The Human Shield

What on earth is a Human Shield?

The Wikipedia tells us: “A human shield is a military and political term describing the presence of civilians in or around combat targets to deter an enemy from attacking those targets. It may also refer to the use of civilians to literally shield combatants during attacks, by forcing the civilians to march in front of the soldiers”

This is done in the hope that the other party will be reluctant to attack them. Furthermore, if the other party attacks these targets anyway, the resulting civilian casualties have propaganda value.

Hamas militants used the school and hundreds of Palestinian civilians shelters around it as a cover to fire mortars at Israeli towns.

How terrible, civilians are used to cover terrorists? Where? - It’s hard to believe, but Hamas has been hiding in mosques, kindergartens and hospitals! – Don’t they have any respect for human life, especially that of defenseless children and sick people?

The following is an excerpt from a speech delivered by Hamas MP Fathi Hammad, which aired on Al-Aqsa TV on February 29, 2008. Hammad explains that using civilians as a human shield is not an accident on Hamas' part; it is a strategic military and propaganda tactic.

"[The enemies of Allah] do not know that the Palestinian people has developed its [methods] of death and death-seeking. For the Palestinian people, death has become an industry, at which women excel, and so do all the people living on this land. The elderly excel at this, and so do the mujahidin (ed., jihad warriors) and the children. This is why they have formed human shields of the women, the children, the elderly, and the mujahidin, in order to challenge the Zionist bombing machine. It is as if they were saying to the Zionist enemy: 'We desire death like you desire life."’ (www.memritv.org/video.html).

Golda Meir was not a grand orator in any traditional sense of the term. But her words contained a direct and simple eloquence, reflecting her straightforward, no nonsense approach.
Naomi Reagan says: “All of us cry for the death of children. We in Israel recognize that thefastest way to save the lives of the children in Gaza, is for the Israeli army to crush Hamas which is using them as human shields. “

Ralph Peters wrote in the New York Post: “Israel hasn't killed a single civilian in the Gaza Strip. Over a hundred civilians have died, and Israeli bombs or shells may have ended their lives. But Israeli didn't kill them. Hamas did.”