Under the pretext that no Palestinian was killed when used as a human shield, the Israeli Minister of Defense Shaul Mofaz will try to convince the Israeli High Court of Justice to change its ruling, reached recently, which prohibits the Israeli army to use Palestinian civilians as Human Shields during military operation, Israeli sources reported on Wednesday.
Army Chief of Staff Dan Halutz has decided last week not to appeal to the court concerning this ruling.
However, Mofaz asked some Army officials to appeal to the court in bid to change the ruling, so the army can resume the Human Shields policy.
The army had frequently used Palestinian civilians as human shields, especially when troops attempt to arrest a claimed wanted Palestinian. The tactic often used is to send a neighbor to the house, the soldiers believe a wanted man resides, and ask him to knock the door. The goal is to get the target out of his house and enable the unit to jump on him and arrest him.
In other cases, while invading an area where they believe armed resistance men are there, troops would force hand cuffed Palestinians to walk in front of them knowing that resistance men would not shoot at them if they know there is a Palestinian in the front.
In another case, Israeli soldiers hand-cuffed a young Palestinian boy, on the front of their military jeep, and drove him through the town.
The motion to prevent the army to use Palestinians as human shield was initiated by Attorney Marwan Dallal, who represented several Palestinian and Israeli human rights organizations.
Dallal said, he is not worried about the plan to appeal to the court, saying that ‘we will win this round as well.’
‘The army has a problem of credibility with the court,’ said Dallal, ‘the army claimed earlier that using Palestinians as human shields is to protect the civilians, however, the army acknowledged that the main goal of this policy is to protect the soldiers.’
