The frightening phenomenon of Palestinian Child Soldiers

By Rolene Marks

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) 

Children are usually the first casualties of conflict. The world is currently commemorating Child Soldiers Week – however it is more a “blink and you miss it” occasion as this frightening phenomenon doesn’t seem to feature high on the list of global priorities and has a fancy coloured ribbon or trendy hashtag attached.  In the Middle East, this is not restricted to victims of conflict but also another phenomenon which is more often than not ignored. Palestinian children, often robbed of their rights to live normal childhoods and dreams and aspirations of future careers, are forced to become child soldiers by terror groups like Hamas, Palestinian Jihad, Fatah and others who force them into the frontlines. This is a flagrant abuse of their personal and human rights, not to mention their safety.

As  defined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child states, a “child soldier” is:

 “…any person below 18 years of age who is or who has been recruited or used by an armed force or armed group in any capacity, including but not limited to children, boys and girls, used as fighters, cooks, porters, messengers, spies or for sexual purposes”.

The definition is not limited to a child who is taking or has taken a direct part in hostilities.

Palestinian children in particular, are extremely vulnerable to being exploited.  Palestinian children grow up on a steady diet of incitement and hatred; indoctrinated into their impressionable young minds from an early age. The Palestinian children learn from an early age, the phrase ” اذبح اليهود”  (“Slaughter the Jews”) in Arabic.  This refers specifically to “Jews” which includes Israelis.  That wording is very deliberate – and also refers to Jews outside of Israel.

The chilling images of cartoonish Mickey Mouse type characters like Farfur the mouse or Nahul the bee on children’s television shows have shown us that abuse of this kind starts young. This indoctrination carries on into the formative school years.

Summer holidays bring with them, an opportunity to go to camp. This is not an opportunity for Palestinian children to learn arts and crafts and sing songs around the campfire. Instead, approximately 10 000 children will be schooled as auxiliaries and militia members and attend grueling basic training boot camps. There, children will learn to march, engage in combat maneuvers, weapon operation, and terrorist tactics, with the intention of carrying out attacks by who they are trained to see as the “enemy”. Their enemy is Israel, Jews and those who identify as Zionists. Their aim is to “wipe out the Zionist entity”. Children are then