Human shield
Human shield is a military term describing the use of civilians to deter an enemy from attacking certain targets - in particular military targets. International law considers the use of human shields to protect military targets a war crime. However, in more recent times it has increasingly being used by civilian volunteers as an anti-war strategy to protect civilians and civilian targets.
It may also be used to describe the use of civilians to literally shield soldiers during attacks, by forcing the civilians to march in front of the soldiers during human wave attacks. Of course the civilian casualty rate is extremely high and use of this technique is highly illegal. There were some instances of this in the Soviet Union during WWII. Israeli forces are also reported to have used this tactic, notably during the invasion of Jenin in 2002.
The tactic was used by the Bosnian Serbs in 1994 and by Iraq in 1990. Some anti-war activists have voluntarily gone to target areas for this purpose, as in 2003 to Iraq, in advance of the 2003 Invasion of Iraq.
In the Palestinian territories, members of the International Solidarity Movement engage in various human shield activities, such as trying to physically block the destruction of Palestinian homes by Israeli bulldozers, or accompanying Palestinian children on their way to school. In these cases the protected targets are generally considered to be civilian. Westerners, Rachel Corrie and Thomas Hurndall, were killed in March 2003 and April 2003 in such activities. However some ISM members object to the term 'human shield' being used to describe their work, arguing that it is inappropriate to use the same term to describe both their voluntary protection of civilians and the IDF's use of captured Palestinians to protect their military targets.
"Human shield" can also be used collectively where the shield is not the individual but the whole population. In this case, usually an illegal militant group (seldom it is also terrorist organizations) set its base of operation and HQs among civilian population, mostly at dense urban environment. They act so in order to prevent the other military to attack them, considering it will fear to kill accidentally innocent bypassing civilians in the combat. Another reason for this practice is the world media and that a photo or a video of dead civilian(s) is an excellent propaganda weapon.
Illegal armed groups using this tactic of "human shield" include Hamas, The Chechnian Resistance, the National Somalian Front and even the remains of Saddam Hussain's Baat party. They are all defined by the US State Department as terrorist organizations.
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Referenced By
2003 Invasion of Iraq | 2003 Iraq War | 2003 Iraq crisis | 2003 US invasion of Iraq | 2003 War in Iraq | 2003 war on Iraq | Gulf War II | Gulf War III | Gulf War Two | Invasion of Iraq | Operation Iraqi Freedom | Second Gulf War | Third Gulf War | Trading with the Enemy Act | U.S. invasion of Iraq | U.S. war on Iraq | US-led invasion of Iraq | US attack on Iraq | US invasion of Iraq | United States invasion of Iraq | War on Iraq
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