Iqbal Tamimi - Israeli soldiers using Palestinian children as human shields
By Iqbal Tamimi • Jun 25th, 2008 at 13:15 • Category: Analysis, Children's Corner, Documents, Features, Israel, Newswire, Palestine, Quotes, Resistance, Somoud: Arab Voices of Resistance, War, Zionism
Israeli Soldiers force Palestinians to approach, enter and search buildings where they believe gunmen may be hiding.
The civilians are subjected to different forms of manipulations to use them as human shields during operations to acquire control of the houses, detaining inhabitants in one place (often in one room of the house) and turning the houses into military barracks, and using the occupants as human shields to deter any counter-attacks. They then force them to perform acts and chores on behalf of the soldiers like opening outlets in the walls or removing the floor tiles to use as barriers to protect the soldiers near the windows.
All of that happens during the time the occupation forces would open machine gun fire by its snipers from these houses to shoot at anything moving in the area.
The occupation forces arrest civilians and force them to walk in front of its soldiers at gunpoint, aiming to protect its soldiers by using the civilians as human shields.
Other methods include arresting one or more civilians and forcing them to perform tasks during military operations, such as knocking on the doors of other citizens to inform them that they are wanted and to order them to surrender, or to force them to conduct inspections on behalf of the soldiers to check suspicious objects.
The occupation forces continue to repeat the worst violations of human rights and norms of international law by using the civilians as human shields: especially children, which shows the disrespect and carelessness of those officers when it comes to civilians lives and the indifferent attitude towards risking the lives of innocent people to provide protection to its own military forces, who usually need protection while carrying out their attacks.
The young Palestinian child Rana Alnabaheen is a good example of how Israeli forces exhibit disregard for the lives of children. She was used as a human shield by a group of Israeli soldiers, exposing her to the shooting of other soldiers in the area. The soldier who used her as a human shield never even cared to inform the other soldiers accompanying him that he was using the child, and that she was moving upon his own orders.
Sameh Amira is another child subjected to being used as a human shield. He was escorted by heavily armed Israeli soldiers on a door-to-door sweep in Nablus, providing some of the strongest evidence to date that the Israeli army is still using Palestinian civilians as human shields.
Israeli soldiers were filmed using Sameh Amira as a human shield on February 25, during a week-long raid into the West Bank city of Nablus. He was made to search homes in the city's casbah, ( the old city), during a search for wanted men and bomb-making laboratories.
Amira's cousin, 15-year-old Amid Amira, was also forced by the soldiers to search three houses, making him enter rooms, empty cupboards and open windows.
Israeli human rights group Yesh Din has reported that the Israeli army used peaceful Palestinian villages to carry out training exercises. The group said that the villagers were harassed and scared as two battalions of reservists acted out a battle in their midst for three hours. The exercises were carried out without warning in the early morning in the villages of Beit Lid and Safarin February 2007.
11-year-old girl, Jihan Dadush, said that soldiers took her from her home three days later, on February 28, forcing her to open the door of a neighboring apartment and enter ahead of them. The soldiers then returned her to her home.
In August 2002, a 19-year-old Palestinian student, Nidal Daraghmeh, was killed when troops in the West Bank town of Tubas forced him to knock on the door of a neighbouring building where a Hamas fugitive was hiding. Gunfire erupted and Daraghmeh was killed.
The reports show the violations of Israeli forces to the sanctity of homes and residential areas, and how they convert civilians’ homes into military barracks, risking the lives of many innocent people and putting them in the line of fire. And most important of all is terrifying children and subjecting them to the most inhumane experiences ever.
References:
The Mezan Center for Human Rights
The Guardian newspaper
The Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem.
http://www.btselem.org/english/human_shields/20060720_human_shields_in_beit_hanun.asp
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/mar/09/israel
Public Committee against Torture in Israel
Yesh Din for human rights
BBC
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXq57XK2L0A
Human Rights News website
See also Lawrence of Cyberia
Iqbal Tamimi is a Palestinian journalist and poet from Hebron. She is the creator of a vibrant and important activists' network Palestinian Mothers, open to all who share the vision of peace and justice, men and women alike. She is working now in UK.
Email this author | All posts by Iqbal Tamimi
Zionist historian, Lenni Brenner has long exposed Zionists cruelity and their cowardness by always seeking the protection of dictators and kings. That's one of the reasons the Jew did not accept Jesus as their promised Messiah - because, he was just a teacher, while Jews were expecting some strong military personality who would lead them to have a Jewish empire.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXq57XK2L0A
Their soldiers are cowards, although they are almost alone in the bottle land. That is only what I can say.
I think they now about what will they face after their surly coming death, that is why they are trying to delay it as much as they can, and by doing such deeds.
May allah bless you Mrs Iqbal.
Surely this behaviour violates every rule in the book.
And yet they get away with it day after day week after week
Month after month year after year
And the world stand back and watches and says nothing
Where are the humans rights organistaions?
Where is the UN?
Why do we not see these thing in our main stream new media.
What is happening is barbaric…
And it must stop.
I will say as Al Khansa said–where is the UN? Where are the Human Rights organizations? What is going on is - beyond barabaric and is sheer evilness–to have so much power to do whatever-with no repercuissions-and organizations, the UN– to fearful tio ntervene??? It is diabolical-evil…and the perptrators i do not believe to be human..for it is impossible to be human–and committ such evil deeds…
If this happened in another country other than Palestine—would it be permitted? I dont think so. Whoever-the UN? Should be charged as accomplices as they are not intervening–and–they are suppposed to be the "watchdogs" over countries to ensure violations do not occur? They are asleep at the wheel…and ready to crash….this cannot continue as status quo without massive break in the mostly passive reactions which have been displyed-how far can one push a people -without them snapping? Perhaps aggressive letters should be written to the UN backed by every country-every supporting world citizen demanding an immediate intervention…the genocide will not be stopped by the govts–it will only be stopped by massive people from all over the world who say–WE HAVE HAD ENOUGH…..
perhaps a postcard should be designed with this child on the front–and circulated worldwide-stating–if this were your child-what would u do…
ESHA