UN Report: "Israeli" Army Used Gaza Boy as Human Shield

Source: Al-Manar TV, 24-03-2009

"Israeli" occupation soldiers used an 11-year-old Palestinian boy as a human shield during the "Operation Cast Lead" against Palestinians in Gaza, a group of UN human rights experts said Monday.

The "Israeli" army ordered the boy to walk in front of soldiers being fired on in the Gaza neighborhood of Tel al-Hawa and enter buildings before them, said the UN secretary-general's envoy for protecting children in armed conflict.

Radhika Coomaraswamy said the incident on Jan. 15, after "Israeli" army tanks had rolled into the neighborhood, was a violation of "Israeli" and international law.

It was included in a 43-page report published Monday, and was just one of many verified human rights atrocities during the three-week war between "Israel" and Hamas that ended Jan. 18, she said.

Coomaraswamy accused "Israeli" occupation soldiers of shooting Palestinian children, bulldozing a home with a woman and child still inside, and shelling a building they had ordered civilians into a day earlier.
Coomaraswamy, who visited Gaza and the occupied territories for five days in February, said her list constituted "just a few examples of the hundreds of incidents that have been documented and verified" by UN officials who were in the territory.

She was the only one of the nine UN experts who compiled the report that was allowed into Gaza following the war. The experts covered issues ranging from health and hunger to women's rights and arbitrary executions.