The 'mosquito' protocol: The Israeli army uses Palestinian civilians as human shields.

Barcelona"On one of my last rounds in Gaza, we were on the coastal road, where a crowd of people were walking toward Rafah. The soldiers caught two Palestinian boys. One was 16. They used them to break into buildings: if he had planted an explosive, they would have blown themselves up." This is the testimony of a sergeant in the Israeli army's Nahal unit in Breaking the Silence (BTS), an Israeli organization that publishes anonymous witness accounts from soldiers to denounce abuses by their own army. Other witnesses brought to light by the newspaper in recent days Haaretz They claim that the Israeli army uses Palestinian civilians as human shields. This practice is so systematic that it even has a name: the so-called protocol. mosquito.

The anonymous soldier's testimony continues: "Those two Palestinians who had been stopped on the road were with our unit for 48 hours: they also slept with us. We had a soldier who spoke Arabic and every time we had to enter a building, we would make them go to the houses first in case there was... a boy and you cover his eyes and tie his hands and then at night you untie him and the next day you go back to it. It's not the same as bombing a building from a distance. of your army."

The practice of using Palestinians as human shields is not new: it has been documented at different times and places in both Gaza and the West Bank, always following the same pattern. Witnesses of Palestinian soldiers and civilians who have been detained and used as human shields agree. They are used to inspect houses or tunnels where explosives or militants could be hidden, with the aim of protecting the soldiers.

The Palestinians chosen as human shields don't have any specific profile: they come in young, old, and even children. What unites them is their vulnerability. Muhamad Marwan Shihab, a Palestinian from the Nur Shams refugee camp in the northern West Bank, has reported to the Israeli authorities that during a raid last spring, soldiers forced his daughter Malak, just 10 years old, to search his house. "Malak was at home with her mother, siblings, ages 2 to 6, and her aunt, when the army fired on the house with a drone," the father explains in a telephone conversation. "They made everyone come out except for the girl. The soldiers took the dogs they had with them, removed their muzzles, and made them sniff her. They forced Malak to open the bathroom, dining room, and bedroom doors, because they thought there were militants hiding inside. But in reality, the door had been tested with the one that didn't lock, it hadn't locked with the sun, and it locked with the girl. They kept yelling at her to open it," the father recalls. He says that for a month the girl had difficulty eating and sleeping because of the traumatic experience and that she is better now, but has not recovered.

Children, the most vulnerable

The organization Defense for Children International Palestine (DCIP) has documented dozens of cases in which Israeli soldiers have used children as human shields, because it is easier to scare them into compliance. There are cases that predate the Palestinian attack of October 7, 2023, such as the one reported by DCIP in March of that year in the Aqabat Jaber refugee camp, in the city of Jericho, in the West Bank. According to the NGO's documentation, Israeli forces surrounded the Shalloun family's home at midday and ordered everyone to leave. Only the father, Maher, remained inside the house, and then the soldiers took his sons, Nidal (9) and Karam (11), and his nephews, Ahmad and Mohamed (2-year-old twins), and forced them to sit in front of military vehicles while the soldiers launched tear gas, which confronted the soldiers. The organization also documented the psychological impact that this experience had on the children.

El Shihab, the father of the 10-year-old girl whose home was searched by soldiers, took the case to the Israeli police, but he was not given a copy of the complaint and doubts the procedure will continue. Twenty years ago, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that a similar practice, called neighbor protocolIt was during the Second Intifada, when the army used to enter Palestinian homes by forcing a neighbor to precede the soldiers.

"It's significant that we're now seeing so many cases again," Joel Carmel, director of public advocacy at BTS, explains to ARA. "At first, we thought it was the work of some commander acting on his own, but we quickly understood that it was protocol, part of the norm, and that higher-ranking commanders were aware of them. Now the army has said it will investigate six incidents, as if they were isolated cases that were all reported on by all witnesses on a single day," he explains.

"Everyone knows that this is very problematic, and there are commanders who justify it by saying that it's better for a Palestinian to die than a soldier. Others say that this was previously done by canine units, and that since the war in Gaza, many dogs have died or been injured and cannot be replaced." Some soldiers have reported forcing Palestinians to wear Israeli military uniforms and wear body cameras, and footage has been published of them being forced into buildings or tunnels while tied with rope.