Use of human shields by terrorists
The tactic of using human shields is very early, many have used human shields. The 'uniquness' of terrorists is by using its own people.
Among documented noted terror entities[1][2] using this method:
- Taliban (supported by Pakistan, Qatar and Iran. [3][4]) In 2007, [5] in 2009, [6] in 2010,[7] in 2015,[8] in 2017, [9] in 2018,[10] and in 2019.[11][12]
- ISIS[13][14][15]
- Houthis (Iranian proxy)[20][21][22]
- Hezbollah[23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32] (Iranian proxy).
- Arafat - PLO.[33][34]
- Tanzim (Arab-Palestinian group).[35]
- Al-Qassam (Arab-Palestinian group).[36]
- Hamas[37][38] Iranian proxy.[39][40] Pakistani and Iranian trained.[41]
- Palestinian Islamic Jihad.[40][42][43] Iran linked.[44]
Palestine: 1939
Already in 1939, Yusuf Sa'id Abu Durra (1900 – 1940 - nom de guerre: Abu Abed), of Mohammed Amin Al-Husseini grand Mufti of a Jerusalem's terror gang, used women to escape.[45]
Terror states, dictators
- Turkey's (dictator[55][56][57][58][59][60][61] ethnic-cleanser, oppressor, Islamist[62][63] fascist[64][65][66][67][68]) Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, (2020).[69][70]
Anti-Israel forces
The use of its civilians (in attacking Israeli civilians - the double crime[71]) by anti-Israel Arab-"Palestinians" or Hezbollah goes back to at least 1982, by Arafat at PLO.[33][72][73][74][75][76][34][77]
It has unfortunately caused many deaths while "successfully" duped the media or/and many reporters have played along.
This routine, practice, makes the anti-Israel Arab-Islamic forces the powerful destructive 'Goliath' vs 'David' - Israel - the careful side, despite its military capabilities.
It hinders Israel's defense and limits getting majority of terror targets.[78]
Most widespread, by Islamic Jihad and Hamas.[79] [80] Even by own admission.[81][82][83] That, in addition to operatives confessing to this fact.[84]
Among its usage:
- Schools.[85][86][35][87][88][89][90][91][92][93][94][95][32]
- Hospitals.[96][97][98][99][100][101][102][103][84][104]
[105]”[106][107][108] - Residences/private homes.[109][110][111]
- Places of worship.[112][33][113][99]
- Kids.[114][115][116][117][118][119][120][121]
Re Hamas[139]
Hamas, the terrorist organization that controls the Gaza Strip since it defeated Fatah in elections and expelled its members by killing about 500 of them, between the years 2006 and 2007, learned from Hezbollah how to achieve gains on the conflict against the “Zionist enemy”. Hamas has adopted Hezbollah modus operandi using civilians as “human shields”. Few years ago the IDF published how it looks in the Shiite village of Al-Khiyam in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah has placed the weapon depots dozen meters from schools in the crowded center of the village. Over the years, Hamas enjoyed wide assistance of training and consultancy from Hezbollah and applied the same methodology in Gaza. An underground, well concreted City was dug in Gaza, Where Hamas militants were hiding, while a single shelter was not built for the citizens. Gaza villages, as in Southern Lebanon, became military compounds including armories, headquarters, intelligence positions, rocket launching positions, etc. All these were spread throughout the village according to the terrain analysis: observation posts on high positions controlling the roads below, important assets such as command centers and weapons warehouses in the most crowded or sensitive sites such as hospitals, schools and mosques. During an escalation, rockets are being launched from the hidden positions that were dug in advance – within or under homes, schools, mosques and various religious centers. For example, the attached video shows rockets launched last week from the “Al-Noor” school in the Gaza Strip.
NATO has documented Hamas’ use of human shields in Gaza.[140]
Columnist:[141]
It’s often pointed out that Hamas does not recognize Israel’s right to exist. It’s more than that. Hamas, with Iran’s backing, is committed to Israel’s violent destruction. Missiles have fallen on schools and homes. Hamas is explicit about desiring Israeli counterattacks, because while Hamas aims to kill Israeli civilians, they know that Israel tries very hard not to kill Palestinian civilians. But every Palestinian death at the hands of Israel is seen as a propaganda victory for Hamas — which is why they place their munitions and terrorists in mosques, hospitals, and homes crowded with children.
Dubbed the 'dead baby strategy.'[142][143][144][145][146][147][148][149][150][151][152][153][154][155][156][157][158]
In a 2012 example in eliminating a terror master, it was explained:[159]
... For sure Hamas carries out good deeds among the Palestinian poor in Gaza, with clinics and soup kitchens, but this is largely an attempt to indoctrinate them in anti-Semitic hatred by a political leadership that gives the armed wing its strategic marching orders.
The core fighters of the military wing number several hundreds of men, trained in Iran and Syria, but there another 10,000 people who facilitate their evil deeds.
Hamas is not some benign conservative religious party. The 2012 list of its regular human rights abuses compiled by the organisation Human Rights Watch runs to 42 pages, and includes beating people with iron bars, 102 cases of torture, and the hanging of anyone suspected of collaborating with the Israelis.
Their fighters employ child suicide bombers and use Palestinian civilians as human shields. This is the organisation to which Jaberi devoted the last decades of his violent life.
Jaberi, for example, is believed to have been involved in the suicide bombing of a No 6 bus in the Israeli settlement of Kfar Darom in 1995 that killed eight and wounded 60 others.
Hamas' human shields has been widely noted by international journalists,[160] and has even threatened journalists reporting about it.[161][162][107]
Already in 2009, the fear factor was raised which prevents Arab Palestinians in testifying about it,[163] before Richard Goldstone saw the facts and had revised his report, admitting he was wrong, seeing Israel's evidence, and that the IDF's killing was unintentional.[164]
Already in 2008, Hamas openly bragged about the use of women and children as shields.[165]
Even biased HRW acknowledged it already in 2009.[166]
In 2014 it called on the "Palestinian" people to use the tactic to defend their homes: "We in the Hamas movement call on our people to adopt this procedure."[167]
At the time, a 'manual' by Hamas, instruction on human-shields, was found too.[168]
Hamas terrorists confessed to human shields use,[169] including that it was “widely known” that senior Hamas operatives had been hiding inside of Gaza’s hospitals.[84]
As Israel, the side that does care about all civilians, enacted its inventive advanced warning for civilians to evacuate ahead of targeting terrorists or/and weapon facilities etc., Hamas called on the population to stay put and not adhere to IDF warning.[170]
In June, 2021, Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar himself admitted that the terrorist group hides in civilian buildings in Gaza.[171][172]
In July, 2021, in a rare rebuke, Arab-Palestinians, Fatah Palestinian Authority --though themselves terrorists in suits[173]-- rights groups condemned Hamas for storing weapons in civilian areas.[174]
As summarised, [175]
Certain facts are irrefutable. The terrorists are motivated by hatred and aim to wound or kill innocent women, men and children. Israel, by contrast, is motivated by the legal and moral imperative to protect and preserve life, and is always entirely justified in acting in its own self-defense...It is impossible to obtain reliable data on civilian casualties in Gaza. Data that is provided to and reported by the media come from the Gaza Health Ministry, which is run by Hamas, a U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization. What we do know — what is proven — is that Hamas commits war crimes by using Palestinians as human shields. No place in Gaza is safe from Hamas. Rockets, mortars, rifles and missiles are stored or fired from schools, apartment buildings, offices, mosques and hospitals.
A Finnish journalist reported seeing Hamas terrorists launch a rocket at Israel from a Gaza hospital, but later attacked news outlets for using her report as a pro-Israel “propaganda weapon.”[106] She is of Arab descent.
Days after Guardian of walls op., on May-28-2021, Hamas' head Y. Sinwar, played "hero," challenging Israel to eliminate him while he was careful to surrounded himself with civilians.[176]
Researchers' summary on crimes by Hamas at Guardian of walls:[177]
- As recognized by international law, Israel has the legal right to employ the force necessary to defend itself. President Biden, on May 16, 2021, “reaffirmed his strong support for Israel’s right to defend itself against rocket attacks from Hamas and other terrorist groups in Gaza.”
Book:[178]
The May 2021 conflict between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas generated headlines around the world. However, much of the reporting ignored the history, funding, political dynamics, and other key components of the story. Hamas initiates conflict every few years. But the reporting rarely improves. Social media has only further clouded the picture. Hamas is rarely held responsible for its use of "human shields," blindly firing rockets at civilian areas in Israel, or diverting aid that should benefit the people of Gaza.
The Islamic Republic of Iran, a state sponsor of terrorism, has been the primary patron of Hamas since the group's inception in the late 1980s. Hamas has received additional assistance over the years from Qatar, Turkey and Malaysia. These countries are fomenting conflict, while others, such as Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, have tried to minimize it. Gaza is therefore ground zero in a struggle for the future stability of the Middle East.
The Biden administration has important choices to make. Its intent to re-enter the Iran nuclear deal could have significant consequences, given that sanctions relief to Iran will likely yield a financial boon for Hamas, along with other Iranian proxies. The Biden administration must also come to terms with "The Squad," a small but loud faction of the Democratic Party that seeks to undermine the US-Israel relationship.
- From a young age, Palestinian children are indoctrinated by the Palestinian leadership to seek death through war. For example, the daughter of a Hamas official was recorded saying, “If we die, we will die as Martyrs for the sake of Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa.” Such indoctrination is reinforced in summer camps for children and culminates in the conscription of children into military units, in direct violation of international humanitarian law.
- In the course of the 11-day conflict, from May 10 to May 21, 2021, Hamas launched 4,300 rockets at Israeli civilians in a blatant violation of international humanitarian law, which calls to protect civilian populations during military operations. Article 25 of the 1907 Hague Regulations specifically prohibits attacks or bombardment of towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings that are undefended.
- Hamas unapologetically uses its own civilians as human shields, unconcerned with the fatal ramifications of its actions. British Colonel Richard Kemp designated Hamas as “the first ‘army’ in history to use their own civilian populations as a primary weapon of war.” On May 12, 2021, UN Special Coordinator Tor Wennesland told the UN Security Council, “Hamas and other militants’ indiscriminate launching of rockets and mortars from highly populated civilian neighborhoods into civilian population centers in Israel violates international humanitarian law, is unacceptable, and has to stop immediately.”
- Israel makes a concerted effort to limit civilian casualties. The IDF engages in the practice of “roof knocking” to warn civilians prior to an attack on Hamas targets. In addition, before Israeli attacks, civilians receive phone calls advising them to evacuate. Israeli drones watch from above, and attacks are permitted only after it is confirmed that the building has been evacuated.
- Hamas demonstrates no respect for international humanitarian law designed to protect innocent civilians. Therefore, it is vital that Hamas be held accountable for its illegal actions in international forums and international courts of law. Without doing so, there will be no justice for those who have suffered from the grave human rights abuses committed by Hamas.
In August 2021, Hamas arrested 20-year-old Mustafa Asfour for criticizing Hamas storing weapons in residential areas in the Gaza Strip.[179]
UN --and the like-- (by "default") boring predictable anti-Israel "resolutions" routine are also at fault for the intensification of this practice.[180]
Report in 2017-2018 on Hezbollah:[181]
Those who follow events in the Middle East are no stranger to the carnage in Syria, but there is another humanitarian crisis in the making you probably haven’t heard much about. Why? Because you will only read it, splashed across international newspapers, when it is too late and everyone acts surprised and outraged that it happened.
Hezbollah, the Shiite terrorist organization bankrolled by Iran and effectively in control of Lebanon, is steeling itself for a new war with Israel. At the heart of the group’s military strategy is the deployment of human shields — a war crime and terrorist tactic aimed at exploiting the moral sensibility of the enemy.
Israeli military officials have warned that Hezbollah has turned hundreds of Lebanese villages into fighting zones, establishing bases in Beirut, the Bekaa Valley, and southern Lebanon, both “above and below live civilians whom we [Israel] have nothing against — a kind of human shield,” said Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, chief of staff for the Israel Defense Forces.
Hezbollah has a presence in “every third or fourth house,” he added, spread out across 240 villages in southern Lebanon, in blatant violation of U.N. Resolution 1701, which calls for the removal of all armed groups from the area. Hezbollah continues to receive weapons from its patrons in Iran and the U.N. Security Council has so far failed to enforce the resolution.
A significant part of Hezbollah’s military infrastructure is embedded in civilian areas. Rockets, bombs and rifles are placed under homes, schools and hospitals with the grim intention that, if Israel needs to take out Hezbollah’s arsenals in a preventive strike, the operation will lead to mass civilian casualties.
