In an interview with Israel National News - Arutz Sheva, attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, Shurat Hadin chairwoman, comments on the way the IDF should treat the Gazans who have already started "waving the white flag," and warns that it might actually be a warning sign of terrorists trying to infiltrate the crowds.
According to Darshan-Leitner, there is actually no need to wave white flags or raise hands in surrender when it comes to a civilian population.
"We saw the first million leave for the south of the Gaza Strip without waving their hands. Waving hands and white flags adds nothing and changes nothing, both in terms of the legal status of these refugees and in terms of the attitude of the State of Israel. Israel has established a corridor and allows all Gazans to reach the south in safety," she explains.
"The waving of a white flag is a symbol of surrender and acceptance of the enemy's authority in international law and recognition that they will not attack again, but here we are dealing with residents who were not supposed to attack in the first place, so I am suspicious of the waving of the flags. Naturally, only those who pose a threat should wave flags," she says, recalling that in the past, "there were cases when terrorists came out of hiding places with a white flag and were booby-trapped."
"Waving a white flag is suspicious," adds Darshan-Leitner, who states that waving flags should never be a reason to exert pressure on Israel for any humanitarian concessions. "We treat the residents as protected residents, we allow them humanitarian aid and shelter, which is very difficult because we don't know who in these crowds are terrorists and who are not, yet we give them peace. Israel will have to examine things later."
"We see Israeli tanks protecting them from Hamas, who prevents them from reaching the south of the Strip, takes their vehicles and also shoots them, but when they reach the south, they’re already there and that's it."
According to her, there is no way to check all those hundreds of thousands who are traveling to the south of Gaza, and to identify which of them are civilians and which are terrorists, but nevertheless she points out that these sights are photographed and the IDF has the technological ability, whether through artificial intelligence or in other ways, to locate wanted people in these photographs. She believes that the IDF is well aware of the situation and that there is something strange, as she defines it, in the waving of the flags.
"In the past we saw that there are terrorists who tried to escape in any way possible, through tunnels, in ambulances, and other ways to the Egyptian border. When Israel promise to pursue these people in any way, it means that they will also be part of it."