The Palestinian terrorist organizations, aware that the IDF will not deliberately attack civilians, have recently made more frequent use of civilians as human shields to protect their bases and operatives. Hamas and other terrorist organizations have publicly praised the tactic of using human shields and called for continuation.

Overview

1. The Palestinian terrorist organizations operating in the Gaza Strip frequently use civilians as human shields . They establish their military infrastructure within densely populated civilian areas, launch rockets at Israel from densely populated areas, open fire on IDF soldiers from areas inhabited by civilians and use civilian residential dwellings to hide the openings of the tunnels they dig to smuggle arms.

2. The organizations have recently initiated tactics intended to prevent, or at least hamper, IDF counterterrorist attacks on land and from the air by enlisting Palestinian civilians (including women and children). They send them to areas where fighting is being waged or an attack is about to be carried out and use them as human shields. Two prominent instances were the following...