Ever heard the quote "In war, truth is the first casualty"? The only source saying Hamas is consistently using human shields is the Israeli government. It's obviously not a coincidence that this particular information about Hamas is highly accommodating for Israel; it takes any blood off their hands, it helps hold back international pressure and national criticism, and it keeps morale high amongst the troops as well as Israeli citizens. This is called propaganda and it happens in all wars. Whether Hamas does use civilians for shields or not will not change this; the claim that they do is expected to be put forth either way. Now check out the Gaza strip on Google Earth and you'll see there's no place fighters can be where there's no civilians nearby. Civilian casualties is completely unavoidable when bombing such an area. So there will be civilian casualties whether Hamas uses them as human shields or not. What does that mean? It means we simply don't know whether Hamas actually does this or not. The fact that Israel is denying journalists access to the victims provides us with another clue; if there was anything happening in Gaza that would strengthen Israels cause, such as extensive use of human shields by Hamas, they'd let the media in. So what's happening in Gaza is propably even worse for Israel than the little information we're getting out now.