The practice that Haaretz exposed Tuesday (Yaniv Kubovich and Michael Hauser Tov) of military units forcing civilian residents of Gaza to serve as human shields – searching tunnels and buildings before the forces enter, while wearing army uniforms and sometimes also protective vests to give them the appearance of IDF soldiers – is a war crime.
Many of the prohibitions specified in the laws of war are the consequence of atrocities experienced in wars, especially World War II. The prohibition against using enemy civilians as human shields is one of them.
The prohibition, which was set forth in the Geneva Convention and the violation of which was defined as a war crime in the Rome Statute, which established the International Criminal Court, was intended to uproot the "cruel and barbaric" practice (as the International Committee of the Red Cross has interpreted the Geneva Convention to mean) of placing civilians in strategic sites or forcing them to accompany military convoys to dissuade the enemy from attacking them. Israel's High Court of Justice banned the practice, even if the civilians themselves gave their consent, in a 2005 ruling on the so-called neighbor procedure.
The evidence that was revealed in the investigation paints a "brutal and barbaric" picture of using civilians as human shields. Palestinians are held for days as forced laborers in military units, who use them repeatedly, at the risk of their lives, before releasing them.
This egregious practice points to the dehumanization of Gaza's civilians in the eyes of the officers who permitted, and sometimes ordered, its use, in blatant disregard of the distinction in international law between combatants and civilians.
The use of an innocent person as bait must worry every Israeli. This use is exemplified by the commanders' reply to soldiers who protested the practice and demanded that they justify its use. These people, the commanders explained, are a replacement for the IDF's Oketz K-9 unit dogs, whose numbers have dwindled in the course of the war.
The International Criminal Court is currently considering a request by the court's chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, for arrest warrants for the prime minister and the defense minister. One of the conditions for the ICC's jurisdiction in this matter is that the Israeli justice system is unable or unwilling to investigate and prosecute Israeli war criminals.
The practice that was exposed is a test case for this question. The Haaretz investigation found that senior officers were aware of the perverse use of Palestinian civilians as human shields.
The military advocate general must launch an investigation to review the entire chain of command to determine responsibility for the crime and prosecute everyone found to be involved.
The above article is Haaretz's lead editorial, as published in the Hebrew and English newspapers in Israel.