How Israel Uses Palestinian Detainees as Human Shields
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from the new york times. I'm sprint. Have any see and this is the dealing.

Overnight is really greed to a ceasefire with the lebanese armed group has bulla a major turning point and one of the wars israel has been fighting since most attacked on october s but the war in gaza shows no signs of ending, with israel coming under increased scrutiny for the way IT is conducting IT today at times investigation into one controversial tactic, the israeli use of palestinian detainees as human shields and what IT revealed about the nature of the conflict. My colleague, not on un. Hyper, explains.

It's wednesday, november .

twenty seven.

So in a time, a lot has been happening with israel in the past few days. We had the ceasefire with lebt on and has bowl on tuesday night and the week before the international criminal court issued arrest, warns for israeli prime minister Benjamin in yahoo and former defense ministry, you off the issue, those warrants for war crimes and crimes against humanity and gaza. You nata have been investigating another practice by the israeli military, one that's unconnected to what happened in the court, but seems to also raise questions about the rules of war, and that is israel's use of palestinians as human shields. Tell me exactly what you found.

So actually stumbled into this story around january twenty twenty four. I was filling my waterfall at the gym when I heard someone who I quickly understood was an israeli soldier who reason returned from gaza, talking about seeing palestinians being sent into her as tunnels. That what he was explaining is that the military is using palestinians as human shields, sending them into hamas tunnels ahead of israeli forces to prove those dangerous areas.

So in other words, this is in israel. Soldier, you're overhearing. The guide just came back from gaza, and he's recounting how they use palestinians as human shields in gaza.

precisely. And I immediately wanted to know more, if true, if they were using stenius in this way in combat, this would be very, very wrong and legal, and both israeli and international law. So I injected myself into the conversation, chAllenged him a bit to see how insist he is. And he's started behind the story. And I went back home that day, knowing that I have to get to the bottom of this to understand if this is something that only happens in one or two places and is very local, or is this something that is actually a widespread phenomenon across the military?

So what did you do next? How did you reporting take shape?

Well, so I had one lead, right? I was able to get this number, and I called him up a few days later, introduced myself as a journalist, said that i'm interested to hearing more of this dog without how the words being fought. And when we got to this topic again, he shot a few more details, telling me more, less work to place. But at some point he closed in instead that he would want to stop the conversation there. He said, that is not very willing to talk about this anymore.

So basically, he went dark before you could actually understand exactly what this phenomenon was.

right? And we have a lot of questions. We wanted to know how widespread IT is, who are those palestinians and when we who authorized this? And slowly, slowly, we were able to find more people. Some of them came forward because he thought that is very disturbing. Others we just kept on asking those questions, and and we were able to piece together a full picture.

And what did the picture show?

So over the course of about ten months of investigation, we long suber my calling in gaza. And Patrick's, the justices chief of the new york times, were able to uncover a disturbing practice of israeli military. Gaza israeli military was using palestinians as human shields in gaza. They were using them to probe haas tunnels, and they send them ahead of forces into homes that they were afraid were booby trapped by haas. In some cases, palestinian detainees were dressed as I, D, F soldiers, and in others they were giving body cameras to take with them to give life feed to israeli soldiers.

Why use palestinians for this? And why do this at all? For that matter, israel has an incredibly sophisticated military, and presumably the technology to do this kind of work.

right? So three different reasons. So first of as greatest drones and robots and even k nine.

Dogs can show tunnels. A human being that can walk and move. Object is way more efficient, improving areas. Sometimes a person can do test that a drone in a row back can't really do.

And the other thing is that after three months of war, a cana dog is not as efficient as IT wasn't in the past. Their two traumatic and their confused from all the smell explosives around, so they lose their orientation. So whatever snipper dogs, robots or drones weren't good enough to prove the tunnels or walk ahead forces into homes, they started using palestinian prisoners as human shields for dangerous tasks.

So is really military, is using people, palestinian indies, to do this very dangerous job that even dogs, at this point can do. Want to talk to anyone who has actually happened to.

yes. So our reporter, gaza, the long shaba, spoke with three palestinians who spoke on the record about their experience as being used as human shields. One of them was A A pharmacist named pursue L W.

He's a forty three old father of four from northern gaza in the beginning of the war, he and his family for itself. And then around mid november, he decided that he wants to make a risky trip back to his home to get some, some things that is, family really needed. At that point, israeli military considered any palestinian walking around these unpopulated areas as a potential hamas Operative.

I see, because this was, after this is really had told everybody to evacuate. So anybody still there was suspect.

right? So after we pache got to his home, the israeli military detained him. And by his account, they ordered him at gunpoint to address, and they blind folded him.

They took him barefoot and almost completely naked to a nearby yard of a multistory building. And then they took off the blind fold. Make sure that his hands are tied in front of him and not in the backs.

