I think almost all mentions of Hamas using human shields is a dumb technicality. Again, Israel staps Palestinian children on trucks and has been condemned by so many fucking human rights organizations that it made me lose hope in the world that they will ever be held accountable. Hamas on the other hand keeps its military bases where Israel can’t find them on an extremely densely populated open prison.
It’s entirely Israel’s fault for bombing hospitals (yes it’s done that in this operation too and in every single one before), whether Hamas (who are fucking picks too) puts bases underneath or not. You’d imagine if they were using human shields that Israel would kill less civilians. Instead Israel uses it as an excuse to kill Palestinians because they are less than human to the IDF.
What I mean to say is that when people say “human shields”, they mean when civilians are forced into crossfire to protect the enemy troops. However, there exists the notion of “proximity shielding”.
Authors Neve Gordon and Nicola Perugini, elaborating on their book, Human Shields: A History of People in the Line of Fire, discuss “proximate shields”, humans as shields merely due to proximity to belligerents and assert that this type has become “by far the most prominent type of shield in contemporary discourse”. They say that the proximate shielding accusation has been used by States to cover-up war crimes against civilian populations and that human rights organizations frequently fail to question this charge which they claim is being improperly used to justify civilian deaths.[7]
There are several pieces that discuss this idea, but here are some.
Our research suggests that human rights and humanitarian organizations have been complicit with this framing exercise and that it is urgent to have a frank conversation about human shields and the legal and political implications of the human shielding accusation. Both in our book and in several academic articles, we have shown that hi-tech States spend considerable resources on media campaigns and mobilize legal and military expertise to justify their use of lethal violence in cities where civilians are trapped.[ii] We describe how human shields, and particularly the charge of proximate shielding, are being widely used by States and their militaries to justify civilian deaths in asymmetric conflicts, and how it has become a major tool in what we have called the ‘erosion’ of the civilian.
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If you turn your eyes back to the wiki page I first linked under the section on Israel and Palestine:
Israel has used the charge, in what has been termed its ‘infowar’ on social media,[56] to explain the high ratio of civilian vs military casualties in its conflict with Gaza. In Operation Cast Lead 100 Gazans died for every Israeli, and the civilian ratio was 400 Gazans to 1 Israeli. Israeli spokesmen explained the difference by alleging that Hamas used civilians as shields. It has been argued that no evidence has come to light proving these claims.[57][58][59][60] In September 2004, Justice Aharon Barak presiding over the Israeli Supreme Court, issued a demand that the IDF desist from the practice of using Palestinians as human shields, and in October outlawed the procedure.[61] The independent human rights NGOs B’tselem and Amnesty International have stated that ample evidence exists in conflicts after that date that Israel has employed Palestinians as human shields. According to B’tselem, the practice goes back to 1967.[55][61]
By these means, entire populations and vast cities are reduced to war space. Prevailing hierarchies of humanity ensure that some places and some people are far more likely to find themselves expendable through the twisted logics and framings of the human shield.
I hope this makes my point clear but basically: Israel is using proximity shielding (aka accusing Hamas of using civilians as human shields) to justify ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, and has itself had to outlaw the use of Palestinians as human shields because it was a normal part of Israeli military operations and totally allowed until all the human rights groups finally succeeded in outlawing it, and yet Israel still sometimes uses it.
I think almost all mentions of Hamas using human shields is a dumb technicality. Again, Israel staps Palestinian children on trucks and has been condemned by so many fucking human rights organizations that it made me lose hope in the world that they will ever be held accountable. Hamas on the other hand keeps its military bases where Israel can’t find them on an extremely densely populated open prison.
It’s entirely Israel’s fault for bombing hospitals (yes it’s done that in this operation too and in every single one before), whether Hamas (who are fucking picks too) puts bases underneath or not. You’d imagine if they were using human shields that Israel would kill less civilians. Instead Israel uses it as an excuse to kill Palestinians because they are less than human to the IDF.
You’re not being intellectually honest.
What I mean to say is that when people say “human shields”, they mean when civilians are forced into crossfire to protect the enemy troops. However, there exists the notion of “proximity shielding”.
If you check the Wikipedia page for human shields:
There are several pieces that discuss this idea, but here are some.
In this analysis piece of proximity shielding, we read:
If you turn your eyes back to the wiki page I first linked under the section on Israel and Palestine:
Finally, this article discusses the politics surrounding the idea of human shields
I hope this makes my point clear but basically: Israel is using proximity shielding (aka accusing Hamas of using civilians as human shields) to justify ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, and has itself had to outlaw the use of Palestinians as human shields because it was a normal part of Israeli military operations and totally allowed until all the human rights groups finally succeeded in outlawing it, and yet Israel still sometimes uses it.