Mustafa testified that he was on his way home from his brother’s
car-wash service, which is located about 300 meters from a checkpoint near Ofer,
an Israeli prison in the West Bank, when clashes intensified. After he took
shelter in a nearby store, Israeli soldiers rushed after him.
Mustafa was taken into custody and ordered to raise his hands
behind his head. The soldiers allegedly used him as a human shield for several
hours while firing tear gas canisters and rubber bullets at stone-throwing
protestors, according to DCI-PS. All the time, one of the soldiers kept his
rifle pointed at 9 year old Mustafa’s back.
"Whenever they wanted to fire tear gas or shoot bullets at the protesters, they would take me with them. I was really scared that a stone might hit me or something," said Mustafa.
"Whenever they wanted to fire tear gas or shoot bullets at the protesters, they would take me with them. I was really scared that a stone might hit me or something," said Mustafa.
Mustafa was released after his father, Mohammad, arrived on the
scene and pleaded with the soldiers for his son’s release. "At home, Mustafa was
still very scared. He was silent and did not have his dinner. In the morning, my
wife told me that Mustafa was shaking while he was sleeping. The following
night, he wet himself," Mohammad Wahdan told DCI-PS.
The use of human shields is prohibited by international
humanitarian law. Since 2004, DCI-Palestine has documented 20 cases of
Palestinian children being used as human shields by Israeli forces. Nineteen of
these cases occurred after 2005, the year the Israeli high court prohibited the
practice under Israeli domestic law.
