Israel-Palestine Mega Fact Check!

Human Rights Watch investigated the attacks in Jenin in 2002 but “found no evidence that Palestinian gunmen forced Palestinian civilians to serve as human shields during the attack.” They did however find that Palestinian militants endangered civilians by launching attacks within the Jenin refugee camp and intermingling with the civilians during the conflict. They also found extensive evidence of the IDF using Palestinians as human shields.

The UN commission of inquiry of the 2008-2009 conflict “exonerated the Palestinian armed factions of Israeli claims that they used their own citizens as shields. Instead, it found that the Israeli army had committed the practice itself, using Palestinians.” See the full UN report.

Euro-Mid Monitor interviewed 400 Palestinians about the July-August 2014 conflict. “None of the 400 individuals interviewed for our extensive investigation of the conflict reported being forced, or of observing someone else being forced, to act as a human shield by Hamas or other Palestinian armed factions.” They did however identify 6 cases of the IDF forcing Palestinians at gunpoint to act as human shields.

Middle East reporter Chris Hedges note in 2014 that “I, along with every other reporter I know who has worked in Gaza, have never seen any evidence that Hamas uses civilians as “human shields.” "

There appear to be some isolated cases, however, of Hamas militants using others as human shields. For instance, on October 7^th 2023 one Hamas militant in Kibbutz Be’eri surrendered, using Israeli Yasmin Porat as a human shield as he exited the house that the IDF had surrounded. Both survived the incident.