Use of human shields by Hamas

Many parties, including NATO, the United Nations, the European Union, the United States, and Israel, have accused Hamas of using human shields in the Gaza Strip, saying that Hamas has purposely attempted to shield itself from Israeli attacks by storing weapons in civilian infrastructure, launching rockets from residential areas, and telling residents to ignore Israeli warnings to flee.

Israel has accused Hamas of maintaining command and control bunkers and tunnel infrastructure below hospitals. Hamas has denied using civilians (including hospitals ) as human shields. Scholars caution that accusing Hamas of using human shields requires proving intent. Israel has said that Hamas's actions have caused Israel to kill civilians as collateral damage. Human rights groups have said that “even if Hamas were using human shields”, Israel must still abide by international law, especially the principle of proportionality.

Amnesty International investigated Israeli claims that Hamas used human shields during the 2008–2009 Gaza War and the 2014 Gaza War but found no evidence to support these claims. In their report on the 2008–2009 war, Amnesty stated they found no evidence of Hamas directing civilians to shield military assets or forcing them to stay near buildings used by fighters. They did find that Hamas launched rockets from civilian areas, which endangered civilians and violated the requirement to protect civilians from military action, but this does not qualify as shielding under international law. In 2014, Amnesty reported they had no evidence that Hamas or other Palestinian armed groups intentionally used civilians as shields to protect specific locations or military assets from Israeli attacks. They suggested that Hamas's urging of residents to ignore Israeli evacuation warnings might have been intended to minimize panic and displacement, rather than to use civilians as human shields. Human Rights Watch (HRW) also stated they found no evidence that Hamas used human shields during the 2009 conflict.

During the Israel–Hamas war of 2023–2024, EU nations accused Hamas of using hospitals as human shields, while the UN Secretary General said "Hamas and other militants use civilians as human shields". In 2023, HRW said that "Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups need to take all feasible precautions to protect civilians under their control from the effects of attacks and not use civilians as 'human shields.'" In 2024, Human Rights Watch reported at least two incidents where Palestinian fighters used Israeli hostages as human shields during the October 7 attacks.

2008–2009 Gaza War
In a 2008 press conference, Hamas political leader Khaled Mashal warned that "If you [Israel] will foolishly decide to enter Gaza... You will face not only thousands of our combatants, but also a million and a half of our population, driven by the desire to become martyrs."

In a post-war analysis of the conflict, Amnesty International stated that: "Contrary to repeated allegations by Israeli officials of the use of "human shields", Amnesty International found no evidence that Hamas or other Palestinian fighters directed the movement of civilians to shield military objectives... [nor] that Hamas or other armed groups forced residents to stay in or around buildings used by fighters, nor that fighters prevented residents from leaving buildings or areas which had been commandeered by militants." Amnesty also found that Hamas "launched rockets and located military equipment and positions near civilian homes" – though not necessarily when civilians were present – "endangering the lives of the inhabitants by exposing them to the risk of Israeli attacks".

2014 Gaza War
Numerous reports during the 2014 Gaza War stated that Hamas used human shields. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay accused Hamas militants of violating international humanitarian law by "locating rockets within schools and hospitals, or even launching these rockets from densely populated areas". A UN inquiry found “weapons had been placed inside an UNRWA school in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip and that it was highly likely that an unidentified Palestinian armed group could have used the school premises to launch attacks.” The European Union condemned Hamas, and in particular condemned "calls on the civilian population of Gaza to provide themselves as human shields". In an August 2014 interview, Hamas political leader Khaled Mashal said to a CNN interviewer that the group did not use its people as human shields. In a September 2014 interview, a Hamas official acknowledged to Associated Press that the group fired at Israel from civilian areas. He ascribed the practice to "mistakes", but said the group had little option due to the crowded landscape of the Strip, with its dearth of open zones. He denied accusations that rockets were launched "from schools or hospitals when in fact they were fired 200 or 300 meters (yards) away".

