Let’s dismantle the claim that Hamas use civilian Palestinians as “human shields” by embedding themselves within the civilian population and infrastructure, and that this is the reason why the civilian death toll in Gaza is so absurdly high. That is, the high death toll is Hamas’s fault, not the fault of Israel and the IOF who are the ones doing the actual killing. First, I will give you a bunch of reasons why we should believe the “human shields” claim is false. Then I will tell you how we can know definitively that it is false, and that the IOF are indeed targeting the civilian population, instead of civilian deaths being mere “collateral damage”.
I just have to say, it is grossly embarrassing how much the U.S. government and Zionists and genocide apologists think we are all very stupid and incapable of looking with our own eyes and figuring out what is really going on. If we took how they describe the situation and switched out the location and the people involved to be anywhere in the West, nobody would ever in their right mind claim what they are now trying to convince us about Hamas and the IOF.
To remind everyone that we think this kind of scenario—very high civilian death toll is collateral damage due to “the enemy” using civilians as human shields—is unacceptable when it’s not Hamas and Palestinians, I can simply point to an event from recent U.S. history. Yes, it’s very different, but relevantly similar enough to demonstrate my point.
Waco, Texas, April 1993, Mount Caramel Center, The Branch Davidians, David Koresh, the Waco Massacre. We all agree this was a horrific disaster on the part of the U.S. government. No one thinks what the government did was justified. No one would say “the bad guys” were using the rest of those people as “human shields” and the U.S. government had no choice—what else could they do? It’s collateral damage—but to fire upon them and kill over 80 people, burning many of them alive, including children! As far as any sane person is concerned, the U.S. government fully fucked up and unjustifiably and unnecessarily mass murdered those people, plain and simple.
The accusations that Hamas use civilian Palestinians as human shields is one of the many techniques of dehumanization Israel and the West and Zionists use against Palestinians. First of all, they claim that because Hamas use their civilians as human shields, this shows that Hamas don’t value or care about the wellbeing and lives of their civilians, and therefore we don’t need to care about those civilians either, so it’s okay to kill them. In what world would anyone think that logic is sound?! “Their government / ruling class doesn’t care if they die or are killed, so it’s okay for anyone to go ahead and kill them.” With that logic, it’s perfectly justifiable to kill most Americans!
Second, it’s a dehumanization of Palestinians because it is a flat out blanket denial of the humanity of anyone who is a member of Hamas, or even just of Al-Qassam, because it is a denial that any one of them could have any sort of emotional and/or personal connections to any of their civilian population. Why only claim this specifically about Hamas and Al-Qassam and Palestinians? Why not also claim it about the IOF and Israelis? Racism, it’s just plain racism, the refusal to see Palestinians as fully human, the refusal to see Palestinian military soldiers and resistance fighters as fully human and to instead paint them as basically monsters. But when the soldiers are white, … I don’t even need to finish that sentence.
The “human shields” claim is also a distraction and denial of basic facts. The distraction is twofold: drawing your attention away from the facts they don’t want you to see and eliciting an emotional reaction to keep your attention drawn away from those facts.
Israel and the West and the Zionists want you to believe that Hamas are knowingly and intentionally putting their civilians in harm’s way because they (Hamas) believe that the IOF is less likely to kill Palestinian civilians just to get to Hamas and Al-Qassam members specifically. But it would be utterly irrational and idiotic for Hamas and Al-Qassam to think the IOF are unlikely to kill their civilians, because history clearly shows that the Israelis and the IOF have never hesitated to kill any civilian Palestinians, and thus have killed so many over the years! In order for Al-Qassam to want to use human shields, they’d have to believe it would be effective; but decades of evidence shows without a doubt that it cannot ever be effective because Israel and the IOF have no problem killing civilian Palestinians. It is literally as dumb as trying to claim that they wear their headbands with their insignia because they believe it is a shield against Israeli gunfire and bombs.
But the argument twists another direction: Hamas are using their civilian population as “human shields” precisely because they know the IOF will murder them, and murder lots of them; and the higher the number of civilian Palestinians killed, the better the PR for Hamas because it makes the IOF and Israel look so bad because they’re killing so many civilians. Again, this is a dehumanization of Hamas as just being brutal savages, less evolved and inherently lower than us, incapable of full human emotions and connections since they’re willing to just use their own people. The argument is intended to elicit an emotional response against Hamas so that you turn the blame on them for so many civilians being killed. What I find curious about this twist is that it is an admission of just how bad the IOF and Israel are because they cannot stop themselves from killing so many, as if they have no control over themselves, like a beast let out of its cage. I find it so odd that defenders of Israel somehow don’t seem to notice that this argument is really an admission that the IOF and Israel are basically inherently bad, because they are like a loose cannon and cannot help but kill so many people.
