Dozens of Palestinians graduated from Hamas’ military training program in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, “displaying weapons, marching in military formation and burning an Israeli flag in front of crowds of cheering supporters,” The Times of Israel reported. Graduates ranged in age from middle-aged adults to young children, one of whom burned an Israeli flag while wearing military fatigues at the closing ceremony.
Boy burning Israeli flag the spotlight of Hamas graduation https://t.co/eLmmeZ20ro
— The Times of Israel (@TimesofIsrael) January 23, 2017
The graduates launched a raid on a mock Israeli army outpost during the ceremony.
Hamas has a history of training young children to be “martyrs” in the fight against Israel. The group announced in July that it was opening three-week-long training camps in Gaza for over 50,000 elementary, middle, and high school students. Hamas official Ismail Radwan explained at the time that the camps aim “to raise a generation of Palestinians who love the resistance and the liberation of Palestine and the Al-Aqsa Mosque.” The camps also include scouting and religious educational programming.
Hamas often dresses children in military uniforms and teaches them how to shoot firearms. In May of last year, Palestinian kindergarten students in the Gaza Strip wearing military fatigues and brandishing toy machine guns simulated the capture of an Israeli soldier as part of a school play.
In At Summer Camp, Hamas Raises the Next Generation of Killers, which was published in the August 2016 issue of The Tower Magazine, Riley Clafton described how Hamas uses camps “to cultivate the next generation of Palestinian terrorists.”
This summer, Mohammad Nofal’s 10-year-old son will be participating in all of the typical Gaza summer camp activities: scouting, beach games, media lessons, military training sessions, and introductory programs on this year’s theme, “Jerusalem Intifada.” Other campers will spend their summer like 12-year-old Musaab, learning to crawl beneath barbed wire and wield assault rifles in simulated attacks on Israeli military outposts. While parent Alaa’ Abou Chanab argued that he sent his child to a Hamas summer camp because “children have the right to play during summer break,” the camps in Gaza are an underestimated vehicle for perpetuating terror and hateful ideology.
“I was surprised that my 14-year-old son was trained on how to carry weapons during the summer camp organized by Hamas,” Abou Chanab told Al-Monitor. What is more surprising, however, is his surprise. The violent, militaristic camps sponsored by the terror groups of Gaza are an annual event, and the organizations behind them make no efforts to hide their agendas. “These camps are designed to prepare a generation that carries the Quran and rifle,” senior Hamas official Khalil al-Haya explained in a press release. “The camps show that Palestinians support the resistance and the project of liberation of Palestine. The goal is to liberate Palestine and the Aqsa Mosque [in Jerusalem].” Every year, the terror groups of Gaza bolster their numbers by reaching out to youth, and every year, children are trained to fire machine guns, storm military positions, perform kidnappings, plant mines, and conduct first aid.
More than 50 percent of the population in Gaza is under the age of 18, and what these children are learning will play a decisive role in the future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For anyone attending these camps, that role is unlikely to be positive. The terror groups of the strip use summertime camps for one purpose: to cultivate the next generation of Palestinian terrorists.
[Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90 ]