El uso de civiles como escudo protector, práctica habitual de los islamistas en su guerra con Israel, viola los artículos 48, 51(2), 58, 51(7), 12(4) y 53 del Protocolo Adicional de 1979 de la Convención de Ginebra.
Getting the law right on the Israel-Hamas conflict (Laurie R. Blank, July 11, 2014)
Confirmed: Needless death and destruction in Gaza (Alan M. Dershowitz, Aug 11, 2014) - entre otras cosas dice:
The law is clear: using civilians as human shields—which the Hamas battle manual mandates—is an absolute war crime. There are no exceptions or matters of degree,especially when there are alternatives. On the other hand, shooting at legitimate military targets, such as rockets and terror tunnels is permitted, unless the number of anticipated civilian casualties is disproportionate to the military importance of the target. This is a matter of degree and judgment, often difficult to calculate in the fog of war.
The law is also clear that when a criminal takes a hostage and uses that hostage as a shield from behind whom to fire at civilians or police, and if the police fire back and kill the hostage, it is the criminal and not the policeman who is guilty of murder. So too with Hamas: when it uses human shields and the Israeli military fires back and kills some of the shields, it is Hamas who is responsible for their deaths.
Incitement in International Law (Wibke Kristin Timmermann, 2014)
Protocolo Adicional Complementario del Convenio entre los Estados Parte en el Tratado del Atlántico Norte y los otros Estados participantes en la Asociación para la paz, relativo al Estatuto de sus Fuerzas - Instrumento de Ratificación (Bruselas,19 dic 1997)
Instrumento de Ratificación del Tratado relativo al Eurocuerpo y al Estatuto de su Cuartel General (Bruselas, 22 nov 2004) - Su corr.err.