Hezbollah is playing a zero-sum game at the expense of its own population, thus leaving Israel in a tough spot: knock out the weapons before they put at risk the lives of Israelis, or wait until they are deployed and risk the lives of both Israeli and Lebanese civilians. It is a no-win situation for Israel. Either way, Israel will be inevitably blamed for any civilian casualties...
Expert on Hezbollah's tunnels:[182]
Lebanese "human shield"
Most Lebanese military commentators explain that the excavation of the tunnels is the result of the lessons of the Second Lebanon War, and were intended to protect Hezbollah fighters and equipment from Israel's subsequent bombings. Al-Qusayr-Zabdani's border area is strategically convenient for Hezbollah because it is mountainous, and compared to other areas for fighter jets it is difficult to bomb.
Lebanese commentator Ahmad al-Ayoubi claimed that Hezbollah was acting without any regard for Lebanon, as the country's landlord, and in 2006 brought disaster and tremendous destruction to Lebanon, all due to the irresponsible step of kidnapping soldiers, serving only the organization's interests. Now the tunnels could bring exactly the same results. According to al-Ayoubi, Hezbollah is defending itself and not the Lebanese. In the next war, the organization's fighters will be in the tunnels, while the civilians will snatch the fire from Israeli planes. Lebanese citizens are becoming a human shield of the organization.
As a result of Hezbollah using civilians as human shields including placing weapons near residential areas,[183] the Aug 4, 2020, explosion damaged over half the city and killed at least 218 people.[184] Fearing truth will be revealed about Hezbollah's fault, its thugs attacked protesting investigation on Oct 14, 2021. 6 killed, 32 injured.[185][186]
Anti-Israel Islamist terrorists see their methods, firing from residential places, schools, etc. as a win win situation. In case they save themselves and their weaponry, of course they then can keep on the assault on Israeli civilians. If many civilians on its own side die, then Israel's image is even more in shambles and graphic photos are most powerful in bringing sympathy and even recruitment.
Among the famous dates:
- Dec.2000 letter by Arab women on use of kids as "cannon fodders";
- the letter by US doctors;
- the firing behind children stone throwers at intifada;
- 2000-2002 increased use;
- at IDF eliminating Jihadists in Jenin-2002 - which is why the IDF went door to door;
- 2006 Beit-Hanoun widely reported internationally of using women and terrorists did escaped (including BBC reporting on Hamas radio, Nov 3, call to women);
- 2002-2006 use of ambulances;
- 2008-2009 including on air real time Arab journalist reporting rockets fired from beneath;
- In 2008, Hamas' Fathi Hanmad stated that they have been using women and children.
Hamas explains use of human shields: "We desire death as you desire life;"
- In 2008, Fatah men accused Hamas of forcing them to act as human shields;
- 2009 Jan., per AP report, locals affirm that "Hamas militants had opened fire from the cover of a U.N. school where hundreds of Palestinians had sought refuge."
- 2009, PBS' statement from a doctor at hospital of Hamas terrorists hiding there, thus reaffirming IDF's revelations already in Dec-2008;
- 2009, J. Fleishman in L.A. Times, Jan. 23, detailing how Hamas used a bunker beneath a hospital as a headquarters;
- Oct-13-2009, PA's Mahmoud Abbas: Hamas Leaders Fled to the Sinai in Ambulances during the Israeli Campaign in Gaza;
- 2011 Hamas boasting, bragging of its launching actually showed in its provided images the residential locations where it fired from;
- In 2014, Hamas' Sami Abu Zuhri called on the Palestinian people to use the tactic to defend their homes: "We in the Hamas movement call on our people to adopt this procedure;"
- Summer-2014 widely array of international journalists --including Finnish, Polish (recounting it following year), French, Italian, Indian, Canadian reporters-- report of firing from civilian population and then there were reports of many threatened by Hamas for reporting;
- July-2014, WP report of Shifa hpspital being a "de facto headquarters for Hamas leaders;"
- July-2014, Hamas' 'human shields' how to, manual - captured;
- M. Friedman of AP reports (in 2014) how Hamas uses and even controls journalists;
- Hamas firing from besides offices of AP journalists; 2017-2021;
- In 2018 Hamas' Sinwar: "We Decided To Turn The Bodies Of Our Women And Children Into A Dam Blocking Arab Collapse;"
- In 2021 IDF aborting operations as kids were around;
- rocket launchers found near school.
- terror tunnels beneath schools - UNRWA acknowledges;
- in June-2021 Hamas' Sinwar admitting to the operations located in residential places;
- in Aug-2021, Hamas arrests Mustafa Asfour for criticizing Hamas storing weapons in residential areas.
Or Hezbollah use - most notably:
- using Christian villages
- UN recognized the fact in 2001
- and in 2006
- also by foreign journalist in 2006;
- the wide report of using civilians in 2018-19;
- 2021, the Druze fighting Hezbolllah for launching rockets from near their houses in order so to draw fire from IDF at them.
Experts:[187]
Hamas has established an orderly paramilitary framework with brigades, battalions, companies, and platoons as well as dedicated units, including intelligence, commando and cyber units. Its arsenal includes thousands of rockets and missiles at their disposal, as well as dozens of kilometers of tunnels often built underneath highly-sensitive areas in the Gaza Strip such as hospitals. Rockets have even been found underneath UNRWA schools...
Moral and legal justifications that were developed after World War II for declaring and waging wars (specifically the Hague and Geneva Convention) were meant for sovereign states. They are not appropriate for waging wars fought against terrorist organizations like Hamas. This puts Israel at a significant disadvantage to effectively defend itself and its citizens.
In the current campaign between Israel and Hamas, the front and home front are blurred together. Hamas forces civilians in the Gaza Strip and Israel to be on the front lines. Hamas deliberately uses Palestinian civilians as human shields, since the terrorists are launching rockets and missiles from heavily-populated areas towards Israeli cities. Israel on the other hand, is trying to save innocent lives by always notifying Palestinian civilians in the building that is going to be targeted. The IDF does this by sending leaflets, making phone calls, using “knock on the roof” tactics and more.
In the course of the years, the IDF has developed and constantly improved methods, tools to minimze civilian casualties on the other side, including notifying owners of properties ahead of an operation so that civilians can evacuate and more precision guided weapons to hit more accurately at the target. Yet, nothing can ever be 100% a 100% of the times. Plus, the dilemmna is great, sacrificing in not eliminating terror targets such as arsenal, tunnels and operatives who cynically use its people.
As explained in a piece "The Media’s Role in Hamas' War Strategy":[188]
Hamas’ PR strategy can only work if international news media follows the script, whether willingly or under coercion...
According to its critics, Hamas' war strategy works like this:
1. Episodically attack Israel’s civilians in such as way as to provoke a counter-attack.
2. Hide behind Palestinian civilians (preferably in crowded neighborhoods, schools, and hospitals), while encouraging them, even forcing them, to stay, guaranteeing that the return fire wounds or kills civilians and damages civilian structures.
3. Encourage the Western news media to play up the civilian suffering, play down Hamas’ role in it, and accuse Israel.
4. Conjure a firestorm of outrage around the world that eventually pressures Israel into desisting from counteroffensive measures.
5. Survive to reap the propaganda victory and prepare the next round of hostilities.
6. Repeat, with each exchange hurting Israel more, and each round of international news coverage further savaging the Jewish State’s international reputation.
No matter what the Israeli response, the Hamas strategy is win-win. If the Israelis abort a strike to avoid civilian casualties (as they often do), then Hamas is spared the blow; if an Israeli strike causes civilian casualties, Hamas has dead babies to parade before the cameras. And eventually, the bloodletting will get so bad, the pictures so damning, that Israel will stop. Hamas’ endgame goals, at least at this stage of its asymmetrical war, are actually threefold: tie Israel down with constraints on its use of power, delegitimize and demonize it in the eyes of the world, and stir an aggressive “Muslim Street” in the West, where genocidal chants can lead to pogroms against the Jews worldwide.
Despite a pair of pro-Terror radical "activists"
[one, a former al-Jazeera guy, caught lying already before,[189]
another one (Neve Gordon), extremist,[190] hugging, shielding Arafat in the height of 2002 Intifadah massacres,[191] lying as if he "doesn't" know who is responsible for the terror massacres,[192]
"Gordon is so anti-Israel that his columns have been published on the neo-Nazi Zundelsite website operated by Ernst Zundel, the Nazi whom Canada recently deported to Germany, and on Islamic fundamentalist pro-terror web sites." He was "arrested for illegally trying to interfere with the Israeli army's anti-terror activities by serving as a human shield for Arafat and the wanted terrorists being hidden in PLO offices."[193] "Neve Gordon has gotten into bed with neo-Nazis, Holocaust justice deniers, and anti-Semites. He is a despicable example of a self-hating Jew and a self-hating Israeli."
Accused[194] of 'racist Judeophobic rhetoric.'
Taken from an article by a senior Israeli academic, this excerpt typifies the racist Judeophobic rhetoric that has come to dominate the public discourse on the Israeli- Palestinian conflict.
Accused of inciting anti-Semitism in Arab press by invoking old libels.[195] Described as kind of a fascist type, [196] and who has been chastising, punishing his students for daring to challenge him on his distortion,[197] inciting vengeful treatment against a student who dared challenged his gross lie of his defining a road of all Israelis, Israelis-roads, both Arab and Jewish, as supposedly "just" Jewish. Thus inciting hatred.[198] Even the lefty Ben Gurion Uni condemned his ideas/views:[199] "We strongly reject the destructive views of Gordon, who cynically uses the existing freedom of expression in Israel and at Ben-Gurion University."]
co-authoring[200] Anti-Israel bigotry: How to Dehumanize Israeli Civilians - Academically], DP, Aug 18, 2020</ref> a "book"[197] whereby in reality he identifies with Hamas[201] --"book" promoted by two known hateful over-a-decade-propagandists[202] yet, facts are facts.
Both "co-authors" wrote earlier against denouncing Hamas for its routine method of using its people as human shields. Using that pseudo line of which side lost more, (asides from the unreliable figures of so called "civilians" coming from pallywood), they wrote/protested against Amnesty's report: [21] 26 March 2015, Index number: MDE 21/1178/2015: During the Gaza/Israel conflict in July and August 2014, Palestinian armed groups fired thousands of rockets and mortars at Israel, in many cases directed towards Israeli civilians and civilian objects, in violation of international law. The conduct of Palestinian armed groups, including firing from residential areas and using indiscriminate munitions that cannot be accurately directed at a military target, also endangered civilians in Gaza.)
It has been pointed out, one might imagine, what would have happened, if Israel would, even once, albeit not go as far as to behave like its Arab Palestinian or Hezbollah side that actively aim at civilians while using its own, but with its mighty weapons just haden't gone to great length ['roof knocking',[203] developing precision 'Iron Sting' for precision preventing collateral damage[204] various nethods[205][206]] to minimize civilians from adversary territories.
It has been said: 'How the Vicious Cycle of Arab "Palestinian" or Hezbollah - Bringing About Dead Kids Can Be Diminished':[207]
Fight the death cult! Save lives!
The vicious cycle is ever repeating. Palestinian or Hezbollah attack Israeli civilians, Israel goes after the operatives and their tools.. it tries to avoid hitting non combatants, not always successful, as the only party interested in 'dead babies' are exactly those who make sure it happens. Each and every time. As it is mostly tough, technically, to show a clear photo where exactly the Hamas, Hezbollah or P.I.Jihad guy was standing prior to being eliminated, or the place how it served the terrorists. But a 'dead' or and any bloodied body, is always powerful prey by those bloodthirsty leaders. It's the greatest recruitment plus the demonization of Israel. It shocks, it enrages. It's what they 'live' off, literally. Financially too. What if leading media outlets, especially TV stations would stop showing graphic photos? Try it. You will see a drop in Arab dead bodies. Of course it's nearly impossible, unless Hamas's friends, the Qataris Al Jazeera for example would be embarrassed facing a collective western media blackout.
We are not talking about avoiding reporting the news. But a specific temporary ban on shocking images.
Analyst and journalist:[208]
Hamas has waged a sophisticated, even brilliant propaganda war. “Anyone killed or martyred is to be called a civilian from Gaza or Palestine,” the group told Gazans in a public-service announcement, “before we talk about his status in jihad or his military rank.” Hamas enjoined civilians to use the phrase “innocent civilians” as much as possible when speaking with journalists.
Hamas launches rockets from the Strip’s most densely populated locales—chiefly Gaza City, Beit Hanoun in the north, and Khan Younis in the south—and tells fighters to fire from sensitive locations like schools, churches, mosques, UN buildings and hospitals. It’s a win-win strategy: If Israel is deterred, Hamas fighters and infrastructure are preserved; if Israel is not, the attendant civilian casualties will be a propaganda coup.
