JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel’s former military commander in the occupied West Bank has been reprimanded for using Palestinian civilians as human shields, the army said on Friday.

Brigadier General Yair Golan was barred from promotion for nine months under the terms of the reprimand, it said.

Golan admitted using Palestinians as human shields, which Israel’s supreme court banned two years ago following petitions from human rights groups, the army said.

The reprimand follows an investigation by military police.

In March, Israeli television broadcast footage of Israeli forces advancing behind a young male Palestinian civilian during a door-to-door search and arrest operation in Nablus.

The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem charged that during the operation soldiers used a 15-year-old Palestinian boy, an 11-year-old girl and a 24-year-old man as human shields.