‘Human shielding in action’: Israeli forces strap Palestinian man to jeep
Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank have tied a wounded Palestinian man to the hood of a military vehicle during a raid on the city of Jenin, appearing to use him as a human shield.
A video posted online on Saturday, and verified by Al Jazeera, showed Mujahed Azmi, a Palestinian resident of Jenin, strapped to a military jeep that passes by two ambulances.
The family of Azmi told the Reuters news agency that Israeli forces carried out an arrest raid in Jenin, during which he was wounded.
When the family asked for an ambulance, the military took Azmi, strapped him onto the hood of their jeep and drove off.
Abdulraouf Mustafa, a Palestinian ambulance driver, said the Israeli soldiers refused to hand over Azmi to them.
“The jeep passed by and the wounded man was on the hood,” Mustafa told Al Jazeera. “One arm was tied to the windshield and the arm was on his abdomen. They drove past us. They refused to give us the patient.”
The Israeli military in a statement said Israeli forces were fired at and exchanged fire, wounding a suspect and apprehending him.
Soldiers then violated military protocol, the statement said. “The suspect was taken by the forces while tied on top of a vehicle,” it said.
The military said the “conduct of the forces in the video of the incident does not conform to the values” of the Israeli military and that the incident will be investigated and dealt with.
Israeli soldiers later released Azmi, allowing paramedics to transport him to hospital where he was taken to the operating room, according to the health workers.
The incident came as violence in the occupied West Bank, which was already on the rise before Israel’s war on Gaza, continues to escalate. These include frequent Israeli military raids in West Bank cities and villages, rampages by Jewish settlers in Palestinian villages, as well as attacks by Palestinians.
The apparent human shield incident spurred widespread outrage.
Francesca Albanese, the United Nations’ special rapporteur to the occupied Palestinian territory, called it “human shielding in action”.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the United States’ largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organisation, also condemned the incident, along with Israel’s killing of some 43 people in attacks on the Shati refugee camp and the Tuffah neighbourhood in northern Gaza.
“These Israeli-US massacres and war crimes must be stopped. American taxpayer dollars should not be used to kill, maim and starve innocent civilians,” said Ibrahim Hooper, CAIR’s national communications director. “The Biden administration must end its complicity in this genocide and begin to recognise the humanity of the Palestinian people.”
David Des Roches, a professor at the National Defense University in the US, meanwhile said if the Israeli military fails to discipline the soldiers involved in the incident, then others could see their actions as a licence to do the same thing.
