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?
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.
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.
Gadi Eizenkot was quoted as saying that:
“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.
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, 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 to resist that, and set the record straight.
- Euro-Mid Observer for Human Rights, Israeli Matrix of Control: Use of Palestinian Civilians as Human Shields, 2014. [Link]
- Gordon, Neve, and Nicola Perugini. Human Shields: A History of People in the Line of Fire. Univ of California Press, 2020.
- B’tselem, Human Shields, November 11th, 2017. [Link]
- Gordon and Perugini, The fallacy of Israel’s human shields claims in Gaza, Al Jazeera, June 18th, 2018. [Link]