In interviews with Gazan refugees, reporters for The Independent and The Guardian concluded it was a "myth" that Hamas forced civilians to stay in areas under attack against their will; many refugees told them they refused to heed the IDF's warnings because even areas Israel had declared safe for refugees had been shelled by its forces. The BBC Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen also said he "saw no evidence of Hamas using Palestinians as human shields". An Amnesty International document (dated 25 July 2014) asserts that they do "not have evidence at this point that Palestinian civilians have been intentionally used by Hamas or Palestinian armed groups during the current hostilities to 'shield' specific locations or military personnel or equipment from Israeli attacks". Amnesty International's assessment was that international humanitarian law was clear in that "even if officials or fighters from Hamas or Palestinian armed groups associated with other factions did in fact direct civilians to remain in a specific location in order to shield military objectives from attacks, all of Israel's obligations to protect these civilians would still apply". The human rights group, however, still found that Palestinian factions, as in previous conflicts, launched attacks from civilian areas.

Hamas Arabic-speaking spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri called up Gaza civilians on Hamas's Al-Aqsa TV 8 July 2014 to stay put in areas under fire by Israel, prompting accusations from Israel and others – the European Union, for example – that Hamas was calling on people to volunteer as "in effect human shields". For Amnesty International, however, Hamas' call may have been "motivated by a desire to avoid further panic" among civilians, considering both the lack of shelters in Gaza and the fact that some civilians who heeded the IDF's warnings had been casualties of Israeli attacks. Abu Zuhri was also quoted as saying, in a 13 July interview, that "Hamas despise those defeatist Palestinians that criticize the high number of civilian casualties. The resistance praises our people... we lead our people to death…I mean, to war."

During the war, Israel also damaged hospitals, alleging they were concealing "hidden missiles". A team of Finnish journalists from Helsingin Sanomat working at the Gaza Al-Shifa hospital reported seeing rockets fired from near the Al-Shifa hospital. However, two Norwegian doctors who have been working at the hospital for decades have denied there was militant presence nearby, saying the last armed man they saw by the building was an Israeli doctor at the time of the First Intifada. In 2014, The Guardian journalists came across "armed men" inside one hospital, and sightings of "senior Hamas leaders" have been reported inside another. The Washington Post described Al-Shifa hospital as a "de facto headquarters for Hamas leaders, who can be seen in the hallways and offices". French-Palestinian journalist Radjaa Abu Dagg reported being interrogated by an armed Hamas member inside Al-Shifa Hospital and ordered to leave Gaza.

In 2015, The Washington Post said that an Amnesty International report condemned Palestinian militias for storing munitions in, and launching rockets from civilian structures and reported that the launching of attacks and storing of rockets "very near locations where hundreds of displaced civilians were taking shelter." The report stated "the available evidence indicates that Palestinian armed groups fired rockets and mortars from residential areas during the July/August 2014 conflict, and that on at least some occasions, projectiles were launched in close proximity to civilian buildings…significant areas within the 365km2 of territory are not residential, and conducting hostilities or launching munitions from these areas presents a lower risk of endangering Palestinian civilians…Palestinian armed groups stored rockets and other munitions in civilian buildings and facilities, including UN schools, during the conflict… storing munitions in civilian buildings or launching attacks from the vicinity of civilian buildings, violate the obligation to take all feasible precautions to protect civilians from the effects of attacks. But they do not necessarily amount to the specific violation of using "human shields" under international humanitarian law, which entails "using the presence (or movements) of civilians or other protected persons to render certain points or areas (or military forces) immune from military operations." According to Philip Luther, Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Amnesty International, "evidence suggesting that a rocket launched by a Palestinian armed group may have caused 13 civilian deaths inside Gaza underscores how indiscriminate these weapons can be and the dreadful consequences of using them". He also stated that "the devastating impact of Israeli attacks on Palestinian civilians during the conflict is undeniable, but violations by one side in a conflict can never justify violations by their opponents."

In 2019, a paper by the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence said that Hamas "has been using human shields in conflicts with Israel since 2007".

