Summary
The strategy Debunking the Genocide Allegations attributes to Hamas: operating from civilian homes, hospitals and schools and using Gazan civilians to increase casualties and amplify international pressure on Israel (Debunking the Genocide Allegations: A Reexamination of the Israel-Hamas War from October 7, 2023 to June 1, 2025, PDF p.10).
Details
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Chapter 2 is devoted to Hamas’s practice and overall strategy of using human shields; war is reciprocal, so one side’s actions cannot be assessed without the other’s (PDF p.7, p.10).
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Hamas is said, on reports from its own operatives, consistently to use civilians as human shields to deliberately increase casualties; it has used civilian homes, hospitals and schools to store weapons, launch rockets, house combatants and establish operational positions, its operatives wear civilian clothing in safer zones, and its booby-trapping of buildings led to devastation surpassing typical high-intensity urban warfare (PDF p.10).
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These facts do not, the authors state, justify any IDF action or absolve it of its obligation to comply with international law (PDF p.10).
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In urban warfare it is “virtually impossible to understand IDF conduct without an in-depth analysis of Hamas’s defensive strategy”, and the critics are said often to mention Hamas’s conduct only in an offhand, pro forma manner (“Hamas violations do not justify…”); the rest of Chapter 2 sets out to fill that gap (PDF p.71).
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Chapter 2 (PDF p.64-80) develops the claim: a Hamas document captured during Operation Protective Edge (2014) is quoted that IDF soldiers “must limit their use of weapons and tactics that lead to unnecessary damage and loss of civilian life and property”, and that damage to civilian property benefits the defenders by “increasing hatred toward the attackers” (PDF p.71-72); Hamas is said to have developed the strategy since 2006, calling on civilians not to evacuate during Operations Pillar of Defense (2012) and Cast Lead (2008-2009), and refusing to declare any part of Gaza an open zone in the 2023-2025 war (PDF p.72-73).
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Senior Hamas figures are quoted in its support: Fathi Hammad is quoted that Gaza’s children and elderly “excel in the death industry” and as human shields for “the resistance”; Yahya Sinwar is quoted that civilian casualties “will pump blood into the veins of the nation”; and Mousa Abu Marzouk that the tunnels were built to protect Hamas fighters, not civilians, whose protection is the responsibility of the UN and Israel (PDF p.72, p.74).
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The use of human shields is prohibited under international law (Customary IHL Rule 97), and the presence of civilian human shields near military targets does not render the target immune from attack (Geneva Convention IV Article 28; Additional Protocol I Article 51(7)) (PDF p.72).
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The tunnel network is given as over 500 kilometres with about 5,700 shafts, more than the Viet Cong’s Cu Chi system at about 250 kilometres, with entrances hidden inside civilian buildings including a children’s room, and Hamas used hospitals, schools, clinics, mosques and UNRWA facilities to hide weapons, command centers, tunnel entrances and fighters (PDF p.74-75).
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Chapter 4 restates the legal frame: Article 51(7) of Additional Protocol I is quoted in full — the presence or movements of civilians shall not be used to render points or areas immune from military operations or to shield military objectives — and the defending party’s own obligations under Article 58, to remove civilians from the vicinity of military objectives and avoid locating military objectives within or near densely populated areas, are set out alongside the attacker’s duties (PDF p.103, p.105).
Related pages
Debunking the Genocide Allegations: A Reexamination of the Israel-Hamas War from October 7, 2023 to June 1, 2025, Hamas, Gaza, Al-Mawasi