The point is not to find differences or similarities to when Israeli or Hamas operatives dress in civilian clothing while carrying out military action. Of course there will always be plenty of either. If that was my point, you could have simply accused me of whataboutism and left it at that.

The point is that this excuse is a Humanitarian camouflage and does not justify atrocities, war crimes, nor apartheid.

Francesca Albanese talks about this in detail in here report (Chapter VI, section A, paragraph 62; linked above):

> Significant numbers of Palestinian civilians are defined as human shields simply by being in “proximity to” potential Israeli targets. Israel has thus transformed Gaza into a “world without civilians” in which “everything from taking shelter in hospitals to fleeing for safety is declared a form of human shielding”. The accusation of using human shields has thus become a pretext, justifying the killing of civilians under a cloak of purported legality.

As well as section B of the same chapter appropriately titled Turning Gaza as a whole into a ‘military objective (paragraphs 63-67):

> Israel has misused this rule [of legitimate military targets] to “militarize” civilian objects and whatever surrounds them, justifying their indiscriminate destruction. According to Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “many ostensibly civilian objects may become legitimate targets”, losing their protection under IHL [International Humanitarian Law] or become “collateral” damage as a result of Hamas’s choice.

> Protected civilian objects can lose their immunity from attacks if and for as long as they are used by combatants in hostilities. However, Israel considers any object that has allegedly been or might be used militarily as a legitimate target, so that entire neighbourhoods can be razed or demolished under fictions of legality.

> Israel has thus de facto abolished the distinction between civilian objects and military objectives.