Israel is investigating “several cases” involving soldiers who have forced Palestinians to act as human shields in Gaza, sending them into buildings and tunnels to check for bombs and gunmen.
“The use of Palestinians as human shields, or otherwise coercing them to participate in military operations, is strictly prohibited in IDF [Israel Defense Forces] orders,” the Israeli army said in a statement.
“Allegations of conduct that does not comply with these directives and procedures are examined. In several cases, investigations by MPCID [Israeli military police criminal division] were opened following suspicions of involving Palestinians in military missions.”
Earlier on Saturday, the Associated Press reported that several Palestinians and Israeli soldiers had said troops were systematically forcing Palestinians to act as human shields in Gaza . They said the practice had “become ubiquitous during 19 months of war”, AP reported….
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US…GAZA Aid Project Origins….
An informal network formed among like-minded officials, officers, reservists and business people who believed the Israeli military and government lacked a strategy for the future of Gaza — and set out to develop one themselves.
That group, some of the people interviewed for this article said, included Yotam HaCohen, a strategic consultant who joined COGAT, the military department that oversees aid delivery to Gaza; Liran Tancman, a well-connected tech investor who also joined COGAT; and Michael Eisenberg, an Israeli-American venture capitalist who remained outside the military.
Mr. HaCohen soon became an assistant to Brig. Gen. Roman Goffman, a senior COGAT commander who is now the prime minister’s military adviser….
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Group members promoted the idea of distributing aid from pockets of territory occupied by the Israeli military and out of Hamas’s reach. The Israelis wanted to circumvent the United Nations, but did not want Israel to take on the responsibility of caring for Gaza’s roughly two million residents. As time went on, they settled on the idea of private contractors managing food distribution, the people familiar with the meetings said.
Writing in a journal published by the Israeli military last July, Mr. HaCohen proposed a version of the plan now set to be implemented.
“To meet the war’s goals over the long term, Israel needs to develop tools that will pull the rug out from under the Hamas movement and not just (temporarily) dismantle the Hamas government,” Mr. HaCohen wrote. “Pulling the rug out will come once Israel begins to work directly with the civilian population, manages the distribution of aid itself, and begins to take responsibility for building the ‘day-after.’”…
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The US sponsered Aid Project…
But as early as November, the documents showed, the planners anticipated that the foundation could face potentially damaging questions from the public about its opaque origins, qualifications and moral legitimacy. Those concerns about possible pushback now appear prescient, with prominent humanitarian agencies and prospective donors balking, some senior officers in the Israeli military questioning the plan — and even some people who participated in the foundation’s early planning distancing themselves from the project, citing moral qualms over the possibility that it would enable the forced displacement of Palestinians or misuse biometrics.
The GHF’s Gaza aid operation is expected to launch this coming week. Whether it succeeds — and how it operates — holds tremendous implications for the 2 million Palestinians who are sealed in the 140-square-mile enclave and nearing the brink of famine, according to U.N. estimates….
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