A Palestinian woman has described how Israeli occupation soldiers used her as a human shield during the recent war, after arresting her. At the same time, she was injured near her home in the town of Abasan al Kabira, east of Khan Younis in southern Gaza.
Sharifa Qudeih, aged 50, told Al Jazeera English that she is still living in shock, especially after the photo taken by the Israeli army and published online went viral.
The photo shows Sharifa sitting in restraints at the base of an earthen embankment while Israeli soldiers stand above her engaged in clashes. The detained woman was forced to remain behind them as a shield to protect them from any gunfire by the Palestinian resistance.
Qudeih said the soldiers pulled her out from under the rubble after an airstrike hit her residential area. She was injured, and they bound her hands, detained her, and then seated her on a chair to shield their backs.
The Israeli army has used numerous Palestinians as human shields during its ground operations inside the Gaza Strip. Footage aired by various Arab and foreign television channels has shown young men and elderly people being used as shields, with some forced into buildings suspected of housing resistance fighters, regardless of the danger to their lives.
In a report by the American news agency Associated Press, Israeli soldiers and former Palestinian detainees stated that commanders in the Israeli military had issued orders to use Palestinian detainees as human shields during operations in Gaza.
According to these testimonies, the use of Palestinian civilians as human shields by the occupation forces became widespread during the Gaza war.
International law classifies the use of civilians as human shields as a war crime. Article 23 of the Third Geneva Convention states that “no prisoner of war may at any time be sent to or kept in an area where he may be exposed to the fire of the combat zone, nor may his presence be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations”.