Israeli accusations


During the 2023 Israel–Hamas war, Israel stated that Hamas has strategically placed portions of its military tunnel system and command network beneath civilian infrastructure, including Gaza's al-Shifa Hospital. Israel released what it said were videos of interrogations of two members of Hamas' armed wing in which the people on camera supported the assertion that Hamas militants are using hospitals as a means of protection from IDF strikes.

The Israeli army accused Hamas of sending over one hundred women and children to a compound it was targeting to act as human shields. It said two of its soldiers were killed while withdrawing from the compound.

On 8 November, the IDF and Shin Bet footage from what it said was an intercepted phone call and the interrogations of terrorists who participated in the October 7 massacre. The Times of Israel reported that "an apparent Hamas operative" said to another man in Gaza that he "can leave with any ambulance" he wants.

Israel accused Hamas of "double war crimes" in using civilian locations to launch attacks. An IDF spokesman told CBS News that "a systemic abuse by Hamas of sites and locations that are supposed to enjoy special protection under the Geneva Convention and humanitarian law". The IDF shared with CBS photos it said showed Hamas members launching rockets from near UN facilities.

On 18 November CNN aired footage taken by the IDF showing what appears to be a person armed with an RPG launcher entering the premises of Al-Quds Hospital.

On 19 November the IDF released footage of an underground tunnel under al-Shifa. The tunnel, which is 160 meter long and 10 meter deep, passes directly under the Qatari building of the hospital; it has air-conditioned rooms, bathrooms, a kitchenette, electricity connections and communication infrastructure, and is protected by a blast door. The IDF also released CCTV footage that appears to show two of the hostages being led in the hospital's corridors, as well as Hamas and stolen IDF vehicles in its courtyard.

According to Israel, Ahmad Kahlot, who they reported to be the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, while being interrogated by the Shin Bet said that Hamas had taken control of the hospital as a military operations center and that he himself was Hamas member. Israel said that during the interrogation he said that many hospital staff members served in the al-Qassam brigades. According to the Israeli military, he said that Hamas used the hospital for holding an IDF soldier hostage and employed ambulances to transport the bodies of Israeli hostage and that Hamas had separate offices, ambulances, and equipment with distinct colors and signs.

On 1 January 2024, the Jerusalem Post released selected footage of the IDF's Unit 504 interrogations of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants. The investigation revealed various tactics Hamas employed to exploit Gazan civilians. Zohadi Ali Zahadi Shahin, a Hamas member, admitted that Hamas prevented civilians from fleeing towards Rafah crossing and instead relocated them to Al-Shifa Hospital where they were kept while Hamas terrorists hid in tunnels underneath. Shahin also disclosed that Hamas terrorists would forcibly take over civilian homes, plant explosives, and intimidate residents, with one terrorist threatening Shahin directly. Another operative, Muhammad Darwish Amara from Palestinian Islamic Jihad, described how Hamas planted a bomb in his home where his children were staying, to coerce him into participating in terrorist activities.

Input from other parties
White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said that the United States has intelligence indicating that Hamas is using the Shifa Hospital in Gaza City for military purposes, possibly for weapon storage and also for holding captives. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan stated that "you can see even from open-source reporting that Hamas does use hospitals, along with a lot of other civilian facilities, for command-and-control, for storing weapons, for housing its fighters... this is Hamas' track record, both historically and in this conflict". According to another US official, "Hamas has a command node under the Al-Shifa hospital, uses fuel intended for it and its fighters regularly cluster in and around [it]." The US assessment that Hamas and other Palestinian militants were operating within the Al-Shifa hospital included communication intercepts of fighters inside the complex.

A top Hamas official has stated that it is not their responsibility to protect civilians. Human Rights Watch called Hamas to protect civilians under their control and not use them as "human shields."

Human rights organizations demanded the release of hostages held by Hamas and cautioned that using them to shield military assets is prohibited under international law.

Media coverage
According to a New York Times report, "Hamas has long been accused of using civilians as human shields and positioning underground bunkers, weapon depots and rocket launchers under or near schools, mosques and hospitals."

DW military analyst Frank Ledwidge has said that "it's been described... as 'common knowledge' that many of the headquarters [of Hamas] are located under hospitals... [with] entries and exits in places like mosques or schools... [or even] UN facilities... that's why we've seen... so many non-combatant casualties so far".