We would be able to move objects and told him to go ahead of forces and prove that area. And this yard, according to his account, was partly ruined. They were glass all over the floor, and anzy was walking, was injured by this glass because his feet were bare.

Yes, exactly. His feet were there. And the soldiers were staying behind, giving him directions from a metaphor.

So they ordered him to move around the yard, looking into different places pacific thought were potentially will be trapped, or an entrance to a tunnel. And then there was noise coming out from around an electricity generator. And the soldiers got really afraid and started shooting in that direction. But he turned out that he was a kitted that made all this noise. And he said that some of the soldiers laughed in belief.

wow, was he hurt?

He wasn't hurt from the shooting, but he wasn't injured from walking barford on the glass.

So they use them as a human shield in several instances. But eventually they decided to take him into israel and to an israeli defensive center. I think that one of the thing that really send chills into my arms when I heard this story is that he said that he was excited, happy and relieved to get there, knowing that he's outside of the dangerous zone wall.

So that actually shows you how frightening that was for him, that he felt Better once he got to israel detention center, not generally the kind of place that a gosson would tend to feel very safe.

And yeah, and I think that is also important to mention that he was treated there for his injuries, but also released later on sent back to gaza, which tells us that the israeli intelligence did not think that he was involved with any militant group.

right? That he was essentially just a .

civilian yeah yeah. And what we later found out is that a dos experience wasn't that rare. Israel military use palestinians as human shields again and again throughout the war.

I'll be right back.

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So in a time you said that, you eventually came to understand that the story of busher, the pharmacist was actually not that rare. But what was the actual scope of this?

What was the scale? So it's very difficult to understand the scale. But we spoke to sixteen israeli defense officials and soldiers. Some of them participated in this practice, and most of them, but IT as a rather routine practice, and IT seem to us that this practice became more and more widespread throughout the war.

And one of the reasons that made us understand that is that we went to some people and say, April or march, and I ask them if they know anything about IT, and they gave us a hard note. They said, you know, this is not something that they would imagine people would be doing. But then again, when we circled back in june or july, suddenly they said that they came across IT and even sign with their own eyes. So the practice .

seem to have gotten much more widespread as the war went on .

exactly Serena, and we were able to confirm that this took place in at least eleven different squad throughout the gaza strip. So from the north to the south, in five palestinian cities. And what really gave us a idea that this is quite commonplace practice was that I had a term.

So the practice was brought enough throughout the military that I had a name and you know, people knew IT that implies scope.

That's right. So the first time we heard these terms was in february, a soldier who came back from the battle fields told us that already in november, he heard a senior commander explained to his deputy that a nearby unit is asking for either mosquito or a wasp.

What does he mean there? I mean, mosquito and wasp.

So luckily for us, the deputy dino either, and the more senior commander explained to him that a mosquito is a palestinian who was the nearby in gaza and was then being used as a human shield in tunnels or in other dangerous places. As for wasps, we got varying accounts from sources. What we do know is that a wasp is someone who was in israel and was brought into gaza by israeli intelligence officers for brief and specific emissions. And there was some disagreement about whether these were detainees or whether these were paid collaborators who volunteered to and gaza with the military.

okay. So in other words, mosquitoes are kind of like the shure, the pharmacies. They maybe got swept up in something inside gaza, but wasps were different.

They were brought from israel back to gaza and used there. But why would that happen? What is the purpose of moving them? IT seems quite complicated to do.

So what I understood from several of the soldiers is that these are sometimes palestinians who have knowledge of the tunnels or other places. Sometimes they were being used as human shields going into those totals ahead of the forces, but they were also used for intelligence, and sometimes to point to places where they told israeli military could potentially be make shift graves of hostages. So places that hamas have hit in the bodies of israeli soldiers taken captive on october seventh.

So in other words, they might have some specific knowledge of where to look and where to find things exactly.

The israeli military was hoping to freeze as much information as they could from those people, but the flip side of IT is that they also created a lot of paperwork and reaux racy and required logistics in ordination by different units and different agencies as well. This suggests that senior commanders did not only know about IT, but sancy at least several versions of this tactic.

And what if the israeli military say to you when you confronted them about the practice before you publish your article?

Israel military did not deny this. They said in a statement that its directives and guidelines strictly prohibit the use of the gaza civilians from Operations. IT added that the account of the palace inie detainees and soldiers interview by the times would be examined by the relevant authorities.

So they said they'd look into IT. What exactly are the laws and conventions around this?

So using civilians or militants as human shields in a battle field is completely illegal, not only by international law, but also by israeli law. And israel has some experience with that. About two and a half decades ago, israeli military used palestinian civilians for risky missions, most in the west bank. And this went to court. And israeli supreme court said that this is completely prohibited under israeli law in order the military to stop with this practice.

