A/HRC/12/48 page 244 • During their detention in the Gaza Strip, whether in the open or in houses, the detainees were subjected to beatings and other physical abuse that amounts to torture. This continued systematically throughout their detention; • Civilians were used as human shields by the Israeli armed forces on more than one occasion in one of the three incidents. Taking account of other incidents in which the Mission has found this to have happened, it would not be difficult to conclude that this was a practice repeatedly adopted by the Israeli armed forces during the military operation in Gaza; • Many civilians were transferred across the border to Israel and detained in open spaces as well as in prisons; • The methods of interrogation amounted not only to torture in some of the cases, but also to physical and moral coercion of civilians to obtain information; • These persons were subjected to torture, maltreatment and foul conditions in the prisons. They were deprived of food and water for several hours at a time and any food they did receive was inadequate and inedible; • While in detention in Israel they were denied due process. E. Legal findings 1165. The Mission considers the following legal provisions relevant to its consideration of the matters presented above:562 Article 4 of the Fourth Geneva Convention Persons protected by the Convention are those who, at a given moment and in any manner whatsoever, find themselves, in case of a conflict or occupation, in the hands of a party to the conflict or occupying Power of which they are not nationals. Nationals of a State which is not bound by the Convention are not protected by it. Nationals of a neutral State who find themselves in the territory of a belligerent State, and nationals of a co-belligerent State, shall not be regarded as protected persons while the State of which they are nationals has normal diplomatic representation in the State in whose hands they are. The provisions of Part II are, however, wider in application, as defined in article 13. Persons protected by the Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field of 12August 1949, or by the Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded, Sick and Shipwrecked Members of Armed Forces at Sea of 12August 1949, or by the Geneva The Mission does not repeat here the provisions already cited elsewhere, such as article 57 of Additional Protocol I or common article 3. 562