Palestinian Islamic Jihad Holds Terrorist Summer Camp for Gaza Children 

Palestinian Islamic Jihad Holds Terrorist Summer Camp for Gaza Children 

Nearly a month after conducting deadly rocket and terrorist attacks against Israel, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) is organizing a “summer camp” for children in Gaza, counter-terrorism expert Joe Truzman reported in the FDD’s Long War Journal. The two-week-long terror camp will be used to indoctrinate children in the ideology of jihad warfare, introduce them to terrorist tactics and seek recruits for future terrorist campaigns against Israel, the report suggests.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), an Iran-sponsored terrorist group that operates under the protection of Hamas in Gaza, fired more than 1000 rockets toward Israel in the latest round of aggression. The Israeli military responded by eliminating several key members of the PIJ top brass.  Undeterred by the recent losses, the terrorist outfit seeking new recruits in its ongoing jihad against the Jewish State.

Summer camp for most kids involves new friends, outdoors activities and fun.

This is summer camp in Gaza of Islamic Jihad — training child soldiers. This is child abuse!
pic.twitter.com/21AakYy1Sm

— Emily Schrader – אמילי שריידר امیلی شریدر (@emilykschrader) June 13, 2023

Truzman reported in the Long War Journal:

On June 10, mosques operated by Islamic Jihad held open registration for Palestinian youth to attend military training camps in the Gaza Strip. The camp is called “Revenge of the Free,” which is the name given by Islamic Jihad to the latest conflict with Israel in May 2023. According to Islamic Jihad, the camp started on June 12 and will last for two weeks.

Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, including other militant organizations have held summer camps for more than ten years in Gaza, often publishing propaganda videos showing children undergoing military training.

While Palestinian militant organizations often tout the camps as a place to promote religious and recreational activities for children and teens, they are primarily used to indoctrinate jihadist ideology, including the armed struggle against Israel. Also, the camps are a promotional tool for Palestinian youth to join armed militant organizations, some of whom are classified as a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. government. FDD’s Long War Journal has tracked the recruitment of children by Palestinian armed groups such as Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Mujahideen Brigades.

Despite the camps drawing criticism, Palestinian militant organizations continue to organize them yearly. The indifference to the condemnation was evident during the opening ceremony of a Hamas-run summer camp in 2021. (…)

Actors such as Hezbollah and the Houthis also target children and teenagers for potential recruitment. For example, in 1985, Hezbollah established a youth organization called the Imam al-Mahdi Scouts Association, which is often used as a stepping stone to join its so-called military wing. Mahdi scouts receive military training, are indoctrinated in “greater jihad,” and are taught about the armed struggle against Israel.

Hamas also holds similar summer camps in Gaza, introducing boys as young as nine to the doctrine of jihad and terrorist training. The training includes mock-drills on killing Israeli civilians and taking IDF soldiers hostage.

“For over ten years, summer camps for children and teens held in Hamas-controlled Gaza have served as a framework for inculcating an extremist ideology that glorifies jihad, terror and armed struggle against Israel with the aim of ‘liberating Palestine from the river to the sea,'” the DC-based Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) noted in 2021. Mosques in Gaza are used to promote these jihad summer camps. Hamas registered more than 50,000 children for its 2021 summer camps, the Jerusalem Post reported.

The Palestinian terrorist groups induce children with the promise of martyrdom and put them on the frontline of their violent jihad against Israel. These minors and child soldiers are then portrayed as innocent victims to smear the Israeli armed forces, a narrative all too willingly accepted by the U.S. and Western mainstream media.

The so-called  Palestinian human rights groups “ignore or minimize the violent attacks perpetrated by the minors that precipitated their deaths and blame Israel for deploying self-defense measures to protect the victims of such attacks,” the watchdog group NGO Monitor noted in a February 2023 report.

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