“Human shields in action”: Israeli forces tie Palestinians to jeep | News on the Israel-Palestine conflict

Israeli forces tied a wounded Palestinian to the hood of a military vehicle in the occupied West Bank during a raid on the city of Jenin and apparently used him as a human shield.

A video posted online on Saturday and verified by Al Jazeera shows Mujahed Azmi, a Palestinian resident of Jenin, strapped to a military jeep as it drives past two ambulances.

Azmi’s family told Reuters that Israeli forces had carried out a raid in Jenin in which he was injured.

When the family called for an ambulance, the military took Azmi, strapped him to the hood of their jeep and drove away.

A statement from the Israeli military said Israeli forces were shot at and there was an exchange of fire in which a suspect was injured and arrested.

The soldiers then violated military protocol, the statement said. “The suspect was arrested by the armed forces while tied to a vehicle,” it said.

The military stated that “the conduct of the forces in the video of the incident does not correspond to the values” of the Israeli military and that the incident is being investigated and dealt with.

The person was transferred to a medical center for further treatment, the military said.

The incident comes as violence in the occupied West Bank, which was already increasing before Israel’s war on Gaza, continues to escalate. This includes frequent Israeli military raids on West Bank towns and villages, shootings by Jewish settlers in Palestinian villages, and attacks by Palestinians.

The apparent human shield incident sparked widespread outrage.

Francesca Albanese, United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, called this “human shields in action.”

“It is astonishing how a state founded 76 years ago has managed to literally turn international law on its head,” she wrote in a post on X. “This could mean the end of multilateralism, which no longer serves any relevant purpose for some influential member states.”

#HumanProtection in action.
It is astonishing how a state founded 76 years ago has managed to literally turn international law on its head.

This could mean the end of multilateralism, which no longer serves a relevant purpose for some influential member states. … https://t.co/swwjiuJYmG

— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur for the Palestinian Territories (@FranceskAlbs) 22 June 2024

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States, also condemned the incident and the killing of around 43 people by Israel in attacks on the Shati refugee camp and the Tuffah neighborhood in the north of the Gaza Strip.

“These Israeli-American massacres and war crimes must stop. American taxpayer dollars should not be used to kill, maim and starve innocent civilians,” said Ibrahim Hooper, CAIR’s national communications director. “The Biden administration must end its complicity in this genocide and begin to recognize the humanity of the Palestinian people.”

Meanwhile, David Des Roches, a professor at the National Defense University in the United States, said that if the Israeli military fails to discipline the soldiers involved in the incident, others might see their actions as permission to do the same.

“This is not a common practice. I hope the investigation will find out who did this and I hope exemplary punishment will be imposed. Otherwise, I think it is safe to assume that this will become policy,” Des Roches told Al Jazeera.

“The Israeli military’s response to this will be very telling, and if the soldiers who did this are not properly disciplined, one can argue that this will be seen as permission for others to do the same,” he added. “But ultimately it is difficult to see that this provides a tactical advantage, and Israel has suffered serious strategic damage as a result.”

The incident was not the first time the Israeli military was forced to deal with troop misconduct.

In May last year, Palestinian human rights groups accused Israeli troops of using five children as human shields, including during a raid near Jericho in the occupied West Bank.

That same month, the Israeli military launched an investigation after a video emerged showing a soldier burning what appeared to be a Koran.

The bomb attack on the Red Crescent headquarters in the southern Gaza Strip in January this year is also being investigated. Five people were killed in the attack on the building, which housed around 1,400 people.

Also in January, Israeli soldiers in Gaza blew up the main building of a university that had been used as a military base earlier in the year. The military said its troops had not received permission to destroy the building.

The following month, Israel’s top military lawyer warned troops against violations, saying the soldiers’ actions would ultimately cause strategic damage to the country.