How does Hamas use children as human shields against Israel ?
If you follow the news on Palestine, especially during the periods of Israel’s assaults on Gaza, then you have undoubtedly come across the narrative being pushed by the Israeli government that the high civilian death toll in Gaza was due to Palestinian citizens being used as human shields. This talking point has long been a main staple of Israeli hasbara whenever Palestinians bring up the high number of murdered civilians.
These accusations are expedient, as they achieve two propaganda wins in one fell swoop. The first is the dehumanization of their target. Indeed, this is especially effective when the accusations are of using women and children as human shields. The message implied here is that only uncivilized and barbaric peoples would purposefully put their vulnerable in harm’s way. This automatically reinforces the position and narrative of the accuser by placing them on a higher moral ground. This accusation becomes harder to dispute if the target population had already been historically demonized.
Second, this accusation retroactively justifies the large amount of civilian deaths caused by the accuser, and lays the foundation for the justification of similar deaths in the future. In this scenario, the victimized people become culpable for their own deaths, and the responsibility is shifted away from the perpetrator of the deadly violence.
Due to the perceived effectiveness of such accusations, they have been weaponized by many forces throughout history. We can see such accusations being employed in other contexts, such as in India and Egypt in order to demonize protestors and blame them for their own repression.
So now that we understand the value of such an accusation to those in power, is there any truth to the Israeli claims against Hamas and Palestinians in general?
No evidence:
Despite how ubiquitous this accusation is, there is actually scant evidence to corroborate it.
If the use of human shields was so wide as to cause hundreds upon hundreds of dead Palestinian civilians, then surely there would be a reporter or an observer on the ground that could have caught a whiff of it. But reporters on the ground could find no trace of such a supposedly widespread action, Jeremy Bowen of the BBC wrote that he found no evidence of the use of human shields while he was covering the assault on Gaza. Similarly, Kim Sengupta writing for the Belfast Telegraph interviewed Palestinians in Gaza and unsurprisingly came to a similar conclusion: Hamas was not forcing anybody to be a human shield, counter to Netanyahu’s claims.
But perhaps these reporters were missing something, let us consult an organization which specializes in these matters. Fortunately for us, Amnesty international released a detailed report of its investigation into the matter. In their report they indicate that:
“The Israeli authorities have claimed that in a few incidents, the Hamas authorities or Palestinian fighters directed or physically coerced individual civilians in specific locations to shield combatants or military objectives. Amnesty International has not been able to corroborate the facts in any of these cases.”
So, it seems that the Israeli claims have no basis in reality, and are just a way to demonize Palestinians and legitimize their indiscriminate bombardment of civilians. This is hardly the first time Israel has used this accusation to delegitimize their enemies. For example, in the 2006 war against Lebanon Israel accused Hizballah of using human shields. Unsurprisingly, investigations by both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch similarly found no evidence.
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL, for its part, did not find evidence that Hamas or other Palestinian groups violated the laws of war to the extent repeatedly alleged by Israel. In particular, it found no evidence that Hamas or other fighters directed the movement of civilians to shield military objectives from attacks. By contrast, Amnesty International did find that Israeli forces on several occasions during Operation “Cast Lead” forced Palestinian civilians to serve as “human shields”. In any event, international humanitarian law makes clear that use of “human shields” by one party does not release the attacking party from its legal obligations with respect to civilians. Amnesty International delegates interviewed many Palestinians who complained about Hamas’ conduct, and especially about Hamas’ repression and attacks against their opponents, including killings, torture and arbitrary detentions, but did not receive any accounts of Hamas fighters having used them as “human shields”. In the cases investigated by Amnesty International of civilians killed in Israeli attacks, the deaths could not be explained as resulting from the presence of fighters shielding among civilians, as the Israel army generally contends. In all of the cases investigated by Amnesty International of families killed when their homes were bombed from the air by Israeli forces, for example, none of the houses struck was being used by armed groups for military activities. Similarly, in the cases of precision missiles or tank shells which killed civilians in their homes, no fighters were present in the houses that were struck and Amnesty International delegates found no indication that there had been any armed confrontations or other military activity in the immediate vicinity at the time of the attack.
While the presence of Hamas and other fighters and weapons within civilian areas is not contested, this in itself is not conclusive evidence of intent to use civilians as “human shields”. The presence of weapons in residential areas is likely, for instance, to be more the result of a growing gun culture in Gaza ( same in WB or Texas ) and the increasing internal tensions between Palestinian factions, which have led Hamas and Fatah, as well as some other groups, to keep weapons supplies close at hand to fight each other in recent years. The close proximity of the military and weapons to civilian areas is also not unusual in Israel. The headquarters of the Israeli army is in a densely populated area of central Tel Aviv. In Ashkelon, Sderot, Bersheva and other towns in the south of Israel, as well as elsewhere in the country, military bases and other installations are located in or around residential areas, including kibbutzim and villages. (In other words , they also fire from nearby civilian areas and are present around it , so why the hypocrisy? ) Additionally, Gaza is one of the mostly densely populated areas in the world , hamas would probably store their weapons in civilian built up buildings cause it would be illogical for a city state with no Air Force, to put them in a warehouse with a big red X on top. Israel has the luxury of storing these items in military bases, while Hamas does not. They are not going to put a big a red mark on all their military apparatus given they have no Air Force. During Operation “Cast Lead” there were more Israeli military positions and activities than usual close to civilian areas in the south of Israel, and Israeli forces launched daily artillery and other attacks into Gaza from these areas along Gaza’s perimeter.
