Gazans say Israeli troops forced them into battle zones

Dion Nissenbaum – McClatchy Newspapers February 2, 2009

The Israeli soldiers outside Majdi Abed Rabbo's home were after the three Hamas fighters holed up next door, and they wanted Abed Rabbo to be their point man. For the next 24 hours, Abed Rabbo said, the soldiers repeatedly forced him to walk through the battle zone to see whether the militants were dead or alive.

Abed Rabbo wasn't alone. Eight other residents in this northern Gaza Strip neighborhood told McClatchy in separate interviews that Israeli soldiers had conscripted them to check homes for booby traps, to smash holes in the walls of houses so that soldiers could use them as escape routes or to try to pull dead Palestinian militants from the rubble. Conscripting Palestinians during the recent fighting in Gaza would appear to violate not only international law, but also Israel's court-imposed ban on using civilians as human shields.

"The laws of war make it clear you must distinguish between civilians and combatants and you cannot force a civilian to take on a combat role," said Daniel Reisner, a legal scholar who spent nearly a decade as the head of the Israeli military's international law department. "Using a human shield is illegal."

Human shields. Israel uses human shields to protect themselves from irregular fighters despite the immense quantities of arms they have.

www.mcclatchydc.com...

Originally posted by masonwatcher

Conscripting Palestinians during the recent fighting in Gaza would appear to violate not only international law, but also Israel's court-imposed ban on using civilians as human shields.

My question is, if this is indeed true, and the finger is being pointed at Israel, are we to turn our heads to the fact that Hamas uses the Palestinian civilians as shields on a continual basis ?












[edit on 2/6/2009 by jdposey]

reply to post by jdposey

My question is, if this is indeed true, and the finger is being pointed at Israel, are we to turn our heads to the fact that Hamas uses the Palestinian civilians as shields on a continual basis ?

Can you reference evidence of Hamas using there own voters as human shields?

I do know the only continual use of Palestinians as human shields is by Israeli Occupation Forces.