The fact that Hamas has been hiding behaind Gaza’s civilians for the past few weeks comes as no surprise.  News articles from the past several years have chronicled these exploitative tactics as they developed and were implemented.

Notable among these articles is one from 2006 by Alan Johnston of the BBC on how children and old men gathered to prevent an Israeli operation.

Also, we bring you below an article from the LA Times, on the same topic.

Women acting as human shields aid escape of Palestinian militants
By Richard Boudreaux and Rushdi abu Alouf, Special to the Times
1:20 PM PST, November 3, 2006

Dozens of Palestinian gunmen holed up in a mosque ringed by Israeli troops and tanks escaped today after the Israelis opened fire toward a group of women who were rushing toward the shrine to serve as human shields. Two of the women were killed on the third day of fighting in the Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun.

The dramatic end to the 15-hour standoff was a setback for Israeli forces that had stormed the town Wednesday to root out stockpiles of crude Kassam rockets and the militants who launch them into Israel. With Israelis occupying most of Beit Hanoun, the militants had taken refuge Thursday in the Nasir mosque and exchanged fire throughout the day and night.

Most of the gunmen belong to the armed wing of Hamas, the Islamist movement that governs the Palestinian territories. Israeli soldiers trying to force their surrender also hurled stun and smoke grenades at the mosque and knocked down one of its outer walls with a bulldozer late Thursday, weakening the entire structure, residents of the town said.

At that point, the militants devised an escape plan, according to Abu Ubaida, a Hamas spokesman. This morning, the Hamas radio station appealed to women in the town of 37,000 to converge on the mosque to protect the fighters, who Ubaida said numbered 73.

About 50 veiled women approached the shrine on foot on a wide street, shouting at the Israeli soldiers to leave Gaza. The soldiers turned from the mosque and opened fire. One woman died at the scene and another in a hospital several hours later, Palestinian medical officials said. Another 17 were listed as wounded.

An Israeli army spokesman said soldiers had spotted two male militants hiding among the women and fired at them. Footage filmed by Reuters and other news organizations showed no men in the crowd at the time.

In the ensuing melee, the crowd retreated, swelled to 200 and advanced again, pushing its way inside the Israeli cordon. The soldiers held their fire, witnesses said, and some of the women entered the mosque and guided the men out.

Ubaida told reporters that all the besieged militants had escaped unharmed, many by way of a hole connecting the mosque to an adjacent house. One of the women said they had brought in clothing to disguise the militants as females.

“It was a very complicated operation, but our fighters managed to survive and get out of town,” Ubaida said.

The Israeli spokesman said the militants escaped in plain sight, protected by a crowd of women too numerous for the soldiers to control.

Shortly afterward, the mosque’s roof collapsed.

Television footage of the scene was rebroadcast throughout the day across the Middle East, along with commentary in Arab media praising the women’s courage. Several demonstrations against the Israeli assault were held in Gaza following Friday prayers.

“I salute the women of Palestine who led the protest to break the siege of Beit Hanoun,” said Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas.

An unarmed 17-year-old boy and a Hamas fighter were also killed today, bringing the death toll in the 3-day-old operation to 13 militants, 7 residents of Beit Hanoun and one Israeli soldier.

In Gaza City, three Hamas militants, including a senior commander, were killed today by an Israeli air strike on their car. In the West Bank, Israeli troops killed a Palestinian teenager and critically wounded a wanted Palestinian militant in an operation near the city of Nablus.

Israeli officials have said they expect the operation in Beit Hanoun to last several more days. It is the first takeover of an entire town since Israeli forces and settlers unilaterally withdrew from the coastal strip 14 months ago after a 38-year occupation.

The Israeli army began periodic, limited raids into Gaza in late June following the capture of one of its soldiers, who is still missing. The army said it targeted Beit Hanoun because it is the prime staging ground for daily rocket attacks on communities in southern Israel. The attacks have caused panic, property damage and six deaths in the last three years.

Israeli critics of the assault on Beit Hanoun said the civilian casualties would only deepen the cycle of Israeli-Palestinian conflict without stopping the rockets that have continued to rain on Israel this week from elsewhere in Gaza.

“Our leaders felt obligated to make a show of force, but it is not being effective,” said Mossi Raz, a leader of the Peace Now movement in Israel. “All it is doing is causing more suffering and hatred among the Palestinians, provoking more violence against Israelis.”

Peace groups said they planned to use Saturday’scommemoration of former Prime Minister Yizhak Rabin, slain 11 years ago, to protest the military operations in Gaza and call for renewed peace talks with the Palestinians.

Doubts about the Gaza operation also pervade the Israeli government, which is sharply divided over whether the army also should launch a full-scale re-occupation of the territory. The rockets are one element of an arms buildup by Hamas, which has been smuggling more sophisticated weaponry into Gaza through clandestine tunnels from Egypt.

Israeli officials have said there is no hope for peace talks as long as Hamas, which does not recognize the Jewish state, is running the Palestinian government.

Former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who championed last year’s withdrawal from Gaza, was taken today to an intensive care unit after his overall condition and heart function deteriorated because of a new infection, said a spokesman for the Sheba Medical Center outside Tel Aviv. Sharon has been in a coma since he suffered a stroke in January.

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