The Israeli army said on Friday it was investigating the alleged use by soldiers of Palestinian civilians as human shields during a recent operation in the West Bank town of Nablus.
A statement said the army’s procurator general, Brigadier General Avihai Mandelbit, “has ordered the military police to investigate charges that Israeli forces broke the rules and used civilians during an operation in Nablus two weeks ago”.
In October 2005, Israel’s supreme court banned the use of human shields as being contrary to international law.
On Thursday, Channel 10 television broadcast footage shot by an international news agency showing Israeli forces advancing behind a young male Palestinian civilian during the door-to-door search and arrest operation in Nablus aimed at detaining militants.
The Israeli human rights group, B’Tselem, charged on Thursday that during the Nablus operation “soldiers used two Palestinian children [a boy aged 15 and girl of 11] and a 24-year-old man as human shields.”
B’Tselem said the soldiers were apparently “afraid that armed fighters could be hiding in the homes or that they could have been rigged with explosives”.
“So what the two minors and the adult were forced to do posed a clear danger and the soldiers were aware of that,” it added.
The army carried out several days of searches for arms factories and wanted militants in Nablus that ended on March 1. One Palestinian was killed during the operation and several were arrested. — AFP