According to the Jerusalem Post, “Two Givati Brigade infantrymen on Sunday were convicted of overstepping authority to the point of endangering human life and inappropriate behavior during Operation Cast Lead in 2009 … The conviction is the first of its kind for what is termed in the IDF ‘neighbor procedure’ which deals with the use of human shields during searches and pursuits, which has been outlawed”. This report is posted here.
YNet reported that the military court “found that the two Givati soldiers on trial had ordered the boy to open a few bags, thought to contain explosives. The boy opened a number of bags and spread out their contents, and when he feared opening the last one they removed him from the vicinity and fired at it. He was then returned to his mother. Afaf [Rabah, mother of Majd, who was 11 years old during Operation Cast Lead in early ] added that she and her neighbors had been in the building’s bomb shelter when an IDF force raided it. ‘Majd was standing next to me and they pointed in our direction. I was sure they wanted to talk to me. I asked him, “What do you want?” but then he pointed at the boy again’, she recounted. ‘I was afraid, and then the soldiers pulled him away and took him out of the room we were in. Then I didn’t see him until after the shot was fired. That was a horrifying moment. There are no words to express what I felt’, she said …
The YNet story continued: “Abed al-Hadi, a 50-year old resident of the building in Tel al-Hawa, is the owner of the bag Majd refused to open. ‘No trial can compensate for those moments. Besides, they shot my bag, which contained a passport, money, and a little gold we were afraid to leave in the apartment. The money disappeared and so did the gold’ … Al-Hadi recounted the minutes leading up to the incident. ‘The soldiers started firing phosphorous bombs at our building. My house was burned and we went quickly down to the shelter. They separated us from the women and children and some of us were tied up. One of the soldiers asked whose bag it was. I said, “Mine. Do you want me to open it?” But he ordered me to stay where I was and hit me with the rifle butt. The soldiers took the boy and asked him to open it, but he couldn’t because I had locked it with a coded lock. When Majd couldn’t open it they hit him and shot the bag’, he said”. This account can be read in full here.
In March, when these two soldiers were indicted, the JPost reported, here, that this “ ‘human shield procedure’ was used by the IDF to search homes during the second intifada was forbidden for use by the High Court of Justice in 2005. ‘The IDF is morally committed to preventing harm to civilians who are not involved in combat, and as a result takes numerous measures to maintain the values of conduct in warfare’, the IDF statement read”.
This was the second conviction for misconduct during the Gaza war — the earlier one involved the use of a bank card stolen by an Israeli soldier in Gaza. That soldier, also from the Givati brigade, was sentenced to seven months in jail. The IDF has investigated some 150 cases, and referred 36 for criminal investigation.