Human shield
"[5] Law professor Adil Ahmad Haque states that involuntary shields "retain their legal and moral protection from intentional, unnecessary, and disproportionate harm."
[7] Article 23 of the 1907 Hague Convention (IV) states that "A belligerent is forbidden to compel the nationals of the hostile party to take part in the operations of war directed against their own country".
[9] During the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, the army of Fascist Italy systematically bombed medical facilities in Ethiopia operated by various Red Cross societies.
"[13]The practice began on 24 September 1936 when Brigadier J. F. Evetts reacted to Palestinian rebel attacks against British positions in Nablus by forcing the city mayor, Suleiman Abdul Razzaq Tuqan, to sit exposed on the roof of a garrison building under fire, as a 'high-value human shield'.
[14] On 14 August 1937, in what would become the first major battle of World War II in Asia between China and the occupying forces of the Empire of Japan at the Battle of Shanghai, the Imperial Japanese Navy berthed their flagship Izumo in front of the Shanghai International Settlement; it is believed in what would become known as "Black Saturday", Chinese Air Force Gamma 2E bomber pilots targeted the Japanese warship, but had to release the bombs at a much lower altitude than they usually trained for due to low cloud ceiling, and did not properly reset their bomb sights, which resulted in two of the 1,100 lb bombs falling short and landing on the adjacent International Settlement (one failing to explode) and killing at least 950 Chinese civilians, foreigners and refugees.
[15][16] After World War II, it was claimed by SS general Gottlob Berger that there was a plan, proposed by the Luftwaffe and approved by Adolf Hitler, to set up special POW camps for captured airmen of the Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Forces in large German cities, to act as human shields against their bombing raids.
[19][20] In the Wola massacre in Poland on 7 August 1944, the Nazis forced civilian women onto the armored vehicles as human shields to enhance their effectiveness.
Over a two-day period, Israeli forces under the leadership of Brigadier General Yitzhak Mordechai repeatedly announced "Whoever does not bear arms will not be harmed" and urged civilians in the camp to evacuate, but few did.
Three delegations of prominent Sidon figures were sent to persuade Haj Ibrahim's fighters that "their cause was hopeless, and whoever was willing to lay down his arms would be allowed to leave the camp unharmed."
None of the delegations were successful; the first was prevented from approaching the fighters by "a spray of bullets", while the third "returned with the most harrowing tale of all": "Militiamen were shooting civilians who tried to escape.
After a delegation of Palestinian POWs, "headed by a PLO officer who was prepared to give the defenders his professional assessment of Ein Hilweh's grave military situation", and an offer by Mordechai to "meet personally with" Haj Ibrahim were also rebuffed, "a team of psychologists ... was flown to Sidon to advise the command on how to deal with such irrational behavior."
[35] In 1991, during the operations in the Gulf War, the U.S. submitted a report to the UN Security Council denouncing Iraq for having "intentionally placed civilians at risk through its behavior".
The report cited the following examples of such behavior: In the aftermath of the 1998 United States embassy bombings, Osama bin Laden stressed that he would have committed the attacks even if his own children were being used as human shields.
[37] Shortly after the cease-fire between Croat and Serb forces, the Army of Republika Srpska launched an assault against the safe area of Goražde, heavily shelling the town and surrounding villages.
In retaliation, Bosnian Serb forces captured UN personnel within their areas of operation and used them as human shields at sites expected to be bombed.
According to various accounts, including that of the American ambassador to the U.N., the Taliban used women and children from their own population as human shields against coalition forces in 2006,[38] 2007,[39] and 2008, during the war in Afghanistan.
The arrests occurred after clashes in Sabah and Putrajaya, where Abu Sayyaf allegedly used children as human shields against the Philippine army.
[43] According to The New York Times:[44] "They also hoped that the presence of passenger jets could act as a deterrent against an American attack on the airport or the nearby military base, effectively turning planeloads of unsuspecting travelers into human shields."
Freddy Guevara, an opposition deputy, branded cowardly the actions of adding civilian personnel and the reserve to carry out military exercises and face a possible US attack.
[55] Neve Gordon has noted how Israel has used the charge as part of its 'infowar' on social media,[1]: 170–177 to explain the high ratio of civilian vs military casualties in its conflict with Gaza.
[citation needed][68] U.S. Army Cavalry Scout Scott Ewing, who served in Iraq in the 2005–2006 period, stated that U.S. troops would give candy to Iraqi children so they would stay around their vehicles, thereby making more likely that enemies would not attack them.
[69][70][68] An Australian journalist claimed during the 2006 Lebanon War that Hezbollah used Lebanese civilians as human shields to dissuade the IDF from firing at gunmen and rocket launchers.
[71] HRW also accused Hezbollah of using Lebanese homes as sites for rocket launchers, usually without the homeowner's knowledge or permission, putting large numbers of civilians at risk.
[77][78] On 4 December 2009, terrorists attacked a Friday prayer ceremony in a mosque in Rawalpindi, Pakistan,[79] where Bilal Riaz, a graduate student, acted as a human shield to save his nephew's life.
This is concluded in the report's own recommendations to the LTTE, stating that the use of human shields as well as the placing of military targets near civilian populations being a war crime as per the International Humanitarian Law found in IHL.
[84][85] In March 2016, during the Second Libyan Civil War, it was reported that two Italians who had been kidnapped in June 2015 were killed while they were used as human shields by Islamic State gunmen in Sorman.
[98][99] BBC found "clear evidence" of Russian troops using Ukrainian civilians as human shields in Obukhovychi, near the Belarusian border, where 150 people were held at the local school.
[116] According to Haaretz, New York Times and Washington Post investigations based on many Israeli soldiers' testimonies, Palestinian teenagers and adults are regularly used as human shields in exploring the tunnel network in the Gaza Strip.
[124] Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndall, Western International Solidarity Movement (ISM) volunteers in the Palestinian territories, who died in 2003 and 2004 respectively have been described as "human shields" campaigning against house demolition.
[126] According to the 3 definitions in the header of this article the 'volunteers to protect Palestinians' make them not "human shields outside the battlefield" but protesters or ordinary pro-Palestinian demonstrants.