Hamas’s media strategy is exemplified by its use of Gaza City's Shifa hospital. There, in one of the conflict’s worst-kept secrets, the group’s leadership has prosecuted the war from an underground bunker. Reporters were denied entry to the bunker and instead invited to a media center in the hospital courtyard. There, journalists seeking interviews with Hamas officials were obligated to line up, in prime position to snap photos as wounded civilians and combatants (the latter inevitably plain-clothed) were rushed into the building.
As Arab-Palestinian long time human rights activist (previously working at Betselem, before it became a total anti-Israel unreliable source of sheer propaganda) asserted:[209]
“The main difference between Israel and Hamas: Israel is using missiles to protect its people while Hamas is using its people to protect its rockets,” Eid told The Algemeiner. “Hamas does not care where these missiles land.”
Eid estimates based on his own Palestinian sources in the Gaza Strip that more than 50 Palestinians died because of errant rockets by the Hamas that were targeted towards Israel but which landed in Gaza. According to the Israeli army, about 4,340 rockets were fired by Hamas toward Israel during the 11 days of hostilities, with 640 of them falling within Gaza.
Even biased NPR in its anti-Israel reporting piece (re op. Guardian of Walls) cited the fact: ...In Gaza City, fully intact buildings stood right next to where others had been flattened. One building looked like a layer cake, with one story stacked on top of the other.[210] The nature routine and nethods, precision fighting the human shields of its enemies.
As in a nutshell, the classic example [May, 2021] described the situation:
The IDF, attempting to warn about an impending strike, pleading for the Arab man in Gaza to evacuate the building before the bombing because civilians are present. This is the conversation that took place:
- "I can’t get all of the people out I need at least two hours to get them out," the Palestinian says.
- "Listen, we are going to bomb the building," the member of the IDF replies.
- "You want to bomb? Bomb whatever you want," the man responds.
- "No, brother, we need to do everything we can so you don’t die,” the IDF member says.
- "We want to die," the Palestinian answers.
- "But you have a responsibility for children’s lives," the Israeli pushes back.
- "If the children need to die then they’ll die," the Palestinian counters.
- "God forbid, God forbid, what do you want, to die?!" the soldier asks.
- "This is how we reveal your cruelty," the man responds.Sky News Arabic video showing a conversation between a Gaza Palestinian and an IDF soldier.[211][212][213][214]
Action
- In 2014, a resolution was introduced in the House condemning Hamas and other terror organizations.[215]
- Hamas was condemned for its use of human shields by the EU in July-2014;[217] by the (routinely anti-Israel) HRW in Aug, 2009;[36] by Amnesty International in March-2015;[218][219] (a body which is rather obsessed with anti-Israelism), in April-2018 by the EU,[220] and by the UN in June-2018.[221][222] (unusual for biased UN[180]) As well as by: Barack Obama on Aug-1-2014.[223][224] by UK in 2015;[225] by UNRWA (at such groups) on July-17-2014;[226] and again days later for placing rockets in yet another UNRWA school;[227][228][229] in 2017 at a Hamas-dug tunnel under school;[230] and in June-2021 also for a tunnel built under school, found after op. Guardian of walls.[231][232] Condemned by European aid commissioner in 2009;[233] by Canada's PM Harper (2014);[234] by Nobel laureate E. Wiesel (2014);[235] by the Wiesenthal Center (including in 2018);[236] by the Australian Labor party in July-2014;[237][238] by the OAS in May-2021.[239] Hamas and Hezbollah were condemned by the UN in July, 2021,[240][241] following Guardian of Walls.
- In August/2021, as Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel[242] near Druze houses, in a rare courageous act against the terror group that has its grip on Lebanon via terror, Druze villagers from the southern Lebanese Druze village of Chouya, on August 6, 2021, fought the Hezbollah[243][242] for firing from near their houses in order to draw fire from Israeli defenders, using the population as human shields.[243][244][245] The scene was filmed while some shouted: "Film this! film this!, the whole world will see Hezbollah firing from our houses, to attack us."[246] Noted as a dramatic event.[247]
See: Druze vs Hezbollah (2021).
References
- ↑ Orde Kittrie, 'Time to Act on Human Shields.' FDD, October 15, 2020. https://www.fdd.org/2020/10/15/time-to-act-on-human-shields/#easy-footnote-bottom-39-111635
- ↑ Orde Kittrie: "Help NATO by Holding Hamas Accountable for Terrorist War Crimes." May 19, 2021. https://nationalinterest.org/feature/help-nato-holding-hamas-accountable-terrorist-war-crimes-185581
- ↑ https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/panjshir-bombed-pakistani-air-force-drones-smart-bombs-reports-1849570-2021-09-06
- ↑ The Afghanistan mess is truly Biden’s disaster and other commentary Post Editorial Board, NYPost, August 29, 2021.
- ↑ Taliban Used Children as Human Shields Associated Press, September 20, 2007. KABUL, Afghanistan — Taliban fighters carrying machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades used children as human shields during a battle in southern Afghanistan yesterday, forcing American-led coalition soldiers to hold their fire for a time, the coalition said.
- ↑ Taliban fighters use civilians as 'human shields' as battle for Pakistan tears Swat Valley apart Liz Hazelton for MailOnline 10:40 BST 05 May 2009 , updated 11:08 BST 08 May 2009
- ↑ 'Taliban using human shields, says Afghan army general.' The Guardian, Feb 17, 2010. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/feb/17/taliban-human-shields
- ↑ Afghanistan fights to retake Kunduz from Taliban fighters Cassandra Vinograd and Fazul Rahim, MSNBC, Sep 29, 2015. "Our main problem is that the enemy is using civilians as shields," he said in a televised address...
- ↑ Mattis target of failed Kabul airport rocket attack, Taliban says Euan McKirdy, Keith Allen and Ryan Browne, CNN, September 27, 2017. A statement released by the international coalition in Afghanistan, Resolute Support, accused insurgents of "using civilians as shield and cover."
- ↑ Afghanistan war: US strike in Helmand killed 23 civilians, UN says BBC News, Nov 30, 2018. Nato said the Taliban had been using the building that was hit "as a fighting position", and accused the militants of continuously using civi as human shields.
- ↑ Asim Umar: Al-Qaeda's South Asia chief 'killed in Afghanistan' BBC News, Aug 8, 2019. Both US and Afghan forces often accuse the Taliban of using civilians as shields.
- ↑ Civilians say Taliban use of human shields shows weakness, cruelty.' Dec. 12, 2018. https://afghanistan.asia-news.com/en_GB/articles/cnmi_st/features/2018/12/12/feature-02
- ↑ Islamic State use of human shields slows final assault on ISIS . ABC News, Mar 4, 2019. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/islamic-state-human-shields-slows-final-assault-isis/story?id=61456501 The final assault on the last Islamic State enclave in Syria has slowed down after the discovery that ISIS was using civilians as human shields.
- ↑ 'ISIS Using Mosul Civilians as Human Shields Amid Offensive.' Time, Mar 30, 2017. https://time.com/4717319/mosul-iraq-offensive-civilians-human-shields/
- ↑ Suleiman Al-Khalidi, and Nandita Bose, ISIS leader Quraishi kills himself during Syria raid, U.S. says, Reuters, Feb 3, 2022.
As U.S. forces closed in on Quraishi in northwestern Syria overnight, he triggered a blast that also killed members of his own family, including children, according to Biden and U.S. officials.
- ↑ Mark Hollingsworth, Sandy Mitchell, 'Saudi Babylon: Torture, Corruption and Cover-Up Inside the House of Saud,' Random House, 2010
- ↑ Pakistan Horizon. Volume 63, Issue 1, 2010, p. 104
- ↑ Iran: Afghan Children Recruited to Fight in Syria HRW, Oct 1, 2017.
Protection Gaps Increase Children’s Vulnerability
(Beirut) – Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has recruited Afghan immigrant children living in Iran to fight in Syria, Human Rights Watch said today. Afghan children as young as 14 have fought in the Fatemiyoun division, an exclusively Afghan armed group supported by Iran that fights alongside government forces in the Syrian conflict. Under international law, recruiting children under the age of 15 to participate actively in hostilities is a war crime.
- ↑ What Is the Fatemiyoun Brigade and Why Does It Make the Taliban Nervous? Lila Hassan, PBS, July 20, 2021.
FRONTLINE documentary "Leaving Afghanistan." Amid the U.S. withdrawal, Taliban leaders claim Iran is mobilizing its proxy militia the Fatemiyoun for civil war within Afghanistan.
Why did the U.S. designate the Fatemiyoun a terrorist organization?
In 2019, the U.S. Treasury Department designated the Fatemiyoun in Syria a terrorist organization “for providing material support” to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, alongside other groups that assisted Iran in Syria.
“The brutal Iranian regime exploits refugee communities in Iran, deprives them of access to basic services, such as education, and uses them as human shields for the Syrian conflict,” said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin at the time of the designation.
- ↑ 'Yemeni Govt Says Houthis Are Using Civilians as Human Shields."?' Asharq Al Awsat, Feb.10.2021
- ↑ 'Exclusive: U.N. report on Yemen says Houthis used human shields, Islamic State got cash.' Michelle Nichols. Reuters, Aug 4, 2016. https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKCN10F28B
- ↑ MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) Tweeted:
Apr 10, 2022.- ICYMI: In BBC Debate, Yemeni Activist Sonia Saleh Accuses Houthis of Using Yemenis as Human Shields; Houthi Official Nasr Al-Din Amer Responds: We Will Use Our Weapons to Strike Saudi Arabia and the Americans.
TEL AVIV — Viewed from the air, Muhaybib looks like a typical southern Lebanese village — a cluster of about 90 houses and buildings punctuated by the minaret of a mosque and surrounded by fields.
But when the Israeli military trains its lens on that hilltop Shiite village close to the border, it sees nine arms depots, five rocket-launching sites, four infantry positions, signs of three underground tunnels, three antitank positions and, in the very center of the village, a Hezbollah command post.
As Israel prepares for what it sees as an almost inevitable next battle with Hezbollah, the Shiite Lebanese organization that fought a monthlong war against Israel in 2006, Israeli military officials and experts are warning that the group has done more than significantly build up its firepower since then.
Maps and aerial photography provided to The New York Times by Israeli military officials this week illustrate, they say, that Hezbollah has moved most of its military infrastructure into the Shiite villages of southern Lebanon and around their perimeters. Israel says this amounts to using the civilians as a human shield.
Without knowing when the next war will break out, or what might precipitate it, the Israelis are blunt about the implications: They will not hesitate to strike at those targets, so southern Lebanon will most likely be the scene of widespread destruction.
Effectively, the Israelis are warning that in the event of another conflict with Hezbollah, many Lebanese civilians will probably be killed, and that it should not be considered Israel’s fault.
“The civilians are living in a military compound,” a senior Israeli military official said at military headquarters in Tel Aviv, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was discussing delicate intelligence matters...
A slide from an Israel Defense Forces presentation that it says illustrates how Hezbollah has moved military facilities into civilian areas.
The explosion of a Hezbollah warehouse near a school, should it happen, would be half the size of the Beirut explosion of last year... a possible target belonging to Hezbollah in the southern Lebanese village of Ebba in the Nabatieh Governorate... the terrorist group is storing rockets, military-grade explosives and other weapons in a residential building just 25 m. from a school with 300 students.
- Nir Dvori, Roni Daniel, "N12 - Watch: The IDF unveils a weapons depot set up near a school yard", N12, July 14, 2021.
- The next Lebanon war: a bank of targets, an air strike and a terrorist organization hiding behind hundreds of children 0404, July 14, 2021.
It can be consistently seen that the terrorist organization Hezbollah uses civilian assets as an operational tactic for military activity, on the other hand, the IDF and the Northern Command will take all measures to reduce harm to civilians ... One of the thousands of existing targets in the Northern Command that will be attacked in the next Lebanon war is a warehouse containing weapons. Hezbollah intended to use it against IDF fighters and citizens of the State of Israel. The warehouse was established in the heart of the civilian population in Lebanon, a few meters near a school... in the village of Abba... about 25 meters from the official school of Kfar Abba.
THE PLO THREAT. Israel has found in Lebanon enough PLO weapons to equip a massive army and to supply untold numbers of terrorist cadres... Arafat boasts of PLO terrorists serving in El Salvador, Angola and... In two ways however, the PLO was different from conventional armies. First, the PLO consciously attacked only civilians and, secondly, the PLO used civilians as human shields to protect itself. Anyone who has been to the small country of Israel knows that there are many military targets to be easily found... Yet, the PLO could only find those “military" targets disguised as kibbutz nurseries, school buses, marketplaces or passenger airplanes. And the second factor that differentiates the PLO terrorist army from conventional armies is its hiding in the midst of civilian centers. Israeli troops uncovered PLO arsenals, emplacements and bases in schools, mosques, and apartment basements. According to Newsweek, June 14, Israeli soldiers in one engagement, were attacked by PLO fighters disguised as hospital patients.