The “human shields” claim is a distraction because it also gets people talking and arguing about the legitimacy of the idea. It’s intended to be a deflection tool because Israel and the IOF can simply insist that all of us just don’t know and don’t understand because we don’t live there, we haven’t witnessed it. So we waste time and thought on that, instead of paying attention to the exact actions the IOF are actually doing. We waste time “looking for Hamas” that the civilians were supposedly “shielding”—or rather, proving there were no Hamas being shielded—instead of paying attention to the criminality and brutality of the IOF’s actions of bombing civilians located in non-military targets with no military advantage and raiding protected civilian buildings, such as hospitals, schools, and religious buildings, where they know that so many displaced civilians are sheltering, and then beating, terrorizing, killing, and kidnapping those civilians.
The IOF and the US government lie over and over again that those actions were necessary because Hamas are so evil for embedding themselves amongst those civilians. Not only have they failed to provide a shred of evidence for a single instance in which Hamas were really embedded amongst the civilians—we are just supposed to take their word for it, despite their long histories of so very many lies—but even if it were true those actions still would never be able to be justified under international law! Under no set of circumstances is there a calculation whatsoever that could justify attacking a hospital full of patients, doctors and nurses, and displaced families. Period. If any other military on Earth, including our own, carried out such an attack, we would be outraged and disgusted and ashamed. (In fact, our military have done things that don’t reach nearly the degree to what the IOF does, but are still war crimes and are horrifying enough. And I have no doubt that the majority of people who learn about the details of those acts are shocked and disgusted. For example, look at what we did to Iraq; today most people think our war on Iraq was unjustified, based on lies, and a horrifying disaster with plenty of war crimes. After all, why do you think so many US soldiers get PTSD? Why do you think the suicide rate amongst our soldiers and veterans is so high?)
When defenders of Israel then resort to “whataboutism” by pointing to things that were done during any other war or armed conflict in the past century or so, they are telling on themselves, because they reveal that they are indeed supporting, defending, and justifying war crimes. They are pointing to the very war crimes that demonstrated to the world the very need for International Humanitarian Law in order to make those very acts globally illegal precisely because most of humanity decided we didn’t want to live in a world in which such acts are acceptable and allowed to occur because those acts are simply too immoral, too inhumane, too “evil”. And yet, those are the past acts that defenders of Israel actually point to in order to justify what Israel and the IOF are doing. I honestly cannot wrap my mind around how they could possibly think those past acts, those war crimes, can possibly be a defense of what Israel and the IOF are currently doing to the Palestinians.
What the “human shields” argument is really an argument for is just pure racism.
The “human shields” claim has some structural similarity with the kind of twisted, manipulative reasoning that the abuser in an abusive relationship uses against the abused. It is one type of blaming the victim: “You made me hurt you. You did something you know I don’t like, you knew it would make me angry. It’s your fault for upsetting me, I had no choice.” There are two different senses of the blaming here, and both abusers and Israel often seem to try to use both at the same time. On the one hand, the fault is pinned on the victim for doing something that caused the abuser to lose control. In other words, it’s not his responsibility to regulate his emotional states so as to have control over his actions; it’s the victim’s responsibility to regulate their own actions to satisfy or not upset the abuser. On the other hand, the fault is pinned on the victim for being disobedient, and so the abuser is required to punish the victim. That actually contradicts the prior, because executing punishment is explicitly intentional, and thus by definition is an act of choice, not a loss of control. Either way, the point is to absolve the abuser of any wrongdoing and to endow himself with permission to do whatever he likes without being held accountable.
It is also worth pointing out that Israel and the IOF are trying to claim something that turns out to be incoherent. They claim the civilian death toll is so high because Hamas use their civilians as “human shields”, and they do this by embedding themselves amongst the civilian population and infrastructure. However, they also claim that Hamas are in the tunnels underneath Gaza, making it extremely difficult and challenging to find them and get to them. They even call Hamas “cowards” because they “hide” in the tunnels. They further criticize Hamas for using the tunnels only for themselves instead of allowing civilians to shelter in the tunnels where they would be safe from bombs and gunfire, so that the civilian death toll would be far smaller.
