Brutal dictatorships and terror groups are now escalating their criticism of the Middle East’s only democracy. A corrupt UN that turns a blind eye to Hamas terrorism lends legitimacy to the criticism, while the Western world looks away from the existential threat facing Israel and passively goes along with the flow.
How does Hamas use the civilian population in its warfare? How does Israel protect civilians in the Gaza war? And what exactly is the definition of genocide?
When Hamas launched the ongoing war in Gaza with a massacre of Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023, the terrorist group also took hundreds of civilians hostage. There are still 48 hostages held by terrorist groups in Gaza, about 20 of whom are still believed to be alive.
Even the rockets from Gaza into Israel targeted civilian areas. 27,000 missiles have been fired at Israel from Gaza and Lebanon, as well as from Yemen and Iran, since the war began.
In addition, Hamas uses Palestinians as human shields by operating from the heart of the civilian population — from children’s bedrooms, from schools, and from mosques and hospitals. Hamas’s tactic of deliberately targeting Israeli civilians in the war occurs simultaneously with the suffering of Palestinian civilians being weaponized in a propaganda war against Israel.
Western media often uncritically relay the death tolls provided by Hamas’s health authorities, even though the information is unverified and the terrorist group does not distinguish between combatants and civilian victims. The number of deaths caused by Hamas’s own misfired rockets is also not mentioned. Nor is it reported that Hamas uses Palestinian civilians as human shields or that its warfare is intentionally directed at Israeli civilians.
The UN turns a blind eye to Hamas war crimes
The explosion at the Al Ahli Hospital in October 2023 — when Hamas claimed that 500 people were killed by an Israeli rocket, which was in fact a misfired rocket launched by Islamic Jihad — exposes Hamas’s deliberate lies about civilian casualties and their causes. It also shows how Western media uncritically repeated claims from the Gaza Health Ministry.
In May, the London-based human rights organization Henry Jackson Society released a report on Hamas’s use of human shields in its war against Israel. The report found that since October 7, 2023, the UN had issued 367 Israel-critical reports under the topic “Gaza Strip.” In these reports, the UN has rarely acknowledged and never clearly stated that Hamas uses “human shields.” The term has only been mentioned four times, each time in just a single sentence, and always as an “allegation,” an Israeli “claim,” or an unverified “report.” The UN has never dedicated a single paragraph, let alone an entire report, to analyzing how Hamas is conducting the war in Gaza.
By contrast, the UN has issued at least ten reports critical of Israel’s actions in Gaza, including allegations of “indiscriminate attacks” and unlawful “attacks on hospitals.” A UN inquiry report from November 2024 accused Israel of committing genocide, but did not mention Hamas’s military tactics in Gaza.
Extensive evidence
In December 2024, both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch published reports accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza. Across hundreds of pages, the reader would struggle to realize that Hamas even exists in Gaza. None of the reports analyze Hamas’s strategy of using human shields.
The report by the Henry Jackson Society represents the “missing chapter” in all these investigations. With extensive evidence from international media, military assessments, legal frameworks, and eyewitness accounts, the report describes how Hamas has integrated its military operations into civilian infrastructure and has deliberately and systematically exploited Gaza’s civilian environment to shield its military assets from Israeli attacks — in violation of the laws of armed conflict, which prohibit the use of human shields.
Hamas’s top leadership has openly admitted to using human shields and has boasted about its willingness to sacrifice civilian lives in its war against Israel. Leading international political and military figures have verified and documented this tactic; both the U.S. and the EU have condemned the use of human shields.
Despite this overwhelming evidence, the UN, mainstream media, and human rights organizations consistently downplay, ignore, or express skepticism toward claims that Hamas uses this strategy. Even when Hamas’s use of human shields is plainly evident, it is not presented as a major cause of civilian casualties in Gaza. This glaring omission erases Hamas as an active party in the conflict and places full blame for civilian deaths on Israel, argues the Henry Jackson Society.
Avoiding civilian casualties
“Israel has done more to prevent civilian casualties in Gaza than any other known army in the world,”
claimed John Spencer, professor, military analyst, and internationally recognized expert and advisor on urban warfare.
Spencer has provided several examples of precautions taken by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), which he claims other armies either do not take at all or do not take to the same extent.
As part of its efforts to minimize civilian casualties in Gaza, the IDF places phone calls and sends text messages to civilians living in buildings that are targeted for attack. The Israeli Air Force has also dropped leaflets over Gaza warning civilians to stay away from Hamas terrorists. Since Hamas initiated the war in October 2023, it has repeatedly instructed Palestinians to ignore these warnings and has even shot at people trying to evacuate areas the IDF has warned will be attacked.
Despite the IDF’s efforts to avoid civilian casualties, Hamas continues to operate from civilian areas and encourages Gazans to ignore Israeli warnings, in a deliberate attempt to generate civilian deaths.
The Genocide Convention
After the Holocaust during World War II, UN member states adopted the Genocide Convention, which remains in effect today to prevent and punish genocide. The Convention defines genocide as deliberate physical or psychological violence and mass murder against groups defined by nationality, ethnicity, race, or religion, notes the Living History Forum (Levande historia).
The UN convention also includes actions intended to bring about the physical destruction of a people (such as forced starvation), measures to prevent births within a group, and forcible transfer of children from one group to another.
During the Cold War, the first political-ideological disputes over the concept of genocide emerged, with the Soviet argument being that genocide was committed only by fascists and Nazis, who sought to eradicate groups based on ethnicity or race, but not those defined politically.
Communist regimes in the Soviet Union, China, Cambodia, and North Korea are estimated to have committed genocides killing around 100 million people.
