According to an article in Israel’s Haaretz newspaper by an anonymous senior officer in a non-reservist brigade, Palestinians are “regularly forced by soldiers to enter houses in Gaza to make sure there are no terrorists or explosives”, Al Jazeera reports.

“In Gaza, human shields are used by Israeli soldiers at least six times a day,” the officer said in the article. He said that he served in Gaza for nine months, and first came across these procedures, called ‘mosquito protocol’, in December 2023.

According to the officer, the protocol was used long before there was a shortage of dogs from the army’s canine unit, Oketz, which were used for this purpose. The officer said: “This became the insane, unofficial excuse for this insane, unofficial procedure.”

The writer added that the army personnel referred to “human shields” as “shawishes”.

The officer stressed: “Today, almost every platoon keeps a ‘shawish’, and no infantry force enters a house before a ‘shawish’ clears it. This means there are four ‘shawishes’ in a company, twelve in a battalion, and at least 36 in a brigade. We operate a sub-army of slaves.”