The Al Quds Brigade of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorist organization has posted pictures on its website boasting that it is giving military training in Gaza to children as young as six years old. PIJ’s boasts follow those of Hamas, which likeways runs summer camps training children to become child soldiers.

The photos depict plumes of smoke rising from explosions in the background, and children wielding AK-47 assault rifles and dragging a uniformed young boy. The exercise was a drill in how to kidnap Israeli soldiers.

A radical offshoot of the already not particularly moderate Muslim Brotherhood,the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group formed in the late 1970s. Its members have carried out brutal attacks including scores of shootings and suicide bombings that have killed hundreds of civilians.

The revelations comes as news emerges from Syria that child soldiers are also being used and trained there.

PIJ spokesman Daoud Shihab described the goal of the military summer camp is to “foster a generation strong [in] resistance.”

Palestinian deployment of child soldiers has complicated efforts by human rights groups to evaluate the nature and effects of fighting waged against Israel. Human rights groups have been criticized for calculating Palestinian casualties by treating the deaths of Palestinians under the age of 18 as civilian deaths, and then using those counts to criticize the Jewish state.

[Photo: wzo / YouTube]