Daily Alert Archives

Human Shields - An Ever-Present Dilemma

(Jerusalem Post) Amnon Rubinstein - The U.S., NATO and Israel are facing a major problem in their asymmetrical wars against non-armies and non-states. In Gaza, Afghanistan, Yemen and Waziristan, the use of human shields has become a major issue in international humanitarian law. The law is clear: the use of human shields in any armed conflict is a war crime. Civilians, including women and children, were killed in Gaza by Israeli aerial bombardment, but generally this was either the result of navigational errors or because civilians were caught in crossfire because of their presence at a purely military site. A party attacked by human-shielded weapons is damned if it disregards the human shield and damned for its weakness by its suffering civilians if it doesn't. A state fighting an asymmetrical war against non-armies has a duty not to react disproportionately to attacks against its civilians, but also has the right under international law to defend these civilians (or soldiers) against enemy action. The writer is a professor of law at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya and a former minister of education.
2012-11-30 00:00:00
Full Article