The Israeli Defense Forces have been repeatedly accused of using Palestinian children to enter buildings that might be booby trapped ahead of them, to shield themselves from fire, and to search out explosives, according to Amnesty International and UNICEF, most recently in 2013.
Meanwhile, both Amnesty International and the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict in 2008-2009, found no evidence that Hamas was using human shields.
Amnesty again confirmed their previous assertion that Hamas was not using human shields in late July, 2014.
As for EURO-MID OBSERVER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS: The report presents documented cases of Palestinian civilians used as human shields by Israeli military forces during the 50-day conflict in the Gaza Strip, 8 July-26 August, 2014(Operation protective edge). It also discusses Israeli claims that Palestinian armed factions used their own civilians as human shields. After interviewing Palestinians who reported being used as shields by Israeli forces, and documenting the testimonies of additional eyewitnesses, EuroMid Observer concluded that the Israeli army committed this violation of international law in at least six cases in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip. These civilians were held against their will for hours or days to protect Israeli soldiers from fire, and in the meantime were subjected to inhumane and abusive treatment such as beating, humiliation and exposure to the hot sun while naked for long periods of time. Israeli authorities deny using Palestinian civilians as human shields. However, the testimonies documented by Euro-Mid prove the lie. Moreover, it seems that using Palestinian civilians as human shields is an Israeli policy, since other, similar cases have been documented in the West Bank. In contrast, the Euro-Mid team did not find any evidence of Palestinians who were forced to stay in their homes or to use their bodies for the protection for Palestinian resistance factions. Likewise, the Israeli army did not provide any evidence to substantiate their accusations. Moreover, the UN’s Goldstone Report issued following Operation Cast Lead in 2009 exonerated Palestinian armed factions from previous claims by Israeli forces that Palestinians used their own people as human shields. The use of human shields is a form of cruel and inhumane treatment, and constitutes a flagrant violation of the international humanitarian law and a war crime according to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
The same accusations were also hurled at Palestinians during the great march of return when Israeli snipers killed Palestinian nurse Razan Al-Najjar while she was tending to the injured. Naturally, no evidence was provided other than a clearly doctored video in an attempt to defame her.
Fortunately, these investigations into the supposed Palestinian use of human shields tend to backfire on Israel, and have historically produced a wealth of literature showing how often Israel targets civilians far removed from any combat context. Amnesty International reported that
“In the cases of precision missiles or tank shells which killed civilians in their homes, no fighters were present in the houses that were struck and Amnesty International delegates found no indication that there had been any armed confrontations or other military activity in the immediate vicinity at the time of the attack.”
This is not in error, and is in fact by design. The destruction of non-military infrastructure and incurring massive losses in civilians is a deliberate policy followed by the IDF. This policy has come to be known as the Dahiya doctrine, where it was first practiced in the Dahiya area of Beirut.
“We will apply disproportionate force on it (village) and cause great damage and destruction there. From our standpoint, these are not civilian villages, they are military bases.”
This is a direct admission that Israel sees civilian areas as military targets, now the only thing that remained was finding a way to justify it. This is where the human shields accusation comes in. And in the end when the war is over, the fact that no evidence is ever presented, or that various organizations exonerate the accused is forgotten, and the smears remain, and contribute to justify the same inhumane actions in any future conflagration.
A case of projection:
Perhaps the most overlooked aspect of this accusation is that it is a case of pure projection on part of Israel. Israel has been notorious in its use of Palestinians as human shields. As a matter of fact, as previously mentioned, many of these same reports investigating the Palestinian use of human shields found that it was actually Israel that was using Palestinians as human shields. For example, they would force Palestinian civilians to check houses for traps, or handle suspicious objects, or tie them to military vehicles to discourage stone throwing.
Even a simple search reveals hundreds of cases of Palestinians being used as human shields. This is not a case of a few bad apples, but of rampant and widespread behavior. In fact, using Palestinians as human shields was so popular that when the Israeli high court attempted to outlaw the practice the IDF actually appealed to have the decision reversed.
I would further argue that not only does Israel use Palestinians as human shields, but also its own population when it uses them to settle and colonize areas beyond the green line. They are directly put in danger as a sacrifice to Israel’s expansionist colonial designs, which they can then blame on Palestinians to further accelerate this same project.
So not only is the Palestinian use of human shields a myth lacking any evidence, it is in fact Israel who is infamous for using human shields in its oppression of the Palestinians. Examples of this are incredibly easy to find even with the most rudimentary of research. Like much Israeli propaganda, it seeks to turn reality upside down and accuse the Palestinians of the crimes that Israel so often commits. This is a prime example of baseless dehumanization that many eagerly embrace because they have come to internalize a demonized image of Palestinians based on Israeli propaganda.
The fact that this slander is so prevalent while not having any basis in reality is a testament to the power of propaganda, and how readily people accept the projections of barbarity onto the peoples of the global south. In the narrative war against Palestine there is hardly a method Israel has not resorted to in order to dehumanize Palestinians. It is on us here on Quora to resist that, and set the record straight.
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