内容摘要：Brian Juma, 27, has lived directly beside the church all his life. He told Al Jazeera locals believe it was started by a man who fashioned himself as a sort-of god figure, and who the followers of the church prayed to.

Brian Juma, 27, has lived directly beside the church all his life. He told Al Jazeera locals believe it was started by a man who fashioned himself as a sort-of god figure, and who the followers of the church prayed to.

However, as Perugini observes, the very reason why the International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes in Gaza is because legal experts doubt Israel’s ability to investigate itself.Who issues the orders to use human shields?

Despite vast evidence, the question of whether the military will be launching a crackdown aimed at banishing the apparently systematic practice is moot. Even so, pressure for accountability is growing.Rights groups say the practice of using human shields has been going on in the occupied Palestinian territories for decades. Breaking the Silence, a whistle-blower group gathering testimonies of former Israeli soldiers, cites evidence of what one high-ranking officer posted to Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank back in 2002 called “neighbour procedure”.“You order a Palestinian to accompany you and to open the door of the house you want to enter, to knock on the door and ask to enter, with a very simple objective: if the door blows up, a Palestinian will be blown up, and soldiers won’t be blown up,” said the officer, ranked as a major.

In 2005, an Israeli Supreme Court ruling explicitly barred the practice. Five years later, two soldiers were convicted of using a nine-year-old boy as a human shield to check suspected booby traps in the Gaza City suburb of Tal al-Hawa.It was reportedly the first such conviction in Israel.

But the military’s use of human shields appears to have been normalised since then, particularly over the past 19 months of war in Gaza.

Indeed, there are indications that orders may be coming from the very top.According to the Korea Real Estate Board, Sejong has a 25 percent vacancy rate for mid- to large-sized shopping centres, the highest rate in the country.

Few draws for young people“In our city, the weekdays are busier than the weekends,” Jace Kim, a restaurant owner who came to Sejong in 2015, told Al Jazeera.

“Most public workers who work within the city spend their time and money outside of the city limits. Our city is relatively small and newly built, so it’s ideal for mothers and children. But we don’t have any universities or major companies that will attract young people to come here.”Moon Yoon-sang, a research fellow at the Korea Development Institute (KDI), said Washington, DC, could be a model for Sejong’s growth and development.