A major issue in the latest war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip is Hamas’s use of human shields in order to protect their rocket arsenal and to maximise civilian casualties to be used in the war against Israel. Hamas regularly puts rocket factories and launching installations in schools, mosques and hospitals. In the video below, a head of Hamas even boasts about using Human Shields in the war and the “culture of death” the Palestinians promote.
The world media is usually quick to promote the idea that Israel regularly ignores the laws of war and targets areas known to house major amounts of civilians. Recently on the news program The World, a BBC journalist, Paul Danahar seems to justify the use of Palestinian population centers as launching points for rockets on the November 15 edition.
On The World, Danahar asserted that it was virtually impossible for Hamas to avoid residential areas when firing into Israeli towns:
Schachter: Now Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel is doing everything in its power to avoid civilian casualties, but he says Hamas is firing from residential areas. Is that happening?
Danahar: Well, where my bureau is, there are residential accommodation around, and there are rockets going off — I think the thing about Gaza, to be honest with you is, it’s an incredibly small place and there’s a lot of people in it. So pretty much everywhere in Gaza is a residential area unless you’re going right up to the kind of “no man’s land” area between Israel and where Gaza kind of properly starts. So there certainly are things being fired off from residential areas but it’s almost, probably, impossible to get entirely away from a residential area if you want to fire something off.
Danahar then says the issue in this conflict has nothing to do with the Hamas rocket attacks but everything to do with the accuracy of the Israeli response.
This is similar to a day earlier when another BBC reporter, Wyre Davies, claimed that “almost all” of the fatalities in the fighting were civilians. Even Hamas admits that almost all the dead have been their fighters.
Looking at the map above, it is obvious that all of Gaza is not a population center, but the terrorists like to use civilian areas to limit the Israeli response.
Watch a video here of Hamas leaders bragging about their use of Human Shields.
