Palestinians Are Regularly Used by Israeli Forces as Human Shields: Report

Gaza (Quds News Network)- Palestinians in Gaza are used by Israeli forces as human shields at least six times a day, according to an article in Israeli Haaretz newspaper by a senior officer in a non-reservist brigade.

“In Gaza, human shields are used by Israeli soldiers at least six times a day,” he wrote.

The officer said that he served in Gaza for nine months, and first came across these procedures, called “mosquito protocol”, in December 2023.

According to the officer, the protocol was used long before there was a shortage of dogs from the army’s canine unit, Oketz, which were used for this purpose.

The officer said: “This became the insane, unofficial excuse for this insane, unofficial procedure.”

He added that the army personnel referred to “human shields” as “shawishes”.

The officer stressed: “Today, almost every platoon keeps a ‘shawish’, and no infantry force enters a house before a ‘shawish’ clears it. This means there are four ‘shawishes’ in a company, twelve in a battalion, and at least 36 in a brigade. We operate a sub-army of slaves.”

The procedure is simple, he said. “Innocent Palestinians are forced to enter houses in Gaza and “clear” them, to make sure there are no terrorists or explosives.”

“I recently saw that the Israeli Military Police Criminal Investigation Division opened six investigations into the use of Palestinian civilians as human shields.”

However, he noted, “I’ve seen cover-ups before, but this is a new low. If the MPCID wanted to do its job seriously, it would have to open far more than even a thousand investigations. But all the MPCID wants is for us to be able to tell ourselves and the world that we’re investigating ourselves, so they’ve found six scapegoats and are pinning it all on them.”

He said the brigade commanders presented the “mosquito” concept to the division commanders as a “necessary operational achievement to accomplish the mission.”
“It was so normalized that I thought I was hallucinating.”

He wrote that soldiers have continued detaining Palestinians and forcing them to go into houses and tunnels ahead of them. While the Chief of Staff and the Head of the Southern Command continued to say and do nothing about it, the protocol became even more widespread and normalized.

The officer said they 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.”

“Our Lives Are More Important”

According to a soldier who spoke to Haaretz in August, senior army officials “know that it’s not a one-time incident of a young and stupid company commander who decides on his own” to use a civilian. “It’s done with the knowledge of the brigade commander, at the least.”

Many soldiers felt uncomfortable with the practice, demanded answers and even protested loudly, but the commanders prevented any discussion of its moral implications.

“Our lives are more important than their lives,” the soldiers were told. One of them said that the commanders turned to one of the soldiers and told him, “You don’t agree that the lives of your friends are much more important than their lives? And isn’t it better that our friends will live and not be blown up by an explosive device, and that they get blown up by an explosive device?”

One soldier described how two civilians were brought to his unit: “About five months ago, two Palestinians were brought to us. One was 20 and the other was 16. We were told: ‘Use them, they’re Gazans, use them as human shields,'” he said.

According to the soldier, when one of his comrades raised the issue with the commander, the latter replied: “Don’t you agree that the lives of your comrades are far more important than their lives?”