“Human shield” under international law International humanitarian law has several fundamental principles to determine the range of what constitutes lawful military activity, the most important of which are the standards of “distinction” and “proportionality.” Distinction refers to the obligation to distinguish between the (binary) categories of military and civilian. [...] The standard definition of a human shield in international law is an intentional co-location of military objects (personnel or materials) and civilians with the specific intent of deterring or preventing the targeting of those objects. [...] For example, does a parent who expresses support for the militant actions of his son make him a legitimate target? Would any of the thousands of civil servants employed in the various civilian ministries of the Hamas-run government qualify as “involved” and thus deemed legitimate targets? Under humanitarian international law, the answer is unequivocal: The parent and the civil servant, unless they. [...] In comparing civilian casualties in the current Israeli assault to those from previous wars in the Gaza Strip, not only has the scale of Palestinian deaths in the current war increased exponentially, but the proportion of children and women killed or injured has nearly doubled. [...] According to the Gaza Health Ministry numbers — the only official estimates available for casualties in Gaza but widely regarded as reliable and used by the Israeli military itself — the current death toll of roughly 35,000 does not account for the thousands who are still buried under the rubble and presumed dead.
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