Supreme Court to Hear Human Shields Case Today
Today at 11:30 a.m., the Supreme Court of Israel will hear a petition challenging the legality of the Israel army's use of Palestinian civilians as human shields and/or as hostages during the course of military operations to conduct arrests in the 1967 Occupied Territories. Israeli soldiers have forced Palestinian civilians to: (i) enter buildings to check if they are booby-trapped; (ii) remove suspicious objects from roads used by the army; (iii) stand inside houses where soldiers have set up military positions, so that Palestinians will not fire at the soldiers; and (iv) walk in front of soldiers to shield them from gunfire, while the soldiers hold a gun behind their backs and sometimes fire over their shoulders. The Supreme Court will hear arguments primarily on two issues:
Does using Palestinian civilians in military operations to conduct arrests violate Israeli and international law? Considering the numerous affidavits by Palestinian civilians, Israeli soldiers and other eyewitnesses that were submitted to the Court regarding the continued use of these practices, did the Israeli army violate an injunction currently in place banning the use of Palestinian civilians as human shields and/or as hostages, and thus, is the army in contempt of court?
The three presiding justices will be Chief Justice Aharon Barak, Justice Theodor Or, and Justice Eliyahu Matza. Adalah Attorney Marwan Dalal will represent the petitioners before the Court.
The Petition: On 5 May 2002, Adalah: The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel on behalf of seven Israeli and Palestinian NGOs filed a petition to the Supreme Court based on numerous testimonies collected by local and international human rights organizations seeking an order instructing the Israeli army to stop using Palestinian civilians as human shields and/or as hostages. The petitioners' also requested an immediate injunction to stop the Israeli army's illegal and abusive practices. The petitioners are Adalah, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, Qanun (LAW): The Palestinian Society for the Protection of Law and the Environment, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, B'Tselem: The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories ("B'Tselem"), The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel and HaMoked: Center for the Defence of the Individual. The petitioners named as respondents Yitzhak Eitan, then-Commander of the Israeli Army in the West Bank; Shaul Mofaz, then-Chief of Staff of the Israeli Army (now Minister of Defense); Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, then-Minister of Defense; and Ariel Sharon, Prime Minister of Israel.
Petitioners' Arguments: Adalah, on behalf of the petitioners, argued that the army's use of Palestinian civilians as human shields and/or as hostages is inhuman treatment and violates the right to life, physical integrity, and dignity. These actions are a violation of Articles 27, 28, 31, 32, 33, 34, and 51 of the Geneva Convention (IV) Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (1949). For example, Article 51 of the Geneva Convention (IV) states inter alia that: "The Occupying Power may not compel protected persons to serve in its armed or auxiliary forces." The Israeli military's use of Palestinian civilians as human shields and/or as hostages amounts to a grave breach of the Geneva Convention (IV), pursuant to Article 147, and thus, these actions constitute a war crime. The army's actions also violate Articles 45, 46, and 50 of the Hague Regulations (1907), as well as Articles 51, 57 and 58 of Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 (1977).