Well, which is it? Are Hamas embedded amongst the civilian population or are they in the tunnels? If the IOF claims to know that Hamas are in the tunnels, then they are saying they know where Hamas are, which means the IOF shouldn’t have to end up killing civilians as collateral damage! And since they admit they know the tunnels provide safety from the bombs and firepower—since they criticize Hamas for not allowing their civilians to shelter for safety in the tunnels so they wouldn’t be killed—they should have no reason to bomb or shoot munitions from the air or shoot tank shells, since they would know none of that could strike Hamas who are safe in the tunnels. Right?
And yet, they do bomb and strike from the air and shoot tank shells and kill lots and lots of civilians… But those civilian deaths are not intentional, they’re unavoidable collateral damage. Because they’re aiming for Hamas, but unfortunately Hamas embed themselves within and amongst the civilian population…
But wait, I thought they were hiding in the tunnels…????! If you know they’re in the tunnels, then you shouldn’t end up with so much “collateral damage”, as those civilian deaths would be avoidable!
Behold, the incoherence.
I could go on, but it doesn’t really matter. Because Israel and the IOF follow a policy doctrine that literally instructs targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure and buildings as collective punishment and deterrence. It is called the Dahiya Doctrine, and it is literally a policy of inflicting extreme and intentionally disproportionate military force against a civilian population as punishment for military actions taken against Israel by that population’s military. You don’t have to just take my word for it; it’s not just speculation; you can look it up and read about it. Aside from being sadistic and oppressive, the intended purpose by the IOF and Israel is to make the civilian population suffer for what their militia have done so that the civilians become angry and blame their militia for their suffering and then turn against them. I’m pretty sure this tactic has been used throughout history by other oppressive regimes, and it never works. It notoriously has the opposite effect—the “rally around the flag” effect—and any psychologist or sociologist will tell you that. This is why Hamas has gained so much popularity amongst Palestinians in the past eleven months, despite that, prior to Oct 7, they were not favored by more than 30-40%. (It was likely lower than that, as opinion of them had gone down.)
In their application of the Dahiya Doctrine, the IOF don’t just target civilians and civilian infrastructure. They choose targets that will cause the greatest amount of destruction and casualties. This is why they target hospitals, for example, because the casualties are both immediate and in the future, since diminishing and removing access to medical care for the wounded and the sick will lead to more deaths and greater disabilities and disfigurement. It is also why they target and destroy water lines and water sources and desalination plants, because we all know what lack of access to clean water leads to. It is also why they target and destroy sewage systems, creating an ever increasing severe health risk from the spreading of open sewage. It is also why they target and destroy markets and agriculture, to diminish and destroy food sources and food stores.
Most importantly, it is why they target supposed members of Hamas when they are at home with their families, instead of seeking them out “in the battlefield” or in the tunnels. They quite literally wait until resistance fighters are “off duty” so to speak, when they are at home or are going about daily civilian life and thus amongst civilians. So it is not that Hamas “embed” themselves amongst the civilian population; quite the opposite: the IOF almost exclusively targets them when they happen to be “off duty” and surrounded by civilians. Not only are the IOF not doing everything they can to avoid civilian casualties; they are in fact trying to cause civilian casualties.
Let me stop there, since this has gotten long enough and there’s plenty more to say.
As a bonus:
Let’s flip things around. Where is the headquarters of the Israeli military? It is in the heart of Tel Aviv, embedded within the civilian population and infrastructure, surrounded by civilian metropolis. But if it is the HQ of the military, then it is, by definition, a legitimate military target. Why have the Israelis embedded their military HQ into the civilian population? They must be using their civilians as human shields! If you disagree with that logic, but you claim that Hamas use their civilians as human shields, then you are a blatant hypocrite blatantly displaying your double standards.
If Hizbollah targets and shoots rockets into that military HQ, Western governments and media would cry in horror and call Hizbollah evil for shooting rockets into a densely populated civilian metropolis. And in the same breath they call Hamas evil for “forcing” Israel to kill thousands of Palestinian civilians in Gaza because Hamas uses them as human shields by embedding themselves amongst the civilians.
The brazen and shameless hypocrisy and double standards couldn’t possibly get more obvious and thick.
And look, even some Israelis themselves have noticed there might be something wrong with having a military headquarters in the heart of their biggest civilian metropolis, and this was all the way back in 2012:
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