When Mujahid Abadi stepped outside to see if Israeli forces had entered his neighborhood, he was shot in the arm and the foot, and that was only the start of his ordeal.

Video showing the 24-year-old strapped to the jeep circulated on social media, sparking widespread condemnation, including from the United States. Many said it showed that Israeli soldiers were using him as a human shield — a charge Israel has frequently leveled at Hamas as it battles the group in Gaza.

“I went outside to see what was happening, and looked towards the neighbors’ houses, where I saw the army,” he said. “When I tried to return to the house, heavy and indiscriminate gunfire was suddenly directed at me. My cousin who was near me was also hit.”

After a couple of hours, Israeli soldiers found him. He says they struck his head and face and in the areas where he had been shot. Then they dragged him by his legs, lifted him by his hands and feet and threw him onto the hood of the military jeep.

“I screamed because of the heat,” he said. “Then, one of the soldiers started cursing at me and told me to be quiet.”

The military said its forces had tied Abadi to the hood of the jeep to transport him to paramedics.

But Nebal Farsakh, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Red Crescent rescue service, said the army had sealed off the area and prevented paramedics from tending to the wounded for at least an hour. In dashboard camera footage obtained by the AP, the jeep to which Abadi was tied drove past at least two ambulances. Abadi said he was lashed to the jeep for about half an hour before soldiers untied him and released him to paramedics.

  • mozz
    15•5 months ago

    Just because the phrase “human shields” came into it:

    Somewhere there is a UN report where they looked in some detail into the theory that Hamas was rounding up random people and having them just stand around perfectly still right next to Hamas during fighting, so that the poor IDF would be tricked into shooting them which they hated doing but they had no choice. At least in the case they were looking into, they found that no, of course they are not doing anything like that, Israel is just telling outlandish lies about where all these dead civilians came from.

    I won’t say it never happens in any form. But to me it comes across like those comedy action movies where the bad guy grabs a hostage and the good guy grabs his own hostage from some random passerby. Like, ha ha! If you shoot at me, you’ll also kill this random Palestinian! And we know that’s like kryptonite to the IDF!