‘The neighbour procedure’ leads to death of 19-year-old

ISRAELI soldiers strapped a bulletproof vest on a Palestinian teenager and ordered him to approach a house where a wheelchair-bound Hamas militant was hiding, with instructions to bring out the man and anyone else inside.

As he approached the house in the West Bank village of Tubas, Nidal Daraghmeh, 19, was shot dead though it's not clear who pulled the trigger.

The troops then flattened the house with bulldozers, burying a Hamas leader, the only person inside.

Last night's operation sparked a sharp debate in Israel over a tactic it has been using for years. The army calls it the neighbour procedure. Critics say the army is using Palestinians as human shields.

Daraghmeh was one of dozens of residents in Tubas who were called out of their homes by soldiers who surrounded a home where they suspected Hamas militant Nasser Jerar was hiding, the army and Palestinian witnesses said.

The soldiers then chose Daraghmeh to approach the home, and told him to persuade everyone, including Jerar, to vacate it without a shoot out.

But Daraghmeh never made it inside. As he approached the door he was shot in the head and killed.

The army says Jerar fired the shots, even though soldiers had announced on a megaphone that Daraghmeh was approaching the house.

One Palestinian witness said it wasn't clear who fired the shots, others said they believed the soldiers killed Daraghmeh.

Soon after the shooting, two army bulldozers destroyed the house with Jerar inside, burying him.

In Israel, opposition leader Yossi Sarid said the use of Palestinian civilians in such situations could constitute "war crimes" and the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem said Daraghmeh, and other Palestinians before him, had been used as "human shields".

"It is not the duty of the Palestinian population to protect army soldiers, but the army's," B'Tselem said.

"Whatever the circumstances, army soldiers may not endanger the lives of civilians to protect their own."