The term ‘human shield’ can neutralise the compassion we’d otherwise feel for the innocent

When the US bombed Baghdad in 1991, killing hundreds, it alleged civilians were being used as human shields. Similar claims are made about Hamas.

The term ‘human shield’ may be relatively new, but the practice is as old as war itself. ‘In the seventh century,’ note political scientists Neve Gordon and Nicola Perugini, ‘the Chinese used “barbarian” tribes on the Turko-Mongol frontier as human buffers, while the Mongols deployed prisoners as shields during their conquests’. Today, international law prohibits such practices. Article 8 (War Crimes) of the Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) stipulates that in conflicts between states, belligerents must not ‘utilis[e] the presence of a civilian or other protected person to render certain points, areas or military forces immune from military operations’: ignoring this stricture constitutes a war crime. Customary law extends this prohibition to non-international armed conflicts.

Wars in the Middle East have, however, revived this instrumentalisation of civilian populations. Israel blames the high civilian death toll in Gaza on Hamas’s widespread use of human shields. Israel has been accused of using the same tactic. Germany’s foreign minister Annalena Baerbock recently lent credibility to Israel’s claim by suggesting that ‘civilian sites could lose their protected status if terrorists abuse this status’.

Palestinian fighters have, of course, operated in urban areas. It would be hard to do otherwise given Gaza’s high population density and the confinement of its inhabitants. However, the concept of a human shield implies a deliberate intent to use civilians to deter attack. Human Rights Watch has identified two instances in which Hamas fighters appear to have sheltered behind Israeli residents during the 7 October 2023 attacks. The possibility that Palestinian fighters employed this tactic subsequently can’t be ruled out.

Israel’s accusations of Hamas situating its headquarters under the Al-Shifa and Al-Quds hospitals were fabrications Gordon and Perugini

However, investigations (…)

Full article: 1 500 words.

Mathias Delori

Mathias Delori is political scientist, historian and author of Ce que vaut une vie: Théorie de la violence libérale (What a life’s worth: A theory of neoliberal violence), Éditions Amsterdam, Paris, 2021.

(1) Neve Gordon and Nicola Perugini, Human Shields: A History of People in the Line of Fire, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2020.

(3) Speech by foreign minister Annalena Baerbock in the Bundestag, Federal Foreign Office, 7 October 2024.

(5) ‘Israel/Gaza, Operation Cast Lead’, International Committee of the Red Cross, casebook.icrc.org/; see also ‘Israel/Gaza conflict: Questions and answers’, 25 July 2014, www.amnesty.org/.

(7) Gordon and Perugini, Human Shields, op cit.

(9) See Ali Watkins, ‘This is how the US decides how many people it can kill in Syria’, 28 February 2016, www.buzzfeednews.com/.

(11) Adil Ahmad Haque, ‘The Defense Department’s indefensible position on killing human shields’, Just Security, 22 June 2015, www.justsecurity.org; Charles J Dunlap, ‘Human shields and the DOD Law of War Manual: Can’t we improve the debate?’, Just Security, 25 June 2015; Uri Blau and Yotam Feldman, ‘Consent and advice’, Haaretz, Jerusalem, 29 January 2009.

(12) Judith Butler, Frames of War: When is life grievable?, Verso, London, 2010.

(13) Naseer Shamma, Le Luth de Baghdad/The Baghdad Lute, Institut du Monde Arabe, Harmonia Mundi, 1994.