Hamas's Child Abuse Camps

by Khaled Abu Toameh • July 30, 2015 at 6:00 pm

More than 500 Hamas members of Hamas's armed wing, Ezaddin al-Qassam, are supervising the military training and religious education in the camps to train future jihadis in the war against Israel. Hamas's religious education is aimed at teaching the children about Islam and its sharia laws. They are also being taught that making peace with the "infidels" is prohibited under the teachings of Islam.
It is disturbing to see how international and Palestinian human rights organizations, especially those claiming to defend children's rights, are turning a blind eye to this large-scale child abuse by Hamas. These organizations only care about children's rights when there is a way to throw all the blame on Israel.
The Palestinian Authority and its president, Mahmoud Abbas, are also poisoning the hearts and minds of their people by constantly inciting them against Israel. These children will never accept the two-state solution that Abbas is talking about. Nor will they ever recognize Israel's right to exist in this part of the world.
"Teach your children how to play, how to smile... Build for them an institution...on the love of Palestine and not how to get themselves killed." — Palestinian activist Eyad al-Atal, criticizing Hamas for "depriving an entire generation of Palestinians of their childhood."

Rashed Anwar Abu Diqqa attends one of Gaza's Hamas-run military summer camps. The teenage boy, shown holding an assault rifle, says "I go to the summer camp because it teaches young people lots of useful things. (Image source: MEMRI)

For the third running year, thousands of Palestinian children from the Gaza Strip are receiving military training as part of Hamas's summer camps.

The camps, which are being held under the banner "Vanguards of Liberation," are aimed at preparing children as young as 15 for fighting against Israel. More than 25,000 children have joined this year's Hamas camps, according to Hamas officials in the Gaza Strip.

What is most disturbing about this practice is that the families are not hesitant to send their children to be trained as future jihadis in the war against Israel. On the contrary, many of the families interviewed in the Palestinian media in the past few days said they were proud to see their children being taught how to use various types of weapons.