But you showed here that they're doing IT again. What happened if your story published?

Well, we know that he was discussed military in the government, but we can't really tell you if the military took serious steps in order to prevented. But it's also important to note that the intensity of the warn gaza and went down significantly in the past few months, and it's possible that this practice isn't as widespread as IT was in the height of the war. But as far as I know, not one israeli officer or concrete t was punished or even investigated for participating in this practice.

Now time, i'm curious about those israeli soldiers that you talk to and how they saw this practice. I mean, fundamentally, IT was something that was meant to protect them, of course, but clearly some of them must have felt uncomfortable with IT because they were talking to you, a journalist about IT, right?

We won't be able to report them this story if IT wasn't for many israeli soldiers who felt discussed and disturbed and horrified by the fact that israeli military is using this practice. One soldier told us that his entire platoon push back so hard that they basically stop using this practice in their patton's, releasing the two palestinian civilians who they were using as human shields. And I think that one thing that really resonated with me that a soldier said that, you know, even if this war is justified, IT doesn't mean that everything we do, or everything that we can do in this war is justified .

in the time at a high level IT seems like what your reporting shows that incorrect me, if i'm wrong here, is that israeli military law, as is willing to sacrifice palestinian civilians for their own military purposes, and israel, of course, accuses hamas of hiding within civilian populations, is not using palestinians as human shields in gaza. And now we know that is really is also using palestinians to human shield. So i'm wondering if you think that the correct way to understand your reporting here is actually a sort of shared disregard, both on the part of israeli military and homos for palestinian civilian life.

Well, there is a common thread in the disregard to palestinian lives, and both are terribly wrong, but they're each going about IT in their own way. How much is a terrorist organization that is showing this regard for its own people? Where's israel is a sovereign state that is violating the rules of war.

And I think that an important take away from this story is how israeli military, which is the military of the state that is a member of you in that has, you know, the most powerful nations in the world as allies, has its military standards been deteriorating to a place that IT haven't been ever before, namely, using palestinians as human shields in this widespread way? And one way to understand how I could have deities to this point is to be reminded of the shock of israeli society after seeing the october seven electrostatic. And the israeli society was just traumatized by this, which clouded the moral judgment of many israeli soldiers walking into the roles in the military and later marching into gaza.

In other words, there's an emotional response that happening on the part of israeli and israeli citizens, who, of course, are also is really soldiers. And that is clouding in some ways, judgment and allowing them or perhaps kind of inviting them to see palestinians in .

this dehumanize way yeah and also make them think that humor palestinians and that palestinians are harass which is something that is a bit hard for the greater very society to understand that there are many palestinians who oppose hamas, or many palestinians who are suffering from homes and who suffered from home as even from before the war. But this shows a deteriorating the regards to human lives by israeli military and something that we've never seen before.

Where then does israel go from here?

So we're in the stage of the war in which the intensity of the fighting is winding down in gaza. And also the I, C, C have just issue the orders against prime minister Benjamin athena and foreign minister defense you colan. So these two things make IT harder, or israeli, is to ignore the consequences of the war in gaza, namely the vast destruction and the many tens of thousands of palestinians who died in this conflict.

In our israeli society that has justified this war throughout needs to face unjustified parts of IT, like in the case that be oud Patrick and eye uncovered about how it's using palestinians as human shields.

No time.

Thank you.

Thank you. Sabena gh.

I'll be right back.

This is nick Christoph.

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Here's what you should know today. Early this morning, the ceasefire between israel and the lebanese militia group went into effect. The deal was announced by president biden in a televised address from the White house on tuesday night. He said he was designed to end the war between israel and hezbollah. Manent tly IT was a major turning point in a conflict that had displaced over a million levene and tens of thousands of israelis.

The conflict started on october seventh when hezbollah, an firing into israel in solidity with homos israel, later retaliated, killing the group's long time leader, planting explosives in the pages used by the group's Operatives and conducting air strikes against hezbollah. Strong holds in lebanon, the fighting has killed more than three thousand lebanon and one hundred israelis and severely damaged hezbollah. The hours before the ceasefire was set to take effect, israel continued to hit hezbollah, ong holds in lebanon and the heavy est bridge since the war began.

The lebanese parliament is expected to approve the agreement in a vote on wednesday. Today's episode was produced by mush sai, Jessica champ and look vender blue IT was edited by M. J. Davis lyn with help from Chris hazel with research assistant by Susan lee, contains original music by Daniel and marine lizana, and was engineered viola's moxy r. The music is by gym run work and the landmark of wonderly special thing to patch.

That's IT for the daily i'm spring at ney sea see tomorrow.