Israeli soldiers admitted that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) use Palestinian civilians, including teenagers, as human shields in Gaza, a report said Tuesday.
Based on testimony by Israeli soldiers, the report by Haaretz daily said the IDF abducts Palestinian civilians to search tunnels and homes or buildings with booby traps.
The inhumane practice is conducted with the full knowledge of top officials, including Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, the report said.
“They said that our lives are more important than their lives,” several soldiers told the daily:
“It is better that they explode and not the soldiers.”
One of the soldiers who participated in the abduction of Palestinians for being used as human shields told the daily that they take “pride” in it.
Soldiers’ accounts are similar to a report published by Al-Jazeera in June, which showed soldiers dressing Palestinians in Israeli uniforms, attaching cameras on them to be sent to destroyed compounds.
Another soldier told Haaretz that they abducted a 16-year-old Palestinian boy for being used as a human shield.
“About five months ago, two Palestinians were brought to us,” he said, adding that they were told “Use them, they are Gazans, use them as human defenders.'”
“You keep quiet and try to convince yourself, ‘Okay, let’s use them,'” another soldier from the unit stated. “They tried to justify it rationally, but in the end, you have a 16-year-old boy sitting handcuffed inside the house, with his eyes covered. The soldiers should have helped him defecate or to feed him. This is not an event that begins and ends with him entering houses and tunnels or blowing up buildings. They are all around. They stay with those people at home for a few days.”
The Palestinians abducted by the IDF and were not killed during the ordeal were released after their jobs were done, the soldiers said, adding that they understood that these people were not “terrorists” but civilians abducted specifically for this purpose.
The IDF has come under fire for its grave human rights violations in the Gaza Strip, for targeting civilian infrastructure, including schools, homes, hospitals, houses of worship, refugee camps and more.
Since the outbreak of the Israeli war on Gaza last October, Israeli, Palestinian, and international human rights organizations have reported deteriorating conditions in Israeli prisons, particularly in the notorious Sde Teiman prison.
Since launching its ground operation in Gaza in October, the Israeli army has detained thousands of Palestinian civilians, including women, children, and members of health and civil defense teams.
In recent months, the army has released dozens of Palestinian prisoners from Gaza in gradual intervals. Many of those released showed signs of deteriorating health, with their bodies bearing marks of torture and medical neglect.
Israel, flouting a U.N. Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire, has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza since Oct. 7 last year following a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas.
Nearly 40,000 Palestinians have since been killed, mostly women and children, and over 91,700 injured, according to local health authorities.
Over 10 months into the Israeli war, vast tracts of Gaza lie in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.
Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which ordered it to immediately halt its military operation in the southern city of Rafah, where over a million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.
