- Beginning with the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 based on the ethnic cleansing of indigenous Palestinians, Israeli soldiers and paramilitary police have used Palestinian civilians, including children, women, and elderly people, as human shields.
- Over the years, many Palestinians have been killed and injured while being used as human shields by Israeli forces.
- The Israeli military has numerous euphemisms for the use of Palestinians as human shields. They include the “neighbor procedure,” so-called because it involves forcing a neighbor of a Palestinian the Israeli military wants to capture to approach their home and urge them to surrender, the “prior-warning procedure,” the “mosquito protocol,” and the “platform procedure.”
- Following Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza in the 1967 war, the Israeli army’s use of Palestinians as human shields became more common. As noted by Israeli rights group, B’Tselem:
- “Since the beginning of the occupation in 1967, Israeli security forces have repeatedly used Palestinians in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip as human shields, ordering them to perform military tasks that risked their lives.
- “As part of this policy, soldiers have ordered Palestinian civilians to remove suspicious objects from roads, to tell people to come out of their homes so the military can arrest them, to stand in front of soldiers while the latter shoot from behind them, and more. The Palestinian civilians were chosen at random for these tasks, and could not refuse the demand placed on them by armed soldiers.
- “This use of civilians was not an independent initiative by soldiers in the field, but the result of decisions made by senior military officials.”
Legality of using human shields
- International law, including the Geneva Conventions, explicitly prohibits the use of civilians or prisoners of war as human shields or their coercion for other military purposes.
- Under U.S. law, the government is required to cut off military funding and weapons transfers to foreign military units that are credibly accused of gross human rights violations, including the use of civilians as human shields.
- In 2005, Israel’s Supreme Court banned the use of human shields in response to complaints from human rights groups but the Israeli military disregarded the ruling and continues to employ the practice. As noted in 2024 by Human Right Watch’s associate director for children’s rights in the Middle East and North Africa:
- “There is this repeated history of well documented accounts by UN bodies, as well as by human rights groups, and indications of Israeli awareness of the problem, but no action.”
Israel’s use of human shields in recent decades
- During the Second Intifada (uprising) against Israel’s military occupation (2000-2005), the Israeli military’s use of Palestinians as human shields became more frequent and open military policy. According to Israeli officials, the military used Palestinians as human shields some 1,200 times between 2000 and 2005.
- In 2007, Israeli rights group B’Tselem and Defense for Children International - Palestine documented at least 16 cases in which Israeli soldiers used Palestinian civilians - including six children as young as 11-years-old - as human shields during the course of the year. In one case, a 14-year-old girl was shot and severely wounded while Israeli soldiers used her as a human shield in Gaza.
- During Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s three-week assault on Gaza in the winter of 2008-2009, Israeli soldiers repeatedly used Palestinian civilians as human shields. In 2010, an Israeli military court convicted two soldiers of using a nine-year-old Palestinian boy as a human shield, ordering him at gunpoint to open a bag they suspected contained a bomb during Operation Cast Lead. The soldiers were given a slap on the wrist with three-month conditional sentences and a demotion. In response to the convictions, the author of the Israeli army’s code of ethics defended the use of human shields, declaring it is “ethically permissible.”
- In 2011, two dozen former Israeli soldiers came forward providing eyewitness accounts of the abuse of Palestinian civilians by the Israel military, including the use of adults and children as human shields.
- In 2013, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child issued a report accusing the Israeli military of torturing and abusing Palestinian children, including the “continuous use of Palestinian children as human shields and informants.” It documented 14 such cases that had been reported between January 2010 and March 2013, including soldiers forcing Palestinian children to enter potentially dangerous buildings ahead of them and forcing them to stand in front of military vehicles to deter stone-throwing. The report noted:
- “Almost all those using children as human shields and informants have remained unpunished.”
- During Israel’s attack on Gaza in 2014, Operation Protective Edge, rights groups once again documented Israeli soldiers using Palestinian civilians, including children, as human shields.