We saw the PLO headquarters in Sidon, built near the town square, but underground, beneath a large and popular amusement park (complete with ferris wheel and roller coaster), hiding beneath the skirts of women. We saw the Moslem hospital which the PLO used as an armament depot, marking their crates of live ammunition with the symbol of the Palestine Red Crescent (the local version of the Red Cross, and whose chairman is the brother of Yassar Arafat; most of the tragically inflated statistics on civilian casualties in Lebanon were provided by the Palestine Red Crescent issued without confirmation by the International Red Cross, which has since discovered how it was manipulated and has issued a formal retraction of the civilian casualty statistics). We talked with young men and old men in the streets of Sidon, candidly and happily. They told us how glad they are to have the Israeli army come in, how their freedom has been restored after eight years. They called the Israeli army "the army of liberation". Nowhere could we find a dissenting opinion.
...that they place sabotage labs near schools and kindergartens for camouflage. Salim Hajah, a senior Hamas operative in Samaria who was arrested during Operation Defensive Shield, admitted that he had set up a sabotage laboratory near a school, and laboratory personnel disguised as students carrying bags and books. Ahmad Mu'arbi, a senior official at Tanzim Bethlehem, told GSS investigators that he had located his sabotage laboratory in the Daheisheh refugee camp, near a kindergarten. He and his men used to make explosives and carry out experiments.
In both cases, the children in nearby institutions were in constant danger of being blown up as a result of a work accident.
An IDF spokesman in Arabic reveals that the explosion that took place earlier today in the Gaza Strip and caused deaths and injuries was caused by a malfunction in the Islamic Jihad's weapons depot. IDF in Arabic Lt. Col. Avichai Adrei.
Lt. Col. Avichai Adrai, the IDF's spokesman in Arabic, reveals on his Twitter account that the explosion that took place earlier today in the Gaza Strip and caused deaths and injuries was caused by a malfunction in the Islamic Jihad's weapons depot.
"The explosion is further proof that the terrorist organizations prefer to continue their murderous activities over the interests of the residents of the Gaza Strip. "Instead of responding to UN calls for Gaza rehabilitation, terrorist organizations continue to manufacture weapons and promote the construction of military sites, storing their weapons in the heart of residential neighborhoods and among civilians, and exposing them directly to danger," Edrei wrote on his Twitter account.
MUFTI CONDEMNED RY EX-TERRORIST FAKHRI ABDUL HADI'S OPEN LETTER TO MUFTI
In a leaflet which is being widely distributed among the Arabs, Fakhri Abdul Hadi, who was Fawzi Kaukaj's lieutenant during the 1936 disturbances and who returned to Palestine from Damascus (where he had been in exile) some three months has rinted an ago, repopen letter sent to Haj Amin al Husseini, in which he bitterly referred to the machinations against himiself of Izzat Darwuza and others in the Mufti's entourage. Fakhri Abdul Hadi is a native of Arrabeh village near Jenin, and he is reported to have led his own armed men in several clashes with gangs supporting the Mufti . Izzat Darwuza, the Mufti's kinsman, who was Director of Waqfs in Jerusalem, has been acting as treasurer for the Palestinian exfles in Syria and the terrorists operating in this country.
ARAB VS. ARAB
Abdul Hadi criticised the oppressive regime under which the local Arab populace was suffering, and said that when men came to Arrabeh and killed five innocent villagers, he and his men took arms and shot dead ten of the attackers. The souls of all these ascended to complain to Allah of your deeds, as such acts are apparently desirable in your eyes. We can only do to others as you are trying to do to us, he wrote. He revealed also that his men had made an attempt to capture Yussef Abu Darra "who escaped by hiding among the women." Abdul Hadi vehemently denied Darwuza's accusations that he was a traitor, and concluded by saying that the Palestine "revolt" had ceased to be directed against the Government and the Jews — the latter were now safe — but was a war of blind hatred amongst the Arabs themselves. He warned that this could no longer be tolerated .
NATO says Gadhafi's forces are using civilians as human shields.
- Syria forces accused of using civilians as shields Ynet, Mar 25, 2012.
A preliminary list of Erdogan’s transgressions
For evidence, it is useful to assemble the list of transgressions that seem to be the only category Erdogan still seems to “excel” in. Most fundamentally, Erdogan is violating every article of human rights in his own country, while being keen on destabilizing other countries by exploiting their weaknesses and resources in order to promote his nationalist agenda.
I count altogether 13 specific major transgressions:
1.Erdogan continues to commit gross human rights violations in Turkey by using the failed 2016 military coup as an excuse to silence the media. Based on a judiciary that, for the most part, barely deserves that name, Erdogan has jailed over 150 journalists, incarcerated around 80,000 suspected of affiliation with the Gülen movement and purged 150,000 military officers and civil servants.
2.Erdogan engages in a systematic operation of ethnic cleansing against minorities in Turkey and northern Syria.
He invaded Syria to both prevent the Syrian Kurdish community from establishing autonomous rule, and to entrench for Turkey a permanent foothold in the country, which is bound to only prolong the conflict and further destabilize the region.
3.Erdogan systematically persecutes his own Kurdish community and continues a 50-year-old war against the PKK, which he views as a terrorist organization.
He also steadfastly refuses to resume negotiations with the Kurds — which account for as much as 20% of Turkey’s population — and end the carnage that has taken the lives of approximately 40,000 on both sides.
4.Erdogan purchased Russia’s S-400 air defense system which, once operational, NATO fears would seriously compromise the alliance’s intelligence sharing and technology — apart from being fully incompatible with NATO systems.
5.Erdogan invested heavily in promoting his Islamic agenda by supporting anti-Western Islamist extremist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and even ISIS.
6.Erdogan uses Islam as a political tool by building mosques and other Islamic theological institutions. He also sends his imams to teach and preach his brand of religious nationalism in many countries in the Middle East and the Balkans.
7.Erdogan violated U.S. sanctions against Iran by laundering up to $20 billion in an oil-for-gold scheme from 2012-2018, and he continues to cooperate and trade with Tehran in defiance of Western interests.
8.Erdogan made a deal with Putin in late 2019 to patrol northern Syria while working closely with Moscow and Tehran to delineate their spheres of influence in the country. He is thus leaving Syria de facto a divided state under their control, while significantly diminishing what’s left of Western influence.
9.Erdogan sent troops to support Libya’s Government of National Accord in an effort to establish a strong foothold in the country, exploiting its oil and gas and threatening the free flow of energy from the Eastern Mediterranean.
10.Erdogan violated a UN arms embargo while resisting NATO’s peace plans in Libya, including exercising extreme aggression against NATO ally France’s warship enforcing the embargo.
11.Erdogan blocked a NATO defense plan for the Baltics and Poland and regularly intimidates Greece, a NATO member state, violating the country’s airspace with Turkish military jets.
12.Erdogan is adamant about drilling for gas in the territorial waters of Cyprus and has begun plans to expand drilling off the coast of the Greek island of Crete.
In that pursuit, he remains at odds with Greece, Cyprus, Egypt and Israel over ownership of natural resources, threatening to use force to secure “his share” which could burgeon into a violent conflict.
13.Last but not least, Erdogan perpetuated the heated conflict with Cyprus over his demand that his puppet — the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus — enjoy equal political power to the Republic of Cyprus, which is four times larger in population and territory and is an EU member state.
The PLO pioneered the tactic of operating in civilian surroundings during the Israel–PLO War in Lebanon in 1982. Testimony of this exploitation of innocent civilians came from the Lebanese who in effect were the hostages, "Palestinian fighters took their guns placed them next to our [Lebanese civilian] homes, next to apartment blocks and hospitals and schools. At their own Ayn Hilweh camp the Palestinians actually put their guns on the roof of the hospitals."
I was in Lebanon at the time Palme made his remark, and the only persecution of Palestinian children in refugee camps was being carried out by Arafat's PLO guerrillas, who used the refugees as human shields to forestall Israeli attacks on PLO military positions. Dozens of Palestinian men were arrested and tortured by the PLO as they attempted to flee Beirut that summer
Dozens of Palestinian men were arrested and tortured by the PLO as they attempted to flee Beirut that summer; I met many of them in a secret Fatah detention."
Israel accuses Hamas of double war crimes for such fighting – firing at Israeli civilians from within civilian population centers.
In a speech to the head of the Hamas political bureau in Gaza after the end of the war between Hamas and Israel last month, Yahya Sinwar admitted that his organization has several military headquarters embedded in residential buildings – something Israel has been accusing the organization of all along.
Hamas has always denied the existence of military and security headquarters among Gaza residents. This contradicts videos published by the Israeli army which indicate that rockets were launched from among the residential areas.
Now, in a video that is making its way around the media, Sinwar admits as much...
Assessing blame for innocent casualties in the offensive launched by Israel into Gaza. ... Palestinians themselves, who now confirm Israel's assertion. Here's an excerpt from one Associated Press report:
Residents of a Gaza neighborhood are confirming Israel's claim that Hamas militants had opened fire from the cover of a U.N. school where hundreds of Palestinians had sought refuge.
...Two residents say a group of militants had fired their mortars from a street near the school, then fled into a crowd of people in the streets.
And here's another, also from the AP: Palestinian residents, speaking on condition of anonymity because of fear of retribution, said several militants ran toward the crowd, trying to use it as cover, when the first Israeli mortar shell missed them.
... Gaza militants used to wear black or khaki uniforms, but since the start of the Israeli offensive have been operating in civilian clothing, blending into crowds, residents say.
Maybe it's time to re-evaluate which side shows such callous disregard for Palestine's civilians.
Hamas, which was designated as a terrorist organization by the United States.. has a history of using schools, hospitals and civilians areas as staging grounds and launch sites for their attacks against Israel. They have also built a network of tunnels under those locations to facilitate the movement of soldiers and weapons for use against Israel. When Israel responds to these attacks by specifically targeting these missiles launchers, Hamas uses human shields--many times children--as propaganda tools. The civilized world should be horrified at such tactics by Hamas and condemn them absolutely.
According to terrorists Afif and Ahmed Jarrah, Hamas built an attack tunnel just steps away from a playground in Beit Lahia.
The UN relief agency for Palestinian refugees discovered the tunnel about a week and a half ago, and agreed with Hamas that the part that passes under the school will be destroyed and sealed. It is probably not a tunnel intended to be used to infiltrate Israel.
Exclusive documentation: Exposed. The tunnel was excavated about 7 meters below the school grounds, where children's sports and leisure activities are routinely held. UNRWA has announced that it condemns any excavation of tunnels under their facilities, and has appealed to the Hamas administration in the Gaza Strip for clarification.
...a Hamas terrorist weapons production site in Khan Yunis, a terrorist tunnel shaft in Jabalya and an underground rocket launching station located in the heart of a civilian population in Shuja'iyya, near a school.
Senior Hamas officials in Gaza are hiding out in a "bunker" built by Israel, intelligence officials suspect: Many are believed to be in the basements of the Shifa Hospital complex in Gaza City, which was refurbished during Israel's occupation of the Gaza Strip.
Shifa, the coastal strip's largest hospital, was built while Gaza was under Egyptian rule, before 1967.
During the mid-1980s the building underwent massive refurbishment as part of a showcase project to improve the living conditions of residents.
Millions were invested in the project, which was overseen by Shmuel Goren, the coordinator for activities in the territories at the time.
The Israeli civil administration in the territories constructed the hospital complex's Building Number 2, which has a large cement basement that housed the hospital's laundry and various administrative services.
During a cabinet meeting a week ago, Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin said senior Hamas officials found refuge in the hospital basement because they know Israel would not target it, due to the patients in the upper floors. Palestinian sources told Haaretz that not all the senior Hamas leaders are hiding in one place.
Rather, they have spread out, and some are constantly changing locations. Some of the bunkers they are using were linked by tunnels Hamas built in recent years.
Cast Lead... Anthony H. Cordesman, The “Gaza War”: A Strategic Analysis 24 (2009) (describing how Hamas used a mosque to store Grad missiles and Qassam rockets), http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/090202_gaza_war.pdf; Jeffrey Fleishman, Charges Fly in. Battle Over What Happened in Gaza, L.A. Times, Jan. 23, 2009, at A1 (detailing how Hamas used a bunker beneath a hospital as a headquarters).
Walla! news, August 2, 2014.
Israel has claimed since the beginning of the operation that the organization is using civilian facilities for military purposes.
