RFS_Br
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The only irrefutable evidence of human shield use we have on that corner of the world is on Israel's part. Some relevant sources for you:Qamar, the specific and irrefutable evidence of human shields
- Amnesty International:
“Amnesty International on Thursday accused Israeli forces of war crimes, saying they used children as human shields and conducted wanton attacks on civilians during their offensive in the Gaza Strip. “
...
“It could not support Israeli claims that Hamas used human shields. It said it found no evidence Palestinian fighters directed civilians to shield military objectives from attacks, forced them to stay in buildings used by militants, or prevented them from leaving commandeered buildings”
- The United Nations:
“We found no evidence that Hamas used civilians as hostages. I had expected to find such evidence but did not. We also found no evidence that mosques were used to store munitions. ”
A variety of sources prove that this has been an Israeli tactics for many years already.
2013: Palestinian children tortured, used as shields by Israel: U.N.| Reuters
2010: Israeli soldiers who used Palestinian boy, 9, as a human shield avoid jail | World news | The Guardian
2009: Israeli Soldiers ‘used child human shield’ – UN report — RT Russian politics
2007: Israel accused of using Palestinian children as human shields | World news | theguardian.com
2005: Mofaz: IDF to appeal 'human shield' ruling - Israel News, Ynetnews
Breaking the Silence › Testimony - A moving human shield
Israel likes to make this sort of accusation against all its other nemeses. My guess is that they help Israel put a spin on its intentional massacres of civilians and shed the blame for them on its enemies. They tried to do that with Hezbollah to justify its slaughter of civilians in Lebanon (around 1,000 innocent lives), but here, too, the Israelis ended up refuted, and by Western groups:
Human Rights Watch did not find evidence, however, that the deployment of Hezbollah forces in Lebanon routinely or widely violated the laws of war, as repeatedly alleged by Israel. We did not find, for example, that Hezbollah routinely located its rockets inside or near civilian homes. Rather, we found strong evidence that Hezbollah had stored most of its rockets in bunkers and weapon storage facilities located in uninhabited fields and valleys.
As for this...
Again: no evidence of that. Our only "undeniable evidence" are your words, better yet, the IDF's words, because that's the only source you have on the subject, let's not pretend otherwise. Many people believe the stories about "Hamas human shields", about "rockets being launched from schools and hospitals", only because of the sheer amount of times that these claims have been made in the Western media without skepticism. Goebbels explains.and also a violation of geneva convention is using civilian areas to fire rockets from and using civilian areas for storing rockets. (I don't even want to go into firing rockets at civilian targets, or that pakistani army also destroys houses of taliban commanders).
But the evidence the IDF's presented in support of this claim is not very impressive, otherwise it wouldn't have been forced to retract its claims when refuted. Just like the IDF's claims that Hamas uses civilians as human shields are intended to justify civilian slaughters, its allegations that Hamas is firing from populated civilian have the same purpose. Just proof is the fact that the IDF bombs houses, schools, hospitals and other civilian infrastructure despite total absence of military targets. An example:
Israel's assault on Gaza has exacted the bloodiest toll of civilian lives yet, when the bombing of UN schools being used as refugee centres and of housing killed more than 50 people, including an entire family of seven young children.
...
The UN was particularly incensed over targeting of the schools, because Israeli forces knew they were packed with families as they had ordered them to get out of their homes with leaflet drops and loudspeakers. It said it had identified the schools as refugee centres to the Israeli military and provided GPS coordinates.
...
[The head of the UN Palestinian refugee agency, John Ging] said UN staff vetted those Palestinians who sought shelter at the school. "So far we've not had violations by militants of our facilities,"
So there you have - a wealth of evidence on violation of the Geneva conventions, not by Hamas, but by Israel. You could condemn these real violations with the same passion that you do Hamas' imaginary ones, but I won't hold my breath for that.
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