Inside the Hamas Camp That Teaches Gaza Teens to Emulate ‘Suicide Martyrs’

Hamas continues to provide military training to Gaza’s youths and on Monday marked the graduation of the latest crop of trainees. According to a report in the Times of Israel, the terrorist group’s aim is to train teenagers “to follow in the footsteps of the suicide martyrs.”

Here are some photos the Times found posted on Hamas ministry websites, reflecting the government stamp-of-approval on the high school children’s military activities.

Among the winter camp activities, teens practice taking apart and reassembling automatic weapons (Photo: Hamas interior ministry website)

Training at the government-run Hamas camp included firing weapons (Photo: Hamas interior ministry website)

The Times of Israel reported:

The camps, titled “the pioneers of liberation,” are run by Hamas’s ministries of education and interior. Some 13,000 students in grades 10-12 participated in the one-week training camps this year, compared to 5,000 last year when the program was launched, Israeli sources with knowledge of the program said.

The corps of instructors consists mainly of active members of Hamas’s security forces, and the curriculum includes weapons training, first aid, self defense, marching exercises and “security awareness” classes on identifying Israeli spies.

Attending the graduation ceremony on Monday: Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, Interior Minister Fathi Hammad and Education Minister Usama Mzeini.

“Beware this generation,” Haniyeh told the graduates. “This is a generation which knows no fear. It is the generation of the missile, the tunnel and the suicide operations.” Haniyeh was referring to underground tunnels between Gaza and Egypt through which Hamas and other militant groups smuggle military hardware.

Haniyeh encouraged women to engage in terrorist operations. He said that female trainers were at the camp “to oversee the training of the young women to follow in the footsteps of the female suicide operatives.”

Student Mohammed Abu Nar was quoted on the interior ministry’s website discussing the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

“We are the pioneers of liberation, we are coming to purify you from the Zionists,” he said.

The latest training session is reminiscent of similar camps run over the summer in Gaza, including one by Islamic Jihad about which TheBlaze reported in June that included AK-47 shooting training, jumping over fire, and a game called “kidnap an Israeli soldier.”

Besides the controlled explosions which also occurred at the camp, lessons in Islam were provided to the children.

In August, a video “Camp Jihad” was released which documented belligerent, anti-Semitic activities at some United Nations-funded camps in Gaza and the northern West Bank.

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