A Finnish TV reporter from the Helsinki Snomat network broadcast one night during Operation Protective Edge on broadcasts from Shifa Hospital in Gaza, when Hamas terrorists suddenly fired a rocket from the hospital at Israel. Following this, the reporter, whose name is not mentioned in a video uploaded to YouTube, confirmed that Hamas had committed a war crime that only a few journalists dare to report on.
Reporting outside the hospital, the reporter says: "A rocket was launched right from the hospital's parking lot at 2:00 p.m." She added: "The noise was very loud," and that "it is true that rockets were fired from the hospital area toward Israel." ...
A Finnish journalist reported seeing Hamas terrorists launch a rocket at Israel from a Gaza hospital, but later attacked news outlets for using her report as a pro-Israel “propaganda weapon.”
Aishi Zidan, a journalist for the daily newspaper Helsinging Sanomat, described the rocket attack in a report, which was uploaded to YouTube on Friday. The blog Legal Insurrection provided a translation of the Finnish report.
... Polish foreign correspondent Wojciech Cegielski reported live from amidst the chaos of the 2014 Gaza war. Today in Haaretz, he offers a damning account of how he witnessed Hamas deliberately endanger civilians and journalists during that conflict. “Yes, Israel bombed Palestinian houses in Gaza,” the Polish Radio reporter writes. “But Hamas is also to blame for its cruel and selfish game against its own people.”
While saying that he does not have “hard evidence” beyond his personal experience, Cegielski attests that from “spending a month in the middle of this hell, it was obvious that they [Hamas] were breaking international rules of war and worst of all, were not afraid to use their own citizens as living shields.” Cegielski then proceeds to recount two arresting instances of Hamas placing civilians in harm’s way for which he was personally present:
The first incident happened late in the evening. I was in the bathroom when [I] heard a loud rocket noise and my Spanish colleague, a journalist who was renting a flat with me near the Gaza beach, started to scream. He wanted to light a cigarette and came to one of the open windows. The moment he was using his lighter, he saw a fireball in front of his eyes and lost his hearing.
From what our neighbors told us later, a man drove up in a pickup to our tiny street. He placed a rocket launcher outside and fired. But the rocket failed to go upwards and flew along the street at ground level for a long time before destroying a building. It was a miracle that nobody was hurt or killed.
When we calmed down, we started to analyze the situation. It became obvious that the man or his supervisor wanted the Israel Defense Forces to destroy civilian houses, which our tiny street was full of. Whoever it was, Hamas, Iz al-Din al-Qassam or others, they knew that the IDF can strike back at the same place from which the rocket was fired. Fortunately for us, the rocket missed its target in Israel.
The second incident targeted not Gaza’s people, but its foreign journalists:
I was sitting with other journalists in a cafe outside one of the hotels near the beach. During wartime, these hotels are occupied by foreign press and some NGOs. Every hotel is full and in its cafes many journalists spend their time discussing, writing, editing stories, or just recharging the phones. Suddenly I saw a man firing a rocket from between the hotels. It was obvious that we journalists became a target. If the IDF would strike back, we all would be dead. What would Hamas do? It would not be surprising to hear about the “cruel Zionist regime killing innocent and free press.”
Hamas often fires rockets at Israel from within residential areas and operates command posts in apartment blocks. The practice effectively uses civilians as human shields. Hamas has been secretly digging underground tunnels to smuggle arms into the enclave, chiefly from Egypt. The Egyptian government, however, has been clamping down on this activity.
During the lull, a group of men at a mosque in northern Gaza said they had returned to clean up the green glass from windows shattered in the previous day’s bombardment. But they could be seen moving small rockets into the mosque.
Hamas appeal
In the dramatic mosque rescue, Hamas radio issued an appeal to local women when a tense stand-off developed between Israeli forces surrounding the building and up to 15 militants who had taken refuge inside.
Use of child labor not stopped by police in Gaza, where children's "nimble bodies" help dig the tunnels that lead into Israel and Egypt.
Hamas used children to help them dig numerous tunnels into Israel and Egypt, a 2012 paper written for the Journal of Palestine Studies reported.
The paper, titled Gaza’s Tunnel Phenomenon: The Unintended Dynamics of Israel’s Siege says that little had been done to stop the phenomenon of child labor during the digging of the tunnels by Hamas in Gaza.
In December 2011, the paper’s author Nicolas Pelham accompanied a police patrol in Gaza and reported that “nothing was done to impede the use of children in the tunnels, where, much as in Victorian coal mines, they are prized for their nimble bodies.”
He continued and said that “at least 160 children have been killed in the tunnels, according to Hamas.
With a Barcelona football shirt, slingshots and heavy tires - this is how the children who serve as human shields were photographed last Friday and sent to the front line during the violent demonstrations near the fence in Gaza. To authorize firing on children "
In a Chicago Bulls basketball jersey or Barcelona football shirt, jeans and a childish haircut, the Hamas organization sends young children, some no more than 10 years old, to participate in demonstrations on the border fence in the Gaza Strip and serve as human shields.
- (Broadcaster) Ivgeni Zarubinski tweeted:
https://t.co/05X3SRbosd— (@ivgiz) Mar 30, 2018The next time that Israel will be accused of harming the "innocent", Do remember this picture of a senior Hamas member, Who arrived today in Gaza, where there are riots, near the fence with Israel, Holding a little child on his hands, using her as a human shield.
The Shurat Hadin Israel Law Center is seeking International Criminal Court action against Hamas over the terrorist group's use of children as human shields in the riots that have taken place over the past month on the Israel-Gaza Strip border.
The lawsuit is based on a clause in the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the ICC's work, which says that recruiting children under the age of 15 to any militant organization is a war crime.
The suit names former Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal, current deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri, and moneyman Zahar Jabarin as guilty of war crimes, saying that as all three are nationals of Jordan, which is a signatory to the Rome Statute, they are subject to the court's jurisdiction.
New footage released over the weekend shows Hamas using its women as human shields.
Source: Palestinian Authority TV
Following is an excerpt from a speech delivered by PA President Mahmoud Abbas at the Arab American University in Jenin. The speech aired on Palestinian Authority TV on October 13, 2009.
Hamas terrorists use ambulances in the Gaza Strip to evacuate injured civilians to hospitals - and use them to escape from IDF forces.
Terrorist operatives in Gaza who fire at soldiers and launch rockets into Israeli territory during the days of Operation Resilient Cliff, are taking advantage of the ambulance system in the Gaza Strip, which is designed to serve the many civilians injured - all to try and evade IDF forces in the area.
There were even published reports earlier this week of Hamas terrorists using ambulances as getaway cars..
Photographs released by military show two youths standing behind vehicle as they apparently lob stones at security forces
The Hamas terrorist group in the Gaza Strip used UN ambulances to evacuate armed terrorists from clashes with Israeli forces...
In a much-noted case, on May 24, 2004, a video tape filmed by Reuters, broadcast on numerous television networks worldwide, showed two ambulances arriving at the site where an exchange of fire took place between the IDF and terrorist operatives during an IDF action in the Gaza Strip. One of the ambulances was clearly marked with a Red Crescent and “UN,” and flying a UN flag...
During the 2008–09 First Gaza War, Hamas used human shields again...
A Gaza ambulance driver who described how Hamas operatives tried to force him to use his ambulance to....
During the Israeli retaliation for the incessant rocket fire— Operation Cast Lead— Hamas operatives made several attempts to commandeer the Al-Quds Hospital's (located in the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood in Gaza City) fleet of ambulances to move terrorists, thus copying their tactics from 2004.
The day before yesterday, a violent riot broke out in the Ramallah area, one day chasing another day of riots involving rioters throwing stones and Molotov cocktails at IDF forces. In a video released by the IDF Spokesman, a Red Crescent ambulance was seen assisting in transporting rioters disguised as wounded to the demonstration area. The ambulance dismantled the masked wounded in the area of the riots, as they wrapped themselves in Palestinian flags and joined their brothers in throwing stones at our soldiers. All of this celebration took place under the auspices of an organization that is supposed to save lives and help the wounded, and not help the terrorists to vent their anger at IDF soldiers.
This is not the first time the Red Crescent organization has given a hand to violence and terrorism.
- Al-Arabiya Footage Confirms Hamas Fired From Building Used By Journalists [English subtitle], Jan 22, 2009.
The news tells us less about Israel than about the people writing the news, a former AP reporter says... AP staff in Gaza City would witness a rocket launch right beside their office.
...ambassador to the United States, Gilad Erdan, gave the most detailed explanation yet of the decision to strike the tower as he met the head of the news agency, Gary Pruitt, at its New York headquarters.... "The unit was developing an electronic jamming system to be used against the Iron Dome defense system," Erdan said, referring to the anti-missile shield that intercepts Hamas rockets...."In contrast, Hamas is a genocidal terrorist organization that has no regard for the press. It purposely places its terror machine in civilian areas, including in offices being used by international media outlets," he said.
Waiting in vain for an international outcry. Just for a lark, I decided to google “international condemnations of Hamas” this morning. You can guess what came up, right?.... In 2005, perhaps accepting Bennett-Jones’s interpretation of history, Israel pulled out of Gaza completely, uprooting all of the Jewish settlers, and leaving the area completely to the Palestinians to administer. Rather than build a society of their own, Hamas, which controls Gaza — the Palestinian Authority controls the West Bank — has used its independence to launch a ceaseless barrage of missiles against Israel.
It’s often pointed out that Hamas does not recognize Israel’s right to exist. It’s more than that. Hamas, with Iran’s backing, is committed to Israel’s violent destruction. Missiles have fallen on schools and homes. Hamas is explicit about desiring Israeli counterattacks, because while Hamas aims to kill Israeli civilians, they know that Israel tries very hard not to kill Palestinian civilians. But every Palestinian death at the hands of Israel is seen as a propaganda victory for Hamas — which is why they place their munitions and terrorists in mosques, hospitals, and homes crowded with children. Hamas representative Fathi Hamad stated it explicitly: “For the Palestinian people death became an industry, at which women excel and so do all people on this land: the elderly excel, the Jihad fighters excel, and the children excel. Accordingly (Palestinians) created a human shield of women, children, the elderly and the Jihad fighters against the Zionist bombing machine, as if they were saying to the Zionist enemy: We desire death as you desire life.”
We also saw video from the other side. We saw the destruction in Gaza and we also saw how the Hamas weapon of choice was the human shield. In Israeli cities efforts were made to protect civilians. Israel also made efforts to minimize civilian casualties on the other side by dropping over a million leaflets warning people to vacate areas where Hamas activity was taking place. In Gaza it was the opposite.
The exploitation of the death of a Palestinian infant shows the depths to which anti-Israel propaganda has sunk and how effective such immoral arguments can be... But what good are facts if all you’re really after is more propaganda war against Israel? If someone like British shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry (the person who will be Britain’s leading diplomat if a Labour Party that is tainted by anti-Semitism wins the next election in that country) could claim that Israeli snipers were shooting Palestinian children in the back while they ran for their lives, then clearly anything is possible... Palestinians brought their children to the border as if they were going to a family picnic. As we saw during previous armed conflicts with Israel, Palestinian factions routinely use humans as shield. The presence of civilians protects their fighters, as well as provides a bonus in the form of bad press for Israel if non-combatants are harmed.
While some Jews are ashamed that Israelis are prepared to use lethal force to defend their country, Hamas leaders feel no shame about putting Palestinian children in harm’s way. In their eyes, the goal of destroying the Jewish state is so important that no action is too depraved if it undermines Israel.
Hamas is correct about the effectiveness of these tactics, which are nothing less than acts of human sacrifice. In the face of such calamity, it’s hard for some seemingly fair-minded observers like the Times’ David Brooks to think clearly about Gaza. The situation is so egregious that they assume that no matter what Hamas does, they’ve come to believe it’s somehow Israel’s responsibility prevent the Palestinians from purposing the deaths of these kids. Rather than analyze the conflict dispassionately, he and others simply damn both sides as extremists...
... we see how a terror organization uses a ‘dead baby’ strategy. It uses children as human shields. It seeks more, not less, civilian deaths. It does that to enrage the world against Israel.
It’s a strategy that’s perfectly aligned with how a terror organization thinks. The Daily Telegraph, however, doesn’t understand the difference between a democracy and a terror organization. It doesn’t look at how Hamas deliberately positions civilians, especially women and children, to be killed by attacking Israelis. It doesn’t ask why Hamas won’t let civilians leave targets after Israel notifies those civilians to evacuate because a strike is coming at them. It cares only about one thing: Palestinian children have been killed by Israel-the-democracy...
