The Palestine-info.info website, which is identified with Hamas, reports that the assassinated Hamas leader Nizar Riyan had advocated the use of human shields, and had expressed it by placing Palestinian civilians on the roofs of buildings in Gaza that Israel had threatened to bomb in order to deter harm to these homes lest the civilians be killed.
The secretary of the Hamas faction in the Palestinian Legislative Council, Mushir Al-Masri, said that Riyan's assassination constituted a crossing of red lines, and that therefore the equation of deterrence had changed – the magnitude of the assassination would be met with the same magnitude of painful response.
Source: Palestine-info.info, January 1, 2009; Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, London, January 2, 2009
