Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh on Thursday announced the opening of a Gaza-based military academy that will train schoolchildren to violently target the Jewish state. Haniyeh said that the new academy would prepare children as young as 12 for the establishment of a Palestinian state “from the river to the sea.” The announcement came as more than 3,000 Palestinian teenagers graduated from Hamas’s first high school military program. Hamas has been criticized in the past for using child soldiers and human shields, which in the context of the group’s battles with Israel are often reported by international media outlets as underage civilian casualties.

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