It’s called the “dead baby” tactic and here’s how it works: Hamas carries out outrageous attacks against Israel’s civilian population. In turn, Israel must — like any responsible government — protect its citizens by trying to remove the threat. Hamas, in turn, hides behind its civilian population, hoping that these innocent human shields will bear the brunt of Israel’s effort to defend itself. Last, the inevitable civilian casualties would be spun from outrage and sympathy into renewed political power for Hamas. Recognizing this diabolical Hamas strategy, yet maintaining its moral standards, Israel has endeavored to reduce civilian casualties in Gaza as much as humanly possible — while still effectively countering Hamas attempts to murder Israeli citizens. To this end, Israel has done what no nation has ever done in order to protect civilians — on both sides:
In short, Israel has employed its arsenal to protect civilians, while Hamas has employed its civilians to protect its arsenal.
The population of Gaza is not Israel’s enemy, and it is Israel’s fervent hope that the current efforts to establish a ceasefire will be successful. Moreover, throughout this tragic ordeal, Israel has not lost sight of its ultimate goal, that of living in peace with its neighbors.
It would be counterproductive for the Palestinian leadership to invest in civilian protection when its stated goal is to increase and leverage the civilian death toll in Gaza to improperly influence the international narrative against Israel. Those who truly value the lives of Palestinian civilians mustvociferously condemn the “dead baby strategy”. In continuing to rely on Hamas’s hyper-inflated civilian casualty statistics to castigate Israel – as the UN Commission did – the international community is sanctioning this strategy and is therefore complicit in the deaths of innocents. From a legal perspective, the often-referenced proportionality argument fails to support the accusation that Israel committed war crimes. It is Hamas, not Israel, which persistently violates the proportionality principle by intentionally waging indiscriminate attacks on civilian population centers.
1. Societal Abuse Hamas has forcefully taken over Gaza, and has summarily executed 500+ political opponents by throwing them from skyscraper rooftops. Hamas carries out arbitrary arrests, torture and executions, by accusing and convicting suspected anti-Hamas Palestinians as "collaborators." During July/August 2014 Hamas performed at least 55 executions of civilians. Hamas has arbitrarily arrested and/or detained at least 2,970 people since seizing control of Gaza. 200+ cases of torture by Hamas have been documented since 2011.
2. Child Abuse Hamas perpetuates a culture of militarization in which younger children are revered as holier martyrs. Hamas runs summer camps for children as young as 6 years old, which include activities like crawling under barbed wire fences with assault rifles and viewing simulated kidnappings of Israeli soldiers.
160 child laborers allegedly died during Hamas’ construction of cross-border tunnels between Gaza and Israel. Hamas spokesman: "Human rights education dangerously contravenes Palestinian and Islamic culture" and "brainwashes Palestinian children."
3. Corruption Hamas raises billions of dollars, pockets most of it, and with what's left, builds tens of millions of dollars' worth of tunnels under homes, schools and hospitals. It diverted an estimated $30-90 million’s worth of building materials from construction projects to build three dozen tunnels into Israel to use for terrorist acts. Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, with personal net worth of $2.6 billion, calls the shots of the military engagement in Gaza while living comfortably at a 5-star hotel in Qatar.
4. Human Rights Abuses Hamas morality police punish women .. Women in Gaza are unable to initiate divorce. Only males may press incest charges. Rapists can be set free if they agree to marry their victims. Homosexuality is entirely outlawed by Hamas, with a punishment of up to ten years in jail.
5. Disregard for Life Hamas camouflages its combatants in civilian clothes, turning all Gazans into potential IDF targets. Hamas glorifies martyrdom as a high calling, intentionally drawing Palestinian civilians into danger by firing rockets at Israel from civilian population centers. Hamas has been known to physically prevent civilians from evacuating targeted buildings. Hamas implements a "dead-baby strategy" by strategically trying to have as many as possible Palestinian babies killed, in order to use the photos to raise finances and political collateral. Hamas declared that all Israelis – including civilian men, women and children – are legitimate targets of missile attacks. Hamas frequently misfires rockets which land in Gaza, destroying buildings and killing innocent Palestinians. Hamas booby-traps homes, schools, and hospitals with explosives. "Work accidents" sometimes kill civilians. Hamas in August 2014 booby-trapped a United Nations clinic in Gaza by hiding 12 barrels containing 80 kg. of explosives each in a wall, and then using a child to lure Israeli soldiers into the building. The explosives detonated and three soldiers died.
HAMAS TERRORIZES the PEOPLE of GAZA.
FREE GAZA END HAMAS' OCCUPATION.
Israel’s enemies are adept at exploiting the deaths of Palestinian infants and innocent civilians alike to slander the Jewish state. This crude and morally depraved anti-Israel propaganda was on full display on May 4 when Palestinians, specifically Gaza’s Health Ministry (run by the Hamas terror group) claimed that an Israeli airstrike killed a 14-month-old Palestinian baby girl and her pregnant aunt. In truth, the Islamic Jihad terror group reportedly admitted that one of its rockets had misfired and killed both Palestinian innocents. On May 5, Israel strenuously denied any responsibility for their deaths.
'As the world increasingly questions Israel’s right to exist, the necessity to communicate the fundamental legitimacy of our nationhood is more important than ever'.
... Facts have been rendered worthless, our voice muted, our pain inconsequential.
The reality is that it’s unlikely that any of us can directly influence events in Israel. However, it has become clearer than ever that our ability to live safely, while being identifiable Jews in Australia, is intimately connected to our ability and willingness to defend our link with Israel.
We know the facts. The “atrocious, racist eviction of Palestinians” in Sheikh Jarrah, an eviction that hasn’t actually happened, was a flashpoint of pure confection.
In fact, it was Jews who were ethnically cleansed in 1948. What followed were the orchestrated riots at Al-Aqsa mosque – a mechanism to unite the broader Islamic community behind Hamas, and then the rocket barrage from Gaza, designed to both kill Israelis and induce a response that would inevitably create civilian casualties and feed – with grotesque cynicism – Hamas’s “dead baby” strategy.
And it worked brilliantly. The international media which dutifully reported on Israel’s “disproportionate response”, the human cost, the carnage in Gaza, largely ignored the fact that the citizens of a democratic country spent days and nights in bomb shelters, and completely ignored the reason why Gazans have no bomb shelters. Not through lack of money, but rather because Hamas needs Gazans to die to achieve its objective – the excision and destruction of Israel.
Online has become even more of a cesspool of antisemitism...
If the Gaza pullout doesn’t kill us, it may well have saved us from a far more lethal West Bank one. Last week, I thought something I never dreamed I could think: that perhaps I owe former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon an apology. Not that I’ve altered my conviction that he bears direct, personal responsibility for every rocket fired from Gaza over the last nine years, every cross-border tunnel, every soldier killed there, every bit of damage done to Israel’s global standing by the periodic wars with Gaza and even many Palestinian casualties of these wars; all are the bitter fruit of the unilateral “disengagement” from Gaza that he conceived, bulldozed through the Knesset and finally implemented in August 2005. Yet if an apology is owed – and I’m still not sure it is – it’s not despite his responsibility for these evils, but because of it... Except for one minor problem: The success of the operation doesn’t matter if the patient dies. And it’s not yet clear Israel can survive the success of Sharon’s operation. It’s not clear it can survive the security consequences – which, for the first time since 1948, have turned Israeli communities within the Green Line into ghost towns – and it’s not clear it can survive the cumulative toll on its international legitimacy that repeated applications of Hamas’ wildly successful “dead baby strategy” are exacting.
The movement’s leaders adhere to no morals or ethics. To them, the end of annihilating Israel justifies every means, including sacrificing their own civilians. They understand that this is first and foremost a battle of narratives, so they operate in a way that maximizes their “dead baby strategy.” The extensive use of human shields is horrific. They fire rockets from schoolyards, calculating that retaliatory fire will kill children.
The main reason for civilian deaths during this operation is that Hamas deliberately places them in harm’s way. It understands the impact this has on the international community, so it maximizes civilian deaths. Rockets are fired from schoolyards, so that retaliatory fire will kill children. People are sent to rooftops after warnings of an imminent attack. Civilians are ordered to stay in war zones despite being urged by the IDF to leave. Entire residential areas such as Shajaia have been turned into terrorist strongholds loaded with weapons and explosives. It’s heartless and brutal – but it works. Hamas’s “dead baby strategy” makes the world condemn Israel for killing civilians. We may never know the exact numbers, but it is also important to note that many uninvolved civilians have been killed directly by Hamas. Many of rockets fired by Hamas have fallen within the Gaza Strip. “Accidents” are very common when operating nonstandard weapons, and when weapon caches are deliberately placed in schools and mosques, every mishap costs the lives of innocents. Sometimes small-scale, pinpoint air strikes spark secondary explosions and even set off rockets. People executed by Hamas for collaborating with Israel are also presented as victims of “Israeli aggression.”
Forget news. You are getting stories. Well it’s about time…but why not take the next step and forbid journalists from access altogether? Many are “journalists” in name only. They are enemy combatants. Instead of guns, they use words. Instead of rockets, they use pictures. They have perfected the “dead baby strategy” to inflame public opinion against Israel. In particular I am thinking about that British mieskeit who in the midst of Gaza can only find “suffering civilians” but not a single terrorist. The place is crawling with them but this BBC reporter can’t find a single one. The Jews are to blame. That is her story.
What is not addressed in the Report however is the rationale behind Hamas’s use of human shields and civilian infrastructures as an integral part of its war tactics. Hamas made it clear to Gaza’s civilians that those fleeing the fighting would be considered collaborators (which, in Gaza, is the equivalent of a death sentence) if they didn’t stay put. As Col. Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan said in May: “The Arab nations came to understand that they will not be able to defeat Israel on the battlefield, and therefore decided to transfer the battlefield to the civilian population. The only change on the Palestinian side was an under-the-radar tactical change, but this change still adheres to their original agenda – the total rejection of the Jewish state. Instead of tank battles in distant deserts, the Palestinians transferred their battles to densely populated areas where the civilians serve as human shields.” This tactic is part of what several Middle-East scholars have termed the “dead baby” strategy. A widely circulated cartoon makes this point effectively: [6]
![[6]](http://gatestoneinstitute.org/pics/large/165.jpg){kind=link}
This Hamas approach has aptly been called the CNN strategy (which is to say nothing against CNN, simply that the strategy is designed to exploit the 24-hour news cycle). Others call it the “dead baby strategy.” It is based on the recognition that the media loves to show dead children, and that Hamas always parades its dead and wounded in front of TV cameras. They know that “If it bleeds, it leads.” They also know there will inevitably be some civilian casualties among the human shields they deliberately deploy. They could easily fire their rockets from the many unpopulated areas of the Gaza Strip, but they deliberately choose to fire them from mosques, schools, hospitals and other locations that are densely populated with civilians.
... For sure Hamas carries out good deeds among the Palestinian poor in Gaza, with clinics and soup kitchens, but this is largely an attempt to indoctrinate them in anti-Semitic hatred by a political leadership that gives the armed wing its strategic marching orders.
The core fighters of the military wing number several hundreds of men, trained in Iran and Syria, but there another 10,000 people who facilitate their evil deeds.
Hamas is not some benign conservative religious party. The 2012 list of its regular human rights abuses compiled by the organisation Human Rights Watch runs to 42 pages, and includes beating people with iron bars, 102 cases of torture, and the hanging of anyone suspected of collaborating with the Israelis.
Their fighters employ child suicide bombers and use Palestinian civilians as human shields. This is the organisation to which Jaberi devoted the last decades of his violent life.
Jaberi, for example, is believed to have been involved in the suicide bombing of a No 6 bus in the Israeli settlement of Kfar Darom in 1995 that killed eight and wounded 60 others.
The world didn't believe Israel, but it might believe foreign reporters who were afraid to offer real-time reports but now tell all: A Hamas HQ at Al-Shifa Hospital, launchers near UN facilities, and staged bomb scenes.
It has been said that when the cannons are heard, the muses are silent. In the case of foreign reporters in the Gaza Strip, their silence stemmed mostly from fear.
A day after Operation Protective Edge ended, a truer picture slowly began emerging: foreign reporters leaving the Gaza Strip revealed what Israel has claimed all along – that Hamas had fired out of population hubs and near UN facilities.
Why didn't they report those facts during the ongoing fighting? According to the reporters, they feared for their lives. "We saw the Hamas men," a Spanish reporter admitted. "But had we dared point the cameras at them, they would have opened fire at us and killed us."
Now that they're out of the Gaza Strip, the reporters are revealing what Hamas tried to prevent the world from seeing. An Indian reporter, for example, documented how Hamas militants launched rockets from a post right outside the window of the hotel where he was staying in the Gaza Strip, shortly before the ceasefire came into effect. The video aired only after the reporter left Gaza. When asked about it, he replied: "There's a conspiracy of silence rooted in fear – no one wants to report in real-time".
