News- Middle East: A photograph, reportedly taken and posted by an Israeli soldier, has sent shock waves through social media, confirming reports about the occupying regime’s use of elderly Palestinians as human shields in the long-running genocidal war in the besieged Gaza Strip.

The photo, widely re-shared by the "Israel Genocide Tracker" account, which documents Israeli war crimes, depicts two old Palestinian men bound and stripped to their underwear as they are being forced into a wrecked building in Gaza.

“Materials submitted by soldiers’ friends confess that troops used kidnapped Palestinians, mostly elderly, as human shields on a daily basis,” wrote Israel Genocide Tracker, an X account that scans social media and gathers data on Israeli soldiers from previous posts they had published.

“When injured or exhausted, the victims were instructed to walk into designated killing zones to be gunned down by other units.”

The angle and perspective of the photograph strongly suggests it was captured by an Israeli soldier, providing direct evidence for the reports that elderly Palestinians are used as human shields — an unequivocal war crime under international law.

Later images showed that the men, who have been identified, were shot dead in line with the occupying regime’s policy that Palestinian abductees used as human shields were killed once they became too weak or injured to serve their abductors’ purposes.

Since the ceasefire came into effect on October 11, Israel has routinely hit Gaza in violation of the agreement.

The Ministry of Health in Gaza reported that in its latest aggression, Israel hit several locations across Gaza since last night, killing at least 104 Palestinians, including 46 children, and wounded at least 253.

Israel’s war on Gaza has now killed at least 68,643 people and wounded 170,655 since it began in October 2023, according to the ministry’s latest figures.

Source: Press TV