Desmond Travis ( co-author of the Goldstone report): IDF regularly used the human shield tactic

...the Israelis had got a 59 year old man and made him go into this house where there were three Hamas operatives in hiding, repeatedly, because they wouldn’t go in themselves. This human shield tactic, known among the IDF soldiers as the “Johnny” or “Good Neighbour” tactic brings me to another point. It was practiced and applied in all the Israeli brigade areas in Gaza and is strongly indicative of prior training. It does, however, also reveal an emphasis in that training on “risk aversion”. This aversion in turn imposed the transference of such risk onto the civilian population be they women or children. This is very troubling for various reasons but one in particular to me, an ex-soldier, and it is this: What is an army that commits its soldiers to avoidance of risk? Whatever it is now, it is no longer an army, in my view.