Omar Ashour, a 34-year-old Palestinian, describes what Israel’s military did to him after his arrest in northern Gaza: It is just one example that Daraj has found of how the IDF is using detainees as human shields in its months-long war against Hamas.
“The Israeli military detained me, and took me to a place where soldiers were gathering. They put a camera on my head, tied explosives to my body, and asked me to enter one of the apartments and quickly return to the place they had gathered.”
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Ashour was forced to respond to all the demands of Israeli soldiers out of fear for his life. He entered the residential apartment in northern Gaza and wandered between its rooms in search of the gunmen.
“I was forced to move and carry out their orders, and I experienced moments of terror and thought that the soldiers would blow up my body at any time,” he recalled. “So I was walking slowly and did not know how I got my body through this apartment.”
Israel declared war on Oct. 7, after Hamas militants attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostage. More than 31,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 70,000 wounded in Israel’s war on Hamas since then, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
Dogs to terrorize
Ashour was released after two weeks of detention. He was left in front of the gate of the Kerem Shalom crossing, southeast of the city of Rafah. He wore light clothing. He walked about two kilometers barefoot.
Ashour is one of dozens of detainees used by Israel’s military as human shields during its ongoing war on Gaza. Soldiers put civilian Palestinians in front of military targets, endangering their lives, according to multiple accounts from recently-released detainees.
I expected us to die at any moment.
At the Hamad residential block city, north of Khan Younis, Israel’s forces detained the Barakat family. They were held inside a residential apartment where they were used as human shields during the fighting, Banan Barakat, one of the detainees.
“They put me with my father, mother and three sisters in one room and closed the door on us. They were shooting from inside, from the windows of the apartment,” the 21-year-old woman said. “I expected us to die at any moment, whether by them executing us or by a Hamas shell.”
Banan and her family were held at the apartment for three days. Soldiers provided them little water and food (biscuits). Sometimes soldiers would bring dogs to terrorize them, she said.
The family managed to leave the apartment after the Israeli military withdrew on March 13. They headed to the Mawasi area, west of Khan Younis.
Booby-trapping
Hakim, a 30-year-old Palestinian, was detained by the Israeli military in northern Gaza. According to his account which he posted on Facebook, troops booby-trapped him with explosives, tied a rope around his waist, and placed a camera on his head, then lowered him to a tunnel. He walked for 40 metres inside the tunnel as his body was boody-trapped with explosives, he said.
“They stripped me of my clothes, put explosives on my waist along with a camera, and tied me to a rope,” he said. Then soldiers took him to a tunnel opening and violently forced me into it. “He (the soldier) wanted to blow me up as soon as he saw one of the resistance fighters inside the tunnel.”
Minutes later, the soldiers pulled Hakim out of the tunnel, removed the explosives. They brought a younger detainee who would be able to move better inside the tunnel, Hakim recalled.
Bakr al-Turkmani, a coordinator at the Independent Commission for Human Rights, said Israel’s war on Gaza have characterized with many crimes, including “genocide and crimes related to the use of civilians as human shields.”
He said his group and other rights groups have documented using civilians as human shields by the Israeli military, whether during storming of medical complexes or inside homes. He said troops used to tie detained residents and give them cameras before ordering them to head to specific places to scout whether there were militants or explosives.
He said the Israeli military kept some detainees for four days in combat zones, which constitutes another use of civilians as human shields, although the Geneva Convention obliges Israel to transfer detainees to safe areas.
Al-Turkmani spoke about Israel’s raid on Shifa hospital in November, during which Israeli troops forced some detainees to enter the basements of the complex, and into the sewage areas. They also forced detainees inside armored vehicles during the fighting, and other civilians were placed on the tanks, he said.
A war crime
International law and the 1949 Geneva Conventions prohibit the use of civilians as human shields. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the Rome Statute also considered the use of human shields a war crime.
In Israel, the B’Tselem rights group said that the Israeli army has over the years, as part of its official policy, used Palestinians as human shields and ordered them to carry out military actions that risked their lives.
The Israeli military has forced Palestinian citizens to remove suspicious objects from the street; to call wanted Palestinians to come out of their homes so (Israeli forces arrest them; and to stand as (human) barriers, behind which soldiers hide while firing, and so on, the group said in statements and reports on its website.
And despite the Israeli Supreme Court decision in 2005 that prohibited the use of Palestinian citizens in military operations, B’Tselem said soldiers continued to use them as human shields from time to time, especially during military campaigns, and in most cases no one was held accountable.
No soldiers have been held accountable.
According to the group, the Israeli army responded to the court’s decision by saying that it had stopped using Palestinian citizens as human shields, and that it was only “seeking the help of the population to prevent harm to human lives.”
B’Tselem also previously documented the same practice during the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip in 2014, according to the testimonies of Israeli soldiers, who indicated that they used Palestinians as human shields. The group also said that none of those soldiers were held accountable.
Likewise, Amnesty International and the Israeli organization “Breaking the Silence” accused the Israeli army of using civilians, including children, as human shields, to protect the positions of its forces during incursions into Gaza; and of using civilians to walk in front of military vehicles when storming a house believed to be booby-trapped.
The United Nations Human Rights Council has also previously accused Israel of “continuous use of Palestinian children as human shields and informants.”
