Israeli troops separated Ramez al-Shaabi from his family and detained him after they burned his family home in northern Gaza. They had a specific job in mind for him, he said.
For the next 11 days in early July, the 30-year-old Palestinian said he was sent to a house in his home district of Shujaya, guarded by Israeli military guards. According to his account to The Guardian, they turned him into a human shield armed with landmines and a Hamas weapon.
“I tried to resist their proposal, but they started hitting me and the officer told me that it was not my choice and that they had to do whatever they wanted,” Scafi said. “He told me that my job was to look for houses and provide information about the owners. After intense pressure, I had no choice.
“The next day they asked me to go on patrol with the Israeli soldiers and I was very afraid because there were tanks in front of me and planes in the sky,” he continued. “When [his minders] Seeing my fear, they assured me: 'They know you are with us.
Scafi was one of three Palestinians interviewed by The Guardian who said they had been used by Israeli army (IDF) units. Loop. According to whistleblowers who spoke to disgruntled gamer group Breaking the Silence (BTS), the practice is widespread.
The use of Palestinian prisoners to force their way into homes and tunnels in Gaza was broadcast to the public for the first time. Al Jazeera TV in June and July. An investigation by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz in August collected testimonies from Israeli soldiers that Palestinians used as shields were called “shawish,” a word of Turkish origin that means “sergeant.” Players suggested this was an institutionalized tactic endorsed by senior officials.
“This is done to the knowledge of the platoon commander,” said a recruit from a combat unit.
Using prisoners as human shields is a clear violation of the Geneva Conventions and is expressly prohibited by Israeli law. The IDF has denied using the “Shawish” tactic.
“IDF orders and directives prohibit the use of Gazan civilians captured on the ground for military operations that endanger them. “Protocols and orders have been clarified to troops on the ground,” the Israeli military said in a statement, adding that the reported requests “have been sent to the relevant authorities for investigation.”
Testimonies collected by The Guardian from former Palestinian prisoners largely coincide with reports by Al Jazeera and Haaretz.
In several cases, Scafi said, small quadcopter drones were brought into homes so Israelis could see what was inside through the drones' built-in cameras.
“After I finished filming the houses from the inside and left, they came in and started destroying them,” Scaffey said.
“Every day after they were done with me, they tied my hands and blindfolded me. They only took off my chains when they gave me food or when they let me go to the bathroom.
On the sixth day used to clear houses in Shuja'iya, Scafi said his IDF captors were attacked by a Hamas gunman, sparking a gunfight that lasted from noon until night.
“During that period they used me as a human shield. I was in the middle. They told the protester, “Leave it or we will kill this citizen,” Scafi alleged. The IDF eventually managed to kill the only Hamas fighter and forced Scafi to enter the house the militant was using as a sniper nest and film the body with a mobile phone.
Scafi, the IDF unit that employed him, was angry with him because the sniper's position was in the house he had been sent to raid earlier that day, and Scafi was accused of helping cover up the gunman's presence.
Scafi swore the man was not there when they searched the house, but said his protests did not stop him from beating him for a long time, until a senior unit officer approached him with a plate of rice after four days. of interrogation. It was discovered that his story with Scafi was true.
The same official said the unit's operations in Shujaya were coming to an end and Scafi would no longer be needed. On the eleventh day of detention, they removed his bandages, gave him a bag containing food and water, and told him to go home.
Scafi complained to soldiers that he was too tired to carry a heavy package, but they said the bag identified him as someone working with the IDF, so he would not be the target of Israeli fire while crossing Shujaya. to his family.
The accounts provided by Scafi and other former Palestinian prisoners in Gaza generally corroborate accounts provided by Israeli soldiers to other media and activist groups.
In a recent incident, detailed to The Guardian by Israeli friends involved, a Palestinian “shawish” grabbed an IDF soldier's gun and shot him in the leg, before the Palestinian was killed in the ensuing fight. By other players in the category.
Whistleblower testimony given to Israeli dissident group BTS points to the use of human shields.
“We had a guy in the company who spoke Arabic and he sent them [Palestinian detainees] If there is a bomb, open the houses. [the Palestinians] They are the ones who will blow up,” an IDF soldier told BTS, adding that one of the human shields was a young Palestinian.
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Nadav Weiman, former IDF sniper and current director of BTS, said: “As we understand that this is a widely used protocol, hundreds of Palestinians have been used as human shields in Gaza.
“Palestinians are captured in humanitarian corridors inside Gaza… and then they are taken to different units inside Gaza: regular infantry units, not special forces.” Veeman said. “Then those Palestinians are used as human shields to clear tunnels and houses. In some cases, they have a GoPro camera strapped to their chest or head, and in almost all cases, they are strapped into an IDF uniform before being led into a tunnel or home for a sweep.
Wearing an Israeli uniform can cause some humiliation for Palestinian prisoners, and all three interviewed by The Guardian said they successfully resisted pressure to wear IDF combat uniforms. But they claimed they were deliberately injured to protect the soldiers.
“They took us on missions with them, they sent me to the houses in front of them to ensure their safety, then they came in behind us and after they left, they blew up the house behind them,” he said. Ismail al-Sawalhi is a 30-year-old blacksmith and farmer from the Jabaliya countryside in northern Gaza.
Sawalhi was detained near the Kerem Shalom crossing in the south in July and served as a human shield for an IDF unit during 12 days of clearing operations in Rafah.
“The soldiers always protected themselves with us so that they would not be attacked by the opposition,” he said. “We were like puppets in his hands.”
A 35-year-old man from Beit Lahia in northern Gaza, who identified himself only as Abu Said for fear of reprisals but whose identity was verified by The Guardian, said he was detained in February and used as a human shield for four periods. Campaign
“The Israeli soldiers put a GPS tracker in my hand and told me, 'If you try to run away, we will shoot you.' We know where you are,” he said. “Go knock on the doors of four houses and two schools and ask people to leave.” wow, first the women and children, then the men.
“The situation in a school is very dangerous,” he said. “I yelled at everyone in the school to leave quietly, but at that moment there was heavy shooting from the Israeli army and I thought I was going to die.”
At the end of the day, they removed the tracker and told Abu Said to leave the area, waving a white flag they gave him.
“If you don't do what they ask, they will kill you without hesitation,” he said.
The use of prisoners as human shields is prohibited by Article 28 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which states: “The presence of a protected person. [for example a prisoner] Certain points or areas cannot be used to escape military operations.
In 2002, Israel's High Court prohibited the IDF from using the so-called “neighbor procedure,” detaining a Palestinian in a demilitarized zone and ordering the detainee to knock on his neighbors' doors and control their access. houses.
However, the use of human shields persisted. In 2010, two IDF sergeants were demoted for forcing a nine-year-old Palestinian boy to open several bags of suspected explosives.
Bill van Esvelt, Human Rights Watch's associate director for children's rights in the Middle East and North Africa, said: “There are repeated well-documented accounts from UN bodies and human rights groups and references to Israeli conscience. Problem, but no action.
“It is not surprising that this chronic problem persists.”