Report by Indian journalist showing assembly, firing of rocket in Gaza.
The report by Indian journalist Sreenivasan Jain for Hindi language news channel NDTV went as follows: "It began with a mysterious tent with a blue canopy that bobbed up yesterday (August 4) at 6:30 am in an open patch of land next to our window. We saw three men making a multitude of journeys in and out of the tent, sometimes with wires.
"An hour later, they emerged, dismantled the tent, changed their clothes and walked away."
The journalist stressed that it is "important to report on how Hamas places those very civilians at risk by firing rockets deep from the heart of civilian zones."
FRANCE 24 correspondent Gallagher Fenwick aired a report showing rockets being launched just 50 meters away from the hotel where foreign journalists were staying and 100 meters away from a UN facility.
This France 24 report shows children surrounding a rocket launch site.
“The Israeli army has repeatedly accused the Palestinian militants of shooting from within densely populated civilian areas and that is precisely the type of setup we have here. Rockets set up right next to buildings with a lot of residents in them," he reported after leaving.
Italian journalist Gabriele Barbati also told the truth about Hamas once he left the Strip, no longer under their threat. In a tweet, Barbati said: “Out of #Gaza far from #Hamasretaliation: misfired rocket killed children yday (yesterday) in Shati. Witness: militants rushed and cleared debris.” He added: “@IDFSpokesperson said truth in communique released yesterday about Shati camp massacre. It was not #Israel behind it.”
Another foreign reporter said that it is an open secret that Hamas uses Al-Shifa hospital as its command center, but that reporters in Gaza would not report that out of fear that it would endanger them.
However, not only foreign reporters were afraid of Hamas' potential revenge. Palestinian reporters also suffered threats when they attempted to criticize the terrorist organization and give truthful reports.
Local Palestinian reporter Radjaa Abu Dagga, for example, reported that he was summoned for questioning at Al-Shifa hospital, where armed Hamas militants attempted to determine whether he writes for an Israeli newspaper. Abu Dagga said that his passport was taken from him, and he was prohibited from leaving the Gaza Strip. Later he published an article in French newspaper Libération, but was forced to remove it after receiving threats.
Reporters in Gaza were subject not only to threats but also to Hamas' manipulations. The Washington Post's Sudarsan Raghavan detailed how the organization's men staged the IDF attack scenes: he said that he was taken to photograph a mosque that had been bombed, and discovered that someone had "prepared" the scene and placed a prayer mat and burnt Quran pages.
He later reported that it was obvious that someone had put them there to create empathy for the Palestinian struggle.
The CBN news website said that apart from mosques, Hamas is also using church compounds to launch attacks. In his report, journalist George Thomas said that Gaza's most prominent Christian leader, Archbishop Alexios, "took CBN News to the roof terrace outside his office to show how Islamists used the church compound to launch rockets into Israel."
The Archbishop explained that "Islam is the rule of this place and whatever Hamas says we must obey or face consequences," Thomas added.
A foreign reporter's testimony: Hamas' manipulations
Yedioth Ahronoth exclusive
Hamas' control of the foreign journalists' coverage during the days of fighting in Gaza was not very sophisticated, but very effective.
First, Hamas determined that the organization's spokesmen could be interviewed only in the the courtyard of Al-Shifa hospital. As a result, long lines of reporters waiting for an interview were created, and during their wait, they witnessed wounded people who arrived to receive treatment. This created the impression Hamas was seeking to convey: a state of immediate emergency and humanitarian disaster.
Secondly, Hamas has never allowed foreign reporters access to military sites attacked by Israel, whether they are bases, rocket-launching sites or other Hamas targets. The dead and wounded of the organization were not captured on film as well, and hence from a media perspective they didn't even exist. All this served Hamas' purpose in creating an impression that all the victims were civilians.
Thirdly, it was clear that Hamas was launching rockets out of populated civilian areas, but the organization demanded that the press photographers not document the launch sites, so as to not expose their tactic, nor disclose the location of the launchers.
The reporter requested that his name not be used.
Foreign correspondents asked to leave enclave for social media posts on Hamas' utilization of civilian sites to attack Israel.
Intimidation and Advocacy Motivate Media’s Cooperation
The single most compelling reason for the near-unanimity of the media’s cooperation with Hamas is not advocacy, which alone could not create such a consensus, but rather intimidation. Like all systems of omertà this one covers its tracks. Some observers have pointedly asked, for example, why the mainstream news media has conveyed so few images of Hamas “militants.” The New York Times responded that out of the hundreds of photos from weeks of warfare, their award-winning photographer and his crew had provided only two blurry ones. Is this sheer incompetence? Or is it because, as one journalist, just out of Gaza told an Israeli off-the-record: “If we ever dared point our camera at them, they would shoot at us and kill us.” Asked to say that on camera, the journalist “refused and almost ran away.”
But in the Twitter age, evidence of cover-up abounds for those who care to look. Several journalists have reported receiving a wave of SMS threats when they even tweet about Hamas using human shields. Accused of being informants or fifth columnists who are lying and fabricating for Israel, these journalists rapidly learn how seriously Hamas considers their trade a weapon of war and their non-compliance a form of treason. The subsequent disappearance of many of those tweets indicates just how far Hamas’ threats reach.
Occasionally, a really telling piece of evidence appears. Two days after the shelling of Shaati and Shifa, that had “disgraced the world,” an Italian journalist tweeted:
Out of #Gaza far from #Hamas retaliation: misfired rocket killed children y[ester]day in Shati. Witness [proof]: militants rushed and cleared debris.
So, just as Israel had claimed, jihadis had killed their own women and children, cleaned the site, and then brought in journalists to blame Israel. It was indeed disgraceful on many counts, none of which concerned Israel. And yet we only know about this, if we do at all, because this one journalist felt himself beyond Hamas’ reach.
In a dramatic episode, Palestinian-born French journalist Radjaa Abou Dagga found himself summoned to Hamas offices (inside Shifa hospital), alternately accused of working for Abbas or the Israelis, and expelled from Gaza with instructions to work no more. Libération published his account, which makes it clear that such intimidation is common. Indeed, a colleague refused him shelter for the night because he, too, had received these threats: “You don’t mess with these people during a war.” Three days later, Libé took down Dagga’s article at his request. With family in Gaza, he clearly did not feel beyond Hamas’ reach.
If true, why does this terrible tale of civilian victimization and journalistic intimidation go untold? Some answer, because it’s not true: “Hamas does not use human shields,” BBC’s Jeremy Bowen assures us. Nor, insists CNN’s Karl Penhaul, do “any of the militant movements and factions here in Gaza,” give journalists “any form of instruction.” For one CNN analyst, it’s “complicated”, but, insists James Fallows, we owe our reporters respect. After all, would they all misinform us? Or is their intimidation and cowardice a public secret they won’t admit?
... The Goldstone Report on Israel’s defensive war against Hamas-controlled Gaza, from which 8,000 rockets were fired after Israel’s unilateral withdrawal in 2005, is a biased product of the UN’s misnamed Human Rights Council. The UNHRC is obsessed with false anti-Israel resolutions. It refuses to address grievous human rights abuses in Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Cuba and beyond.
Faced with similar attacks, every UN member-state including the U.S. and Canada would surely have acted more aggressively than the IDF did in Gaza.
Yet, Richard Goldstone, a South African Jewish jurist, signed a document prepared by investigators whose main qualification was rabid anti-Israel bias. He accepted every anonymous libel against the IDF. But he insisted that hearings in Gaza be televised, guaranteeing that fearful Palestinians would never testify about Hamas’ use of civilians as human shields and their hiding of weapons in mosques and hospitals.
Author of eponymous report asserts Israel did not target civilians.
As Goldstone aptly explains it, the Report essentially saw dead civilians and, without any further evidence, assumed intentionality, when in fact, the IDF’s track record of attempting to minimize civilian casualties, combined with Hamas’s track record of using civilians as human shields to either deter retaliation or provoke outcry when retaliation kills civilians, should have moved the mission to find unintentionality; in this case, according to Goldstone himself, subsequent evidence proved them right and him wrong.
A Jerusalem-based researcher for Human Rights Watch, Bill Van Esveld, told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday that there was evidence to indicate that war crimes were committed by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip who allegedly used civilians as "human shields" during Operation Cast Lead...
Gaza Interior Ministry calls not to cooperate with IDF warnings before shelling houses...
Grab the popcorn, folks, The PA and Fatah are joining the chorus that is criticizing Hamas for doing what Israel has shown them to be doing for years: human rights abuses, including using their own civilians as human shields...
Of course, the PA and Fatah are no boy scouts themselves; they are people in glass houses – terrorists in suits to be more precise – who literally throw stones (and Molotov cocktails). Their criticism of Hamas here is to score political points. Nevertheless, it is always a positive development when terrorists organizations turn on each other...
In a rare rebuke, Palestinians and human rights organizations called on Hamas and other Gaza terror groups to stop storing weapons in civilian areas.
The Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip emerges from his hiding place and begins to provoke Israel, When he calls on her to try and eliminate him ... He was careful to walk around surrounded by bodyguards and residents of the Gaza Strip who served as his "human shield," assuming that the IDF would not eliminate him when surrounded by civilians.
Hamas arrests Palestinian for criticizing the policy of storing weapons in residential centers. Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz, Israel 365 News, Aug 9, 2021. Israeli Arab journalist Khaled Abu Toameh tweeted on Sunday that Hamas arrested 20-year-old Mustafa Asfour, from Khan Yunis, after he criticized Hamas for storing weapons in residential areas in the Gaza Strip.
Hillel Neuer's tweet - "20-year-old Mustafa Asfour of Gaza did something our Western correspondents rarely do: He risked his life to call out Hamas for using Palestinians as human shields by storing bombs in residential areas. That’s a war crime under the Geneva Conventions that Ken Roth never mentions. " - Trendsmap Aug 10, 2021
Lise Korson (@LiseKorson) Tweeted: .Mustafa Asfour & other #Gazans just want #Hamas to STOP! following the practices of their #Iran patron who taught #Hezbollah to store weapons in civilian areas. We all saw what happened in Beirut blast last August! https://t.co/XI3fzoNghw Aug 9, 2021.
@GogoIsrael2 Replying to @afagerbakke: But, but, according to the greatest NGO's E.V.E.R. that's not the case. #Israel is targetting residential area's without any proof of weapon storage or missile platforms. Correct, Kenny @KenRoth @hrw? Are you just a blatant #Israel basher and denying your ancestry? .. Aug 9, 2021.
When Hamas tells you you're a human shield you shut up and be a human shield. Aug 9, 2021.
michalms (@michalms01) Tweeted: @KhaledAbuToameh @IlhanMN @AOC if you care about Palestinian lives, you would use your voice and power to help Mustafa Asfour. Or are you only “care” about Palestinians when Israel is involved? Aug 10, 2021
yossi blachman (@YBlachman) Tweeted: @KhaledAbuToameh @elliecohanim Where is @RashidaTlaib @AOC @Ilhan @UNWatch I guess only certain Palestinian lives matter to them. Aug 10, 2021
embeds its forces and weapons in populated areas, thereby exposing civilians to safety hazards and turning them into human shields in the event of another war...
Shots were fired as Hezbollah and its allies protested against the judge in charge of the Beirut port blast investigation on Thursday.
[Army soldiers are seen behind a glass with gun holes, after gunfire erupted in Beirut, Lebanon October 14, 2021.]
At least six people were killed and 32 wounded as shots were fired during a protest by Hezbollah supporters against Tarek Bitar, the judge investigating the Beirut Port blast, in Beirut on Thursday, as tensions surrounding the case continue to rise.
A cautious calm had been reached as of Thursday afternoon, according to Lebanese reports.
The shooting reportedly began in the Tayouneh area where it meets Ain El Remmaneh and Chiyah, a site famous for sectarian clashes during the 1975 civil war in Lebanon, as it marked the border between East Beirut and West Beirut.
The demonstration that got out of control in Lebanon At least five people were killed in clashes between Hezbollah and the Shiite Amal movement, with gunmen in central Beirut. Against the background of the clashes: Hezbollah fears that the organization will be blamed for the explosion in the port of Beirut about a year ago, and accuses the Christian party in parliament of riots.
