old man and even though he couldn’t run away from us. And that’s knowing that there’s a soldier behind him who can pull the rope at any second – and he’s done,” the soldier added.

According to HaMakom, after the elderly Palestinian was forced to enter homes and tunnels allegedly used by Hamas, the soldiers ordered him and his wife to leave the area for al-Mawasi, a small area that at the time was just one kilometre wide and was being used to house hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians.

However, HaMakom said that no other battalions were informed that the couple would be making their way south and within 100 metres of being allowed to leave they were both shot dead.

“They died like that, in the street,” another soldier told HaMakom.

In August, Haaretz reported that the Israeli army had repeatedly used innocent Palestinians to enter homes and tunnels in its war on Gaza.

Nearly a year earlier, in December 2023, Middle East Eye received numerous testimonies from Palestinians that Israeli forces strapped explosives on civilians before forcing them into areas believed to be used by Hamas.

Later that month, medical staff at the Shifa Hospital told MEE that Israeli soldiers used them as human shields when inspecting the hospital’s grounds.

“When they stormed the ground stores, they used us [doctors] as human shields to enter and search them. They found the technical maintenance employees there and interrogated them, before they detained them,” a doctor told MEE.