Israel’s genocide in Gaza
- After the start of Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza in October 2023, the Israeli military’s use of Palestinian civilians as human shields in both Gaza and the West Bank became even more widespread and systematic. Soldiers began calling it the “mosquito protocol” and referring to the human shields themselves as “shawishes.” As one Israeli soldier who took part in the Gaza genocide wrote in March 2025 in Israel’s Haaretz newspaper:
- “Today, almost every platoon keeps a ‘shawish’ and no infantry force enters a house before a ‘shawish’ clears it. This means there are four ‘shawishes’ in a company, twelve in a battalion, and at least 36 in a brigade. We operate a sub-army of slaves.”
- The soldier explained that the Israeli military has other ways to check buildings for danger but chose to use Palestinians as human shields because it’s faster:
- “It’s important to note that we can enter houses without using human shields. We did it for months, according to a proper entry procedure which included sending in a robot, a drone, or a dog. This procedure proved itself, but it took time, and the command wanted achievements here and now.”
- As noted by The Associated Press in a May 2025 report, senior Israeli officers instructed soldiers to use Palestinians as human shields, and in some cases ordered them to do so when they tried to refuse:
- “Orders often came from the top, and at times nearly every platoon used a Palestinian to clear locations, said an Israeli officer, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal… One soldier told the AP his unit tried to refuse to use human shields in mid-2024 but were told they had no choice, with a high-ranking officer saying they shouldn’t worry about international humanitarian law.”
- Sometimes Palestinians were held and used as human shields repeatedly for days, weeks, or even months at a time. Often, they were beaten, made to put on Israeli military uniforms, handcuffed, and forced to enter buildings or tunnels with a camera to check for explosives and fighters, with soldiers directing their movements. Sometimes they were forced to enter homes to set fire to them or blow them up. As one Israeli soldier told Haaretz in August 2024:
- “the idea in general was that if the house was booby-trapped, or if there was an ambush or terrorists were in the area, they would kill [the Palestinian who was sent in] and not the soldiers.”
- As one 17-year-old Palestinian student who was used as a human shield in Gaza told The New York Times in October 2024: “The soldiers sent me like a dog to a booby-trapped apartment… I thought these would be the last moments of my life.”
- In one case, Israeli soldiers forced an 80-year-old man to act as a human shield for eight hours, tying an explosive cord around his neck and threatening to blow his head off if he didn’t obey their orders. Shortly after the soldiers released him and ordered him to flee with his wife, they were both shot dead by soldiers in another battalion.
Go deeper
- Fact Sheet: Two Years of Israel’s Genocide in Gaza
- Fact Sheet: Operation Protective Edge
- Fact Sheet: Operation Cast Lead
- Haaretz: In Gaza, Almost Every IDF Platoon Keeps a Human Shield, a Sub-army of Palestinian Slaves (2025)
- The Associated Press: Israeli use of human shields in Gaza was systematic, soldiers and former detainees tell the AP (2025)
- CBS News: Israeli soldier tells CBS News he was ordered to use Palestinians as human shields in Gaza (2025)
- +972 Magazine: Israeli soldiers used an 80-year-old Gazan as a human shield. Then they killed him (2025)
- Drop Site: A 63-Year-Old Medical Worker Spent Three Months as a Human Shield for Israeli Brigades in Gaza (2025)
- The New York Times: How Israel’s Army Uses Palestinians as Human Shields in Gaza (2024)
- The Washington Post: Israeli forces used civilians as human shields in Gaza, Palestinians and soldiers say (2024)
- CNN: The Israeli military has used Palestinians as human shields in Gaza, soldier and former detainees say (2024)
- Haaretz: Israeli Army Uses Palestinian Civilians to Inspect Potentially Booby-trapped Tunnels in Gaza (2024)
- The Guardian: Palestinians describe being used as ‘human shields’ by Israeli troops in Gaza (2024)
- Reuters: Palestinian children tortured, used as shields by Israel: U.N. (2013)
- The Guardian: Israel accused of using Palestinian children as human shields (2007)