A soldier in a conscript army brigade added: "About five months ago, two Palestinians were brought to us. One was 20 and the other was 16. We were told: ‘Use them, they’re Gazans, use them as human shields.’"

According to this soldier, that day, soldiers in the unit began to ask questions about this use of civilians as human shields; they also wanted to know who gave the order.

According to the soldier, “They tried to say something about October 7, not something concrete. One person said: ‘Don’t beat them too much because we need them to open the locations’” where troops need to enter, such as buildings and tunnels.

He added: "One of the commanders turned to one of the combat soldiers who tried to receive answers and told him: 'You don’t agree that the lives of your friends are much more important than their lives? And isn’t it better that our friends will live and not be blown up by an explosive device, and that they get blown up by an explosive device?"

The next day the teenager was released. He was taken to a checkpoint and told to walk south. “Then we finally realized that these weren’t really terrorists but civilians who were taken especially for these operations,” the soldier said.