![[8]](http://web.archive.org/web/20070220202401/http://www.think-israel.org/jan07pix/neve-gordon.jpg){kind=link}
Gordon was arrested for his illegal interference with IDf anti-terror operations. Prof. Alan Dershowitz last year described Gordon thus: "It is my opinion that Neve Gordon has gotten into bed with neo-Nazis, Holocaust justice deniers, and anti-Semites. He is a despicable example of a self-hating Jew and a self-hating Israeli." Officials at Ben Gurion University have long backed Gordon's anti-Israel and Solidarity-with-Terrorists activism
The debates surrounding the wrongful act of a lecturer at Ben-Gurion University are not forgotten. Niv Gordon, a left-wing extremist from the fascist genre, infamous as the human shield of "The Man with the Hair on His Face" Yasser Arafat, in a Muqata in Ramallah during "Operation Defensive Shield", did so again and published an article in the Los Angeles Times calling for a boycott.. This is not about academic freedom, as they call for a boycott of the State of Israel and the academic institutions in it, first and foremost, thus constraining the existence of the Israeli academy and the destruction of the academy and the freedom of speech in it as a result.
This action by Gordon joins the actions of (many) .. to exert dictatorial-fascist pressure on Israel because their arguments no longer stand up to public logic. For the past 20 years, hundreds and thousands of organizations have been working to fund anti-Semitic anti-Israelis overseas in order to bring the State of Israel to its knees and eliminate it as a sovereign, Jewish, independent entity.
Hamas has waged a sophisticated, even brilliant propaganda war. “Anyone killed or martyred is to be called a civilian from Gaza or Palestine,” the group told Gazans in a public-service announcement, “before we talk about his status in jihad or his military rank.” Hamas enjoined civilians to use the phrase “innocent civilians” as much as possible when speaking with journalists.
Hamas launches rockets from the Strip’s most densely populated locales—chiefly Gaza City, Beit Hanoun in the north, and Khan Younis in the south—and tells fighters to fire from sensitive locations like schools [11], churches [12], mosques [13], UN buildings [14] and hospitals [15]. It’s a win-win strategy: If Israel is deterred, Hamas fighters and infrastructure are preserved; if Israel is not, the attendant civilian casualties will be a propaganda coup.
Hamas’s media strategy is exemplified by its use of Gaza City's Shifa hospital. There, in one of the conflict’s worst-kept secrets, the group’s leadership has prosecuted the war from an underground bunker. Reporters were denied entry to the bunker and instead invited to a media center in the hospital courtyard. There, journalists seeking interviews with Hamas officials were obligated to line up [16], in prime position to snap photos as wounded civilians and combatants (the latter inevitably plain-clothed) were rushed into the building.
During the Gaza/Israel conflict in July and August 2014, Palestinian armed groups fired thousands of rockets and mortars at Israel, in many cases directed towards Israeli civilians and civilian objects, in violation of international law. The conduct of Palestinian armed groups, including firing from residential areas and using indiscriminate munitions that cannot be accurately directed at a military target, also endangered civilians in Gaza.
... On the other hand, because of the incredibly irresponsible actions on the part of Hamas to oftentimes house these rocket launchers right in the middle of civilian neighborhoods, we end up seeing people who had nothing to do with these rockets ending up being hurt.Part of the reason why we've been pushing so hard for a cease-fire is precisely because it's hard to reconcile Israel's legitimate need to defend itself with our concern with those civilians...
The Petition of residents in the Southend West constituency, Declares that the Petitioners believe that the Foreign Office view Hamas as a plausible negotiating partner for creating a peace agreement with Israel; further that the Petitioners believe that such a view is incorrect as Hamas's own political charter clearly states that it seeks nothing less than the destruction of Israel; further that the Petitioners believe that the Foreign Office is unwilling to clearly declare that it deplores the use of civilians and civilian buildings by Hamas as part of Hamas's warfare strategy; Hamas's consequential abuse of civilian properties as places from which to launch attacks on Israel, and its abuse of civilians as human shields resulting in a disproportionate loss of life; further that the Petitioners believe that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, and is the only place in the Middle East where Christianity and other faiths can co-exist peacefully and thrive; further that a lack of clarity in support of Israel contributes to anti-Jewish sentiment; further that the Petitioners recognise the need for, and the rights of, the civilians of Gaza and other Arabs who live within and around Israel for a peaceable existence; and further that the Petitioners believe that the lack of demonstrable public clarity by the Foreign Office to support Israel and to deplore Hamas is deeply concerning. The Petitioners therefore urges the House of Commons to request that the Foreign Office explains its actions and views on Israel, and clarifies its view of and position on Hamas. And the Petitioners remain, etc.'” [Presented by Sir David Amess, Official Report, 12 February 2015; Vol. 592, c. 1049.] [P001436] Observations from the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs: ... UK Government policy on Hamas have not changed and is clear: Hamas must renounce violence, recognise Israel and accept previously signed agreements. These conditions remain the benchmark against which Hamas's intentions should be judged. Throughout the hostilities in Gaza of summer 2014, the UK condemned Hamas's illegal and indiscriminate rocket attacks against Israel and stressed the need for Hamas and other militant groups to stop them. We condemned any use of human shields as violations of international humanitarian law, and we called on all sides to ensure that civilians were not put in danger. The UK was also clear that Israel had a right to take action to defend itself but needed to act proportionately and to minimise the risk of civilian casualties. We also made clear our serious concern regarding human rights abuses in Gaza by Hamas. We are deeply concerned by incitement in the Hamas-run media and leadership, which is both anti-Israel and anti-Semitic; we are concerned about the deteriorating freedoms of religion and belief; and we are concerned about the continued use of extrajudicial executions of alleged collaborators. Hamas's military wing (Izz al-Din al-Qassem Brigades) is proscribed by the UK Government and have been since March 2001. Proscription makes it a criminal offence to invite support for a proscribed organisation which includes, but is not restricted to, the provision of funds. The entirety of Hamas (including its political and military wings) has been listed by the European Union since 2003. The UK enforces the EU asset freeze on Hamas through the Terrorist Asset Freezing Act 2010 which makes it a criminal offence for individuals or entities to supply funding to any part of Hamas.
In December 2014, the listing of Hamas was annulled on procedural grounds by the European Court. This does not mean that the EU no longer considers Hamas a terrorist organisation and the European Commission is challenging the European Court's decision. The asset freeze remains in place while the legal challenge is ongoing.
Furthermore, the United States and the 28-member European Union, which consider Hamas as a terrorist group, have specifically condemned Hamas use of civilians as human shields.
On July 17, the United Nations Agency responsible for Palestinian refugees, known by its acronym UNRWA, announced that it had discovered 20 Hamas rockets hidden in a U.N. school in Gaza. A few days later, UNRWA announced a similar finding at another U.N. school.
European aid commissioner says, "When you kill innocents, it is not resistance. It is terrorism." ... "At this time we have to also recall the overwhelming responsibility of Hamas," said Michel, according to AFP. "I intentionally say this here: Hamas is a terrorist movement and it has to be denounced as such." Reuters quoted Michel as criticizing Hamas for its use of civilians as "human shields" and for fighting in populated areas.
(CNN) — Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel writes in a new ad campaign that the crisis in Gaza and Israel is a battle between “those who celebrate life and those who champion death.”
The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a leading Jewish Human Rights NGO devoted to the memory of the six million Jewish victims murdered in the Nazi Holocaust, denounced Hamas’ intention to dress up Friday’s Gaza border-riot participants as concentration camp victims.
“We urge major international media outlets to reject this macabre and hideous ploy to defame the memory of the victims murdered in the Nazi genocide,” said Rabbis Marvin Hier, founder and dean and Abraham Cooper, associate dean and global social action head.
“The European Union, led by Germany, should vehemently protest this latest serial abuse of Palestinian children by Hamas terrorists attempting to attract attention to their weekly riot,” Hier and Cooper added.
“As for Hamas, by dressing up kids as Nazi victims, proves the only god this terrorist organization worships is Moloch, the pagan god of child sacrifice, for whom children’s lives are worthless.
When will NGOs and U.N. agencies devoted to protecting children finally raise their voices in protests against Hamas’ barbaric tactics, including the use of civilians, children nonetheless, as human shields and cannon fodder for their endless terrorist campaigns? When will the nations like Japan, who supplied beautiful kites for Palestinian children, protest the use of these kites to set fires in Israeli nature preserves and fields?” Hier and Cooper concluded.
Labor is appalled by the recent shelling of a UN school in a Gaza refugee camp, and attacks on similar facilities.
Labor deplores the abuse of civilian facilities for military purposes, including a Gaza school that was used to hide rockets.
Hamas must stop firing rockets into Israel - more than 2600 so far, and Israel must restrain its response, which has cost far too many civilian lives.
Tony Abbott this morning supported Israel’s right to self-defence and repeated calls for an immediate ceasefire “because plainly too many people are dying”.
“We support Israel’s right to exist, we support Israel’s right to self-defence, we support the Palestinians’ right to a state of their own, but that’s got to go hand-in-hand with the recognition of Israel’s right to exist behind secure borders,” the Prime Minister told Melbourne radio 3AW.
“The problem in the Middle East is that in the end so many people are not prepared to accept Israel’s right to exist.”..
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten urged the Abbott government to pursue a ceasefire at the United Nations.
“Hamas must stop firing rockets into Israel - more than 2600 so far, and Israel must restrain its response, which has cost far too many civilian lives,” he said in a joint statement with his deputy, Tanya Plibersek.
“Labor is appalled by the recent shelling of a UN school in a Gaza refugee camp, and attacks on similar facilities.
“Labor deplores the abuse of civilian facilities for military purposes, including a Gaza school that was used to hide rockets.”
Mr Shorten earlier today said: “Every country’s got the right to secure borders but like, I think, most Australians the images we’ve seen today are deeply, deeply disturbing.”
Liberal frontbencher Malcolm Turnbull... warned Israel “risks extinction” and “can barely afford to lose a battle, let alone a war”...
“As long as Hamas is firing rockets into Israel, the Israeli defence force has to defend its own population. I mean that’s what we’d expect the Australian Army to do for us,” Mr Turnbull told ABC Radio..
Mr Abbott, asked whether anti-semitism had crept into debate about the conflict, said: “Well, that’s right and every other day there are rocket attacks on Israel from Gaza.”
The recent attacks launched by Hamas against the Israeli civilian population undoubtedly constitute attacks of a terrorist nature. Their violence and the objectives they pursue clearly have this characteristic.
Hamas's terrorist aggression is unlimited and always seeks civilian victims, seeks to escalate conflict dynamics and armed actions, as well as sowing terror among innocent populations, be they Israeli or Palestinian.
The immoral and unworthy use of children and women as human shields, as well as the militarization of residential areas, constitute in themselves acts that deserve the most absolute repudiation and condemnation.
The initiation of attacks of this nature against a country with a clear terrorist objective of its civilian population makes the invocation of the principle of legitimate defense by Israel essential.
The Hamas attacks constitute an attack against the peace and security of Israel and the region and make it imperative to categorize Hamas as a terrorist organization for the General Secretariat of the Organization of American States (OAS).
The United Nations on Wednesday passed a resolution condemning the use of civilians as human shields by terrorist groups, a strategy frequently used by organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah.
The UN General Assembly adopted the resolution of the Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy (GCTS), which was first approved in 2006 and is reviewed every two years. This year marked the seventh review of the document that prioritizes the counter-terrorism strategy of member states.
The international body also condemned anti-Semitic terrorism for the first time, as well as the use of the internet as a tool for the recruitment of terrorists.
Since the historic founding of the state of Israel more than 73 years ago, the United Nations General Assembly has passed hundreds of resolutions critical of the Jewish state. Whether based upon criticism of Israel’s “disproportionate” response...
So it was with great surprise that we learned that in what appears to be a routine, below-the-radar resolution passed by the U.N. General Assembly last week, the world body included subtle criticism of Hamas, Hezbollah and other bad actors in the Middle East, and had elements that seemed to favor Israel.
The provisions in question were part of the General Assembly's bi-annual review of Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, which was supposed to have been handled last year, but was delayed because of the COVID pandemic. Within the resolution, the General Assembly did three things that got our attention: First, it condemned the use of civilians as human shields during military operations, a common practice by terrorists — and especially Hamas in Gaza — that imperils innocent lives. Second, for the first time ever, the General Assembly condemned terrorism directed toward Jews, among others. And third, it condemned the use of the internet to recruit terrorists.
These three unexpected provisions — tucked away in the broader Global Terror resolution — are a welcome change, even if the reporting of them has been muted. We hope the provisions signify a new level of honesty in the U.N.’s General Assembly. But we aren’t sure.
In order to gauge the significance of the provisions, we would like to understand what prompted them. And we admit that our lingering uncertainty underscores how diminished the U.N. has become in our minds as a result of the organization’s historic and unrelenting anti-Israel bias.
We are skeptical whether the newfound morality added to the recent U.N. resolution is a sign of a meaningful shift in the U.N.’s policy, or just a minor adjustment. We will withhold judgment until we see what comes next.