John Spencer has said that "[Hamas has] built many of their tunnel entrances and exits and passageway underneath protected sites like hospitals, schools, mosques, because it restricts the use of force that the IDF can take without going through the... laws of war calculation.

According to Daphne Richemond-Barak, associate professor of counter-terrorism at Reichman University and author of the 2017 book Underground Warfare, Hamas militants operate under Al-Shifa Hospital gain "the highest level of protection available under the laws of war", as well as a "unique opportunity to operate far from surveillance drones, GPS, and other intelligence-gathering technology". She added that "in Gaza, tunnels are dug in civilian homes, pass under entire neighbourhoods, and lead into populated areas inside Israel... [which] enables Hamas to conceal entry and exit points, and facilitates undetected movement and activity."

Avi Issacharoff has said that Hamas militants are "under the houses and neighborhoods of Gaza City, hoping that Israel won't attack them because they're hiding underneath human shields, and that if Israel will attack those neighborhoods, it'll kill many civilians, and the whole world is going to accuse Israel for war crimes". "The sad thing about all this", Issacharoff said, "is [that] Hamas doesn't care about their own people" and aims "not only to kill Israelis but for as many Palestinian civilians [casualties as well]".

Following Israel's release of video evidence on 22 November, multiple news agencies concluded that the evidence did not demonstrate the use by Hamas of a command center. The New York Times also said the evidence does not show conclusive evidence of a vast network of tunnels,    while Haaretz concluded that Hamas did use the hospital for military purposes. Amnesty International said on 23 November 2023 that "Amnesty International has so far not seen any credible evidence to support Israel’s claim that al-Shifa is housing a military command centre" and that "the Israeli military has so far failed to provide credible evidence" for the allegation.

International reactions
US President Joe Biden stated that Hamas was using innocent Palestinians as human shields and emphasized the need to protect them." US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, called on Hamas to stop using civilians as human shields. Secretary-General of the UN Antonio Guterres has also stated that Hamas and other Palestinian factions have been using civilians as human shields.

During a UN Security Council meeting on the Middle East held on 24 October 2023, UK Minister of State for Security, Tom Tugendhat, asserted, "We know that Hamas are using innocent Palestinian civilians as human shields; they have embedded themselves in civilian communities." Germany's Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock, said: "We must not be fooled by Hamas' playbook," and emphasizing "their use of women and children in Gaza as human shields, and their hiding of weapons under supermarkets, apartment blocks, and even hospitals." Philippe Kridelka, Jean Asselborn, and Sergiy Kyslytsya, representing Belgium, Luxembourg, and Ukraine, respectively, also expressed condemnation for Hamas's use of civilians as human shields.

On 13 November 2023, 27 European Union nations jointly condemned Hamas for the use of hospitals and civilians as human shields.

Response by Hamas
In 2009, Hamas said "Hamas did not use human shields and did not fire rockets from residential areas". In 2014, Hamas denied that it had used human shields, and they pointed to prior United Nations investigations of claims that it had fired rockets from schools finding the allegations to be untrue. Hamas leaders said that the extremely high population density in Gaza resulted in Hamas operating near civilian areas. In a 2014 televised interview, senior Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri stated: "The policy of people confronting the Israeli warplanes with their bare chests in order to protect their homes has proven effective against the occupation… we in Hamas call upon our people to adopt this policy in order to protect the Palestinian homes."

In 2023, Hamas said it did not use Al-Shifa Hospital as a human shield, saying the allegations have "no basis in truth".

Strategy
According to a paper published by NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence, the tactical deployment of human shields by entities such as Hamas strategically capitalizes on Israel's commitment to reducing unintended civilian harm and the heightened sensitivity of Western audiences to non-combatant casualties. This approach enables Hamas to potentially charge Israel with war crimes when civilian casualties increase due to intensified actions by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), potentially leading to international sanctions. On the other hand, should the IDF restrain its military engagements to minimize civilian casualties, Hamas gains an advantage, being less exposed to Israeli military strikes and able to safeguard its resources and continue its activities. Moreover, the issue of civilian casualties often creates internal debates within Israeli society, especially between the left-wing, who may critique the operation's consequences, and right-wing factions.

