Is Hezbollah using civilians as human shields against Israel? What does the law say?

Is Hezbollah using civilians as a human shield?

That’s what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed.

Netanyahu made the statement on the same day that Israel said it had attacked over 800 Hezbollah positions in Lebanon.

Lebanon’s health ministry has said Israel left over 550 dead including 50 children in strikes.

Iran-backed Hezbollah began launching rockets towards Israel in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas in October after Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on southern Israel that sparked the war in Gaza.

The slow burn of battle has intensified in recent days and many fear it could develop into an all-out war that engulfs West Asia.

But is Hezbollah really using civilians as human shields? What about Hamas in Gaza? And what does the law say about it?

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Let’s take a closer look:

First, let’s take a look at what the law says.

According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, “utilising the presence of a civilian or other protected person to render certain points, areas or military forces immune from military operations” is a war crime.

Additional Protocol I of the Geneva Convention outlaws using human beings including prisoners of war and civilians as human shields.

This includes states which are not, or were not at the time, party to the Geneva Convention.

The famous US Military Tribunal at Nuremberg in 1948 tried Nazi officials for using prisoners of war as human shields.

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As did the UK Military Court at Lüneberg in 1946.

Additional Protocol II of the Geneva Convention states that “the civilian population and individual civilians shall enjoy general protection against the dangers arising from military operations.”

More recently, the International Criminal Tribunal found the accused in the 1995 Karadžić and Mladić case guilty of using UN peacekeepers as human shields.

The tribunal ruled that those holding peacekeepers against their will at ammunition bunkers, a radar site and communication centre – all sites that Nato could hit – were guilty of this practice.

According to Al Jazeera, there are three types of human shields – voluntary shields, involuntary shields and proximate shields.

The first choose to stand ahead of a target. The second are forced to do so to halt an attack. The third either become shields unwittingly because of their close distance to the action.

While international human rights law does not specifically outlaw the use of human shields, the practice violates the right not to be arbitrarily deprived of the right to life.

The UN Human Rights Committee and regional human rights bodies have also said states must take action to safeguard human life.

The United Nations has condemned the use of human shields in Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Tajikistan and the former Yugoslavia.

Is Hezbollah using civilians as a human shield?

That’s what Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed in his statement to people in Lebanon on Monday (September 23).

“Hezbollah placed rockets in your living rooms and missiles in your garage,” Netanyahu said.

“Please, get out of harm’s way now. Once our operation is finished, you can come back safely to your homes,” Netanyahu added.

“Don’t let Hezbollah endanger your lives and the lives of your loved ones.”

The Israel Defense Forces on Tuesday released images and videos of what it claimed was proof that Hezbollah was placing weapons in people’s homes.

“The rocket that you see below is a long-range rocket, stored on a hydraulic system directed toward Israeli civilians and ready to be launched at a moments notice,” the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) wrote on X.

“This is just one of the 1,300 targets including long-range cruise missiles, heavy-weight rockets and UAVs that were struck today in Lebanon and were going to be used to cause major damage in all areas of Israel,” it added.

The IDF also put up a video of its spokesman explaining how Hezbollah was doing so.

“IDF Spox. RAdm. Daniel Hagari explains how Hezbollah exploits civilian infrastructure as weapons storage sites and uses the Lebanese people as human shields,” it wrote.

Israel on Monday sent text messages to people in Lebanon asking them to evacuate the area.

What about Hamas and Gaza?

Israel previously accused Hamas of using human shields in Gaza.

The Times of Israel quoted Israeli army spokesperson Daniel Hagari as claiming that the use of human shields were “a key pillar of Hamas’s terror operations.”

Since the war in Gaza began, Israel has continuously directed citizens to move from one area to the next to avoid becoming casualties via mobile calls and leaflets.

The IDF also released audio of a Palestinian man complaining that Hamas was shooting at members of the public attempting to flee, as per The Guardian.

The IDF also previously released interrogation audio of two members of Hamas who they claimed had participated in the October 7 attack.

One, identified as Amer Abu Awash, a member of Hamas’s elite Nukhba force, asked about Hamas’ tunnel network, replied, “Most of them are hidden in the hospitals. [At] Shifa [hospital], for example, there are underground levels … Shifa is not small, it is a big place that can be used to hide things.”

Asked why Hamas was using hospitals, Awash replied “So you won’t strike them.”

As per the newspaper, the evidence does suggest that Hamas is indeed operating out of public buildings.

However, this is made further complicated by the fact that Gaza is a dense, urban environment.

Hamas, however, has rejected the allegations.

What do experts say?

Experts told Al Jazeera such warnings gives Israel the ability to claim that Hamas is using the population as proximate shields.

“Temporally, proximate shielding can endure far longer than either voluntary or involuntary shielding, because the latter two are restricted to the time during which the civilian acts or is forced into acting as a shield,” Neve Gordon, co-author of Human Shields: A History of People in the Line of Fire, told the outlet.

Gordon, who teaches international law at Queen Mary University of London, said the warnings are dropped to “relax the repertoire of violence that is permitted to be used in that area.”

Marc Weller, chair of international law and international constitutional studies at the University of Cambridge, told the outlet, “Knocking on a building [to ask its residents to evacuate] may be reasonable, but telling a million people that they all have to get out because you are bombing everything is unreasonable.”

“Israel cannot discharge its obligation of distinction by wishing the civilians away. This places the burden of protection on victims, rather than attackers.”

With inputs from agencies