Report: IDF used Palestinian human shields in Nablus

Procedure violates High Court ruling; IDF wraps up weeklong operation to hunt for Palestinian terrorists; Tzufim settler shot, wounded.

By JPOST STAFF, AP
Nablus gunmen 224.88 (photo credit: AP [file])
Nablus gunmen 224.88
(photo credit: AP [file])
IDF soldiers were using Palestinians as human shields in their recent operations in Nablus, Channel 10 reported on Thursday. The procedure, recently outlawed by the High Court of Justice, was seemingly captured on footage of an operation obtained by the television channel. The army said it was looking into the report.
  • IDF soldier wounded in Nablus ops
  • IDF's 'contractors' pay a visit to Jenin Earlier Thursday, the weeklong IDF raid in Nablus, the largest city in the West Bank, ended, the army said, after Palestinians reported that troops left the city. During the raid, IDF soldiers went house to house searching for Palestinian operatives. One Palestinian civilian was killed during the operation. IDF soldiers found three explosives laboratories and detained several terror suspects. Nablus district governor Kamal Sheikh said the IDF jeeps and bulldozers began leaving the city late in the morning and were all gone by afternoon. Earlier Thursday, as the operation drew to a close, IDF troops continued to hunt for Palestinian fugitives in and around the West Bank city, trading gunfire with armed men in a mosque and storming an apartment building where gunmen were thought to be hiding. Elsewhere in Nablus, Palestinians threw bombs and opened fire at IDF troops. The soldiers returned fire, and none were reported wounded. At dawn Thursday, soldiers left Nablus's old city, lifting a curfew that had confined tens of thousands of people to their homes. The troops regrouped around an apartment building in one of the city's newer neighborhoods, emptying the building of civilians and demanding the surrender of fugitives inside. After using loudspeakers to call for the fugitives hiding inside to turn themselves in, the troops opened fire. The army said that one of the men had been hit. During the morning's operations, three Islamic Jihad fugitives were arrested and transferred to the Shin Bet for interrogation. Overnight Wednesday, the IDF arrested 19 terror suspects throughout the West Bank. In Nablus five suspects were arrested, including three Fatah operatives and a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). In Kalkilya, the soldiers nabbed four Hamas operatives, and four others were arrested in Hebron. Two Tanzim operatives and a member of Islamic Jihad were detained in Tulkarm. The remaining three terror suspects were arrested in Ramallah and Jenin. During the mission, a grenade was thrown at IDF soldiers, but no casualties or damage were reported. Support IDF soldiers - send them a Purim gift basket