July 13, 2004.
Note of Likud of Holland: An important element that was not mentioned in the story:
The training grounds are at the UNRWA camp of Nusseirat. The US Congress is at the moment
investigating as to whether UNRWA is in violation of US law which forbids military training in
US funded agencies abroad.
Children as young as 10 are being recruited to fight for the Palestinian cause.
Sky News has gained access to a young people’s camp in Gaza, where the only
lesson taught is how to kill Israelis. Sky’s Middle East Correspondent Emma
Hurd said the camp, at an undisclosed location, had been set up to drill children
in the ways of war.
The recruits, some of whom are dwarfed by their AK-47 assault rifles, are
taught how to carry out ambushes.
They are also made to do an obstacle course, crawling under barbed wire and
leaping through hoops of fire while their instructors fire live bullets overhead.
Hurd witnessed one training session in which a militant, dressed as a Jewish
settler complete with yarmulke skull cap, was ambushed in his car.Gunmen
pulled the “settler” from his vehicle and Hurd was told if this had been real he
would have been killed.
She spoke to two 10-year-old recruits.
One of them, Mustafa, said he wanted to shoot down Israeli aircraft and
blow up tanks.
The camp is run by a group called the Popular Resistance Committee, which
said the next generation of Palestinians needed to know how to fight the Israeli
“occupation”.
The boys even “graduate” at the end of their training, receiving a certificate
from the camp commander.
