Adalah to Attorney General: Distributing Leaflets Bearing Photographs of Destruction and Demanding that Gaza’s Residents Collaborate with Israeli Army is An Illegal Attempt to Involve Civilians in Military Operations
On 15 January 2009, Adalah sent a letter to Attorney General of Israel Menachem Mazuz demanding that he prevent the Israeli army from “spraying” the Gaza Strip with leaflets bearing photographs of buildings that have been bombed and destroyed by Israel and demanding that the people provide it with information on the locations of rocket-launching sites and “terrorist gangs”. One of the leaflets stated as follows:
To the residents of the Gaza Strip, take responsibility for your own fate. If you want to help your families and brothers in the Strip, all you have to do is contact us and tell us the locations of rocket-launching sites and the terrorist gangs who have taken you hostage. Prevent atrocities with your own hands. We are happy to receive any information from you even without your personal details. Confidentiality is guaranteed.
In the letter, Adalah Attorney Abeer Baker argued that dropping these leaflets is an illegal attempt by the Israeli army to use civilians, who enjoy the full protection of international law as protected persons, for their own military objectives. Further, including photographs of buildings destroyed in Israeli military incursions insinuates to residents of Gaza that if they refuse to collaborate with the Israeli army they will bring the same damage and destruction upon themselves. Thus, rather than refraining from harming civilians, the Israeli army is making them responsible for its continued attacks and forcing them to collaborate with it as a conditions for escaping the shelling.
Involving civilians in combat operations taking place around them is considered a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law, which prohibits bringing civilians into the field of military operations, and in particular compelling them to collaborate with a hostile party. In particular, Article 31 of the Fourth Geneva Convention stipulates that, “No physical or moral coercion shall be exercised against protected persons, in particular to obtain information from them or from third parties,” and Article 51 that, “The Occupying Power may not compel protected persons to serve in its armed or auxiliary forces.” Adalah argued that the leaflet in question and the photographs printed on it undoubtedly constitutes the use of moral coercion on civilians to compel them to serve an army engaged in ongoing hostilities against them.
The letter contained numerous references to international law and covenants, as well as to Israeli Supreme Court case law and case law of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, which prohibits the involvement and use of civilians in the field of battle.
