Israel used boy as human shield - UN

Israeli soldiers used an 11-year-old Palestinian boy as a human shield during the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, UN human rights experts say.
The Israeli Defence force ordered the boy to walk in front of soldiers being fired on in the Gaza neighbourhood of Tel al-Hawa and enter buildings before them, the UN secretary-general's envoy for protecting children in armed conflict says.
The boy also was told to open the bags of Palestinians - presumably to protect the soldiers from possible explosives - before being released at the entrance to a hospital, Radhika Coomaraswamy says.
The January 15 incident, after Israeli tanks had rolled into the neighbourhood and during "intense operations", was a violation of Israeli and international law, she says.
It is included in a 43-page report published on Monday, and is just one of many verified human rights atrocities during the three-week war between Israel and Hamas that ended on January 18, she says.
Coomaraswamy accused Israeli 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.
"Violations were reported on a daily basis, too numerous to list," said Coomaraswamy, who visited Gaza and Israel for five days last month.
Coomaraswamy said there also have been allegations that Hamas used human shields or fired from heavily populated areas, and UN officials are investigating.
Israel criticised the report as "unable or perhaps unwilling" to address Hamas rocket attacks from Gaza or the threat of terrorism, citing Saturday's failed attempt to explode a car bomb in a Haifa mall parking lot as the most recent manifestation.
"The report claims to examine Israel's actions while it wilfully ignores and downplays the terrorist and other threats we face," Ambassador Aharon Leshno Yaar told the 47-nation Human Rights Council.
Leshno Yaar said terrorists use women and children as human shields when they launch attacks from schools, homes, hospitals and mosques. He did not address the report's specific allegation about the boy, but an army spokesman rejected the claim.
"We are an army to which morals and high ethical standards are paramount," said Captain Elie Isaacson.
Coomaraswamy said her list of Israeli violations 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 allowed into Gaza following the war. The experts covered issues ranging from health and hunger to women's rights and arbitrary executions.
The experts also noted reports of Hamas committing other abuses. They said Hamas had been unwilling to investigate the allegations.
The report called for Israel to investigate human rights abuses that occurred during the conflict.
Last week, Israel's military ordered a criminal inquiry into published reports from soldiers that some troops had knowingly killed Palestinian civilians, including children.

This is absolute bullshit. We all know that the muslims love to use women and children as human shields. The world gets all upset about the poor muslims getting killed by the Israelis. The Israelis do not do this. I would love to see some pictures of this happening. You never get to see proof, but you know damned well that they have cameras.