Israeli soldier tells CBS News he was ordered to use Palestinians as human shields in Gaza
Tel Aviv — The war is back in Gaza. Since abandoning a ceasefire on March 17, the Israel Defense Forces have pounded the Palestinian territory with waves of deadly strikes it says are targeting Hamas terrorists. Those strikes have brought the overall death toll in Gaza to well over 50,000 since the beginning of the war, according to the enclave's Hamas-run Health Ministry.
CBS News spoke recently with an Israeli soldier who has questioned the military's tactics. Tommy — not his real name, as he agreed to speak with CBS News on the condition of anonymity — fought in Gaza for the IDF, and his account of the tactics used raises some serious questions.
"We've burned down buildings for no reasons, which is violating the international law, of course," he told CBS News. "…And we used human shields as protection."
Tommy said his commander ordered his unit to use Gazan civilians to search buildings for explosives instead of dogs.
"They were Palestinian," he said. "We sent them in first to see if the building was clear and check for booby traps…They were trembling and shaking."
"We talked to our commander, and we asked him to stop doing it," Tommy said, but they were ordered to continue. He told CBS News it was policy.
The practice even has a name — the "mosquito protocol" — according to Breaking the Silence, an organization of Israeli veterans who say they're working to expose military abuses. The group told CBS News that several IDF whistleblowers had confirmed the protocol was widespread in Gaza.
Breaking the Silence has acted as a watchdog body over the Israeli military for more than 20 years. It said it had corroborated Tommy's account with other soldiers.
In an email, the Israeli military told CBS News it prohibits the use of human shields but that it cannot investigate Tommy's claim without more detailed information.
Israel has long accused Hamas of using civilians as human shields, and there is evidence of fighters embedding themselves and weapons in civilian areas, tunnelling underneath hospitals and firing rockets from such positions.
The IDF would not confirm if it was investigating any other reported instances of its forces using the "mosquito protocol," but we discovered that Israeli forces are using the same Gaza playbook in the occupied West Bank, where a massive offensive has seen forces blow up homes and displace more than 40,000 people for over two months.
In the West Bank, CBS News met 14-year-old Omri Salem, a studious kid who dreams of being an engineer. His family has been in the area for generations. He told CBS News that, along with his nine-year old cousin, he was ordered by the IDF to search a four-story apartment building. He didn't want to do it.
"I was so scared," he said. "Then they started beating us."
Omri remains deeply emotionally scarred by the soldiers, whom he says forced him at gun point to be their human shield.
In Gaza, Tommy was the one holding the gun, but he said he was also traumatized.
"I'm morally wounded," said the soldier. "It's f****d up, you know, to use citizens as your human shield like a dog."
