Palestinian kindergarten children wore military fatigues and brandished toy machine guns to simulate the capture of an Israeli soldier while performing a play in the Gaza Strip last week.
In another play at the May 5 event, children were seen throwing rocks at peers dressed as Israeli border police officers and Hasidic Jews.
The event was sponsored by the Hamas-affiliated Islamic Association in Khan Yunis. A longer recording of the event can be found here.
Ofir Gendelman, the Israeli government’s spokesperson to the Arab media, called the festival an “ISIS-like brainwashing.”
Gendelman also tweeted a video of another play, which was posted online on April 25, showing Gazan children wielding fake machine guns and stabbing two Israeli soldiers.
A separate Palestinian children’s play in Gaza on April 3 also featured the use of toy machine guns and knives against Israelis. In the performance, a veiled Palestinian girl approached two peers dressed as Israeli soldiers with a fake knife before being shot. The girl was then surrounded by other children pretending to grieve over her body, while a narrator said, “She is your blood, she is your flesh, she is your family honor.” A Palestinian child dressed as a sniper then shot the Israeli soldiers and freed a boy dressed as a Palestinian prisoner. Afterwards, the children waved Palestinian flags and danced to a song with the lyrics: “With Molotov cocktails, knives, and rocks, we were able to terrify Israel and protect our land.”
The play was performed during the Palestine Festival for Childhood and Education, which was funded by Interpal, a UK-based charity that has been designated a terrorist entity by the U.S. Treasury Department for financing Hamas. The UK Charity Commission told The Daily Mail that it was looking into the Interpal’s sponsorship of the event “as a matter of priority.” Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and his wife accepted a £2,800 ($4,045) tour of Gaza funded by Interpal in 2013, and Corbyn has previously spoken at a fundraiser for the group.
34 people were killed and 447 more injured during the recent wave of Palestinian terror from September to March. Israeli officials attributed the attacks to incitement by Palestinian leaders against Israeli and Jews. An October rally in Rafah, Gaza, featured a sprawling crowd waving butcher knives, meat cleavers, and other weapons while encouraging more terror attacks against Jews. A number of those brandishing the lethal blades were children.
A video posted by the Facebook page of the “Jerusalem Intifada’s Young People’s Coalition” in November and translated by Palestinian Media Watch depicts a young Palestinian girl encouraging youth in the West Bank to carry out stabbing attacks against Israelis.
Multiple surveys of Palestinian public opinion have found widespread, consistent support for terror attacks against Israeli civilians, as well as negative perceptions of Jews. Dan Polisar, the provost of Shalem College, explained in an article in Mosaic Magazine in November that the polls reveal the extent to which “Palestinian perpetrators of violence reflect and are acting on the basis of views widely held in their society.”
[Photo: Yaser Alagha / Youtube ]