Seen as a form of 'lawfare', according to NATO, this strategy is about leveraging legal frameworks and public sentiment against an adversary, aiming to undermine their legitimacy, engage their resources in legal battles, or secure a victory in the court of public opinion.

According to Charles Freilich, a former Israeli deputy national security advisor, Hamas have strategically embedded their forces among civilian populations, utilizing them as human shields and intentionally provoking Israel to cause civilian casualties in its responses. Simultaneously, Israel has consistently taken extensive measures to minimize innocent enemy casualties, employing special tactics and risking personnel – a record favorable in comparison to other countries dealing with terrorist threats.

As an act of perfidy
All combatants, including insurgents, are bound by the law of war.

Louis René Beres believes Hamas is using human shields and this constitutes an act of perfidy, a breach of Article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Hague Regulations and Protocol I of 1977, Article 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice. By contrast, Stephanie Bouchie de Belle, writing in the International Review of the Red Cross, argues that though the use of human shields is prohibited, it is not an act of perfidy. An act of perfidy, she argues, must necessarily be done with the intent to kill, wound or capture an enemy, but a human shield that defends combatants from enemy attack does not fit the definition of perfidy.

Comparison to IDF bases in civilian areas
Israeli journalist Amira Hass, writing in 2014 that the Israeli media portrays the conflict in a biased manner, wrote of the human shield accusation "If I'm not mistaken, the Defense Ministry is in the heart of Tel Aviv, as is the army's main 'war room.' And what about the military training base at Glilot, near the big mall? And the Shin Bet headquarters in Jerusalem, on the edge of a residential neighborhood? ... Why is it all right for us and not for them? Just because they don't have the phallic ability to bomb these places?"

Neve Gordon and Nicola Perugini argue that whether civilians are framed as "human shields" by virtue of their physical proximity to belligerents ("proximate shields"), depends largely on whether the belligerents in question are military or irregulars: "Israeli citizens in Tel Aviv are not classified as shields when Hamas launches rockets towards the Israel Defense Forces military command headquarters located in the city center. By sharp contrast, Palestinian civilians are cast as human shields when Israel bombs Hamas command centers and military infrastructures in Gaza. In other words, if Hamas kills Israeli civilians, it is to blame, and if Israel kills Palestinian civilians, then Hamas is also to blame, since, at least ostensibly, it is Hamas that has deployed these civilians as shields."

Amnesty International, in its analysis of the 2008 Gaza War, wrote that while it is uncontested that Hamas weapons and fighters were located in civilian areas, that in itself does not itself constitute human shielding. Amnesty contrasts the Palestinian and Israeli positions, stating that "The close proximity of the military and weapons to civilian areas is also not unusual in Israel. The headquarters of the Israeli army is in a densely populated area of central Tel Aviv. In Ashkelon, Sderot, Bersheva and other towns in the south of Israel... [and] elsewhere in the country, military bases and other installations are located in or around residential areas, including kibbutzim and villages."

Ha'aretz writer Michael Brizon argued in 2014 that Israel's charge of human shields is hypocritical given the IDF military command center is located near Ichilov Hospital.

Denial of civilian status
Danny Danon, then the Israeli ambassador to the UN, said of the 2018–2019 Gaza border protests that "terrorists continue to hide behind innocent children to ensure their own survival", with Gordon and Perugini remarking that the framing of protestors as terrorists or human shields effectively "categorizes any Palestinian from Gaza who participates in civil protests as a terrorist who is consequently killable"; they find that the usage of the human shield accusation both during war and civil protest has caused the very idea of a Palestinian civilian to have "disappeared" in Israeli discourse.

During the Israel-Hamas war, Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, stated that Israel's labeling of every Palestinian casualty as a "human shield" in the Gaza Strip was "transforming everything and everyone into either a target or collateral damage, hence killable or destroyable."