This 20-year-old says IDF used him as a human shield when searching houses in Gaza. He's not the only one

It's 6 a.m. on a summer day in June, and Mohamed Saad, 20, is jolted awake by  soldiers from the Israel Defence Forces. 

They help him put on clothes: IDF military fatigues. He's reluctant to accept the help but has little choice in the matter — he's in Israeli custody at a temporary detention facility in Rafah, and the uniform is the least of his concerns. 

Saad is put in a tank with IDF troops and taken to an apartment building. He's given a camera and an earpiece. Then, he's told he must enter and search for explosives, Hamas militants and tunnel shafts, clearing the building for troops to follow behind.

There are, indeed, militants inside this particular building — and when they see Saad in his IDF uniform, they shoot at him. 

"God saved and protected me," he told CBC freelance videographer Mohamed El Saife when recounting the near miss.

Saad would be taken on a total of 15 such missions during his 47 days in detention, forced at gunpoint, he says, to act as a human shield on IDF patrols of residential buildings in the Gaza Strip. 

"Every time I went out, I would put my soul between my hands and pray to God … 'Oh, God, I want to go home to my mom and siblings,'" he said. "Every time, I would feel fear." 

Eventually, he was released on Aug. 9 and says he was never told why he was detained in the first place.

Israel's high court banned the military from using Palestinians as human shields in combat in 2005. But accounts from Palestinians who've been detained and ex-IDF soldiers collected by human rights groups, media and a whistleblower organization of former soldiers suggest the practice has continued, including during this war and past conflicts in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. 

The IDF did not comment directly on the allegations made in this story but said in a statement to CBC that the claims were forwarded to the "relevant authorities" to be evaluated.

"Orders and directives of the IDF prohibit the use of Gazan civilians captured in the field for military missions that endanger them."

The International Criminal Court defines the term "human shield" as "utilizing the presence of a civilian or other protected person to render certain points, areas or military forces immune from military operations." Doing so is considered a war crime.

Saad says his ordeal began June 23, when he was near the Kerem Shalom border crossing between southern Gaza, Israel and Egypt. A tailor by profession, Saad had been driving aid trucks from the border since the war broke out, but that day, he says, Israeli forces showed up with several tanks and picked up Saad along with 18 other men. 

"I was going to get goods for me and my siblings," he said. "What fault is it of mine they take me as a human shield?"