Thirty-seven Gaza children who had traveled to the Erez border crossing for a trip into Israel were prohibited from entering by the terrorist organization Hamas.

The New York Times reports:

Israeli officials and organizers of the highly unusual weeklong peace-building visit said that it had been fully coordinated with the Israeli liaison authorities and that Israeli approval had been given. But Hamas, the Islamic militant group that dominates Gaza, apparently went back on an initial agreement to allow the youths to enter Israel.

“This was a suspicious visit that aimed to normalize our children with the Zionist occupation,” Eyad al-Buzom, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry in Gaza, said in a telephone interview. “In order to protect our sons, we prevented them from visiting the occupation,” he said, referring to Israel. Mr. Buzom refused to elaborate, but he said that all “dangerous” trips of this kind would be prevented in the future. …

The trip was organized Yoel Marshak of the Kibbutz Movement, “in cooperation with Israel’s Arab and Bedouin communities and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.” The children whose ages ranged from 13 to 16 are children of Hamas fighters who had been killed during Operation Protective Edge. Their itinerary was to include visiting both Jewish and Arab cities, as well as a trip to the safari park near Ramat Gan and a meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Marshak said that the motivation of the trip was “to give them a positive experience in Israel,” because in the future “these children will be the leaders in Gaza.”

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