CNN
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The Israeli military is investigating soldiers’ use of Palestinian civilians as human shields during operations in Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told CNN on Tuesday night.
This is the first time the military has acknowledged that there is “reasonable suspicion” to believe soldiers forced civilians to take part in military operations.
CNN has reported on Israeli soldiers forcing civilians in Gaza to enter potentially booby-trapped houses and tunnels in order to avoid putting troops in harm’s way.
“In several cases, the Military Police Criminal Investigation Division opened investigations after reasonable suspicion arose regarding the use of Palestinians for military missions during the operations,” the IDF said.
The military would not confirm how many investigations had been opened, nor who was being investigated.
“Those investigations are still ongoing, and accordingly, other details cannot be provided at this time,” the IDF said.
In an interview with CNN late last year, an Israeli soldier said his unit had forced a Palestinian man to enter a building ahead of troops. “If there are any booby traps, they will explode and not us,” he explained.
The practice was reportedly so common in the Israeli military that it had a name: “mosquito protocol.”
The exact scale and scope of the practice by the Israeli military is not known. But the testimony of both the soldier and five civilians last year indicated that it was widespread across the territory: in northern Gaza, Gaza City, Khan Younis and Rafah.
One of the civilians, Mohammad Saad, age 20, told CNN that IDF soldiers had detained him in Rafah.
“They would ask us to do things like, ‘move this carpet,’ saying they were looking for tunnels,” he said. “‘Film under the stairs,’ they would say. If they found something, they would tell us to bring it outside. For example, they would ask us to remove belongings from the house, clean here, move the sofa, open the fridge, and open the cupboard.”
At the time of CNN’s report, in October, the IDF said that military protocols “strictly prohibit the use of detained Gaza civilians for military operations.”
CNN’s Jeremy Diamond and Abeer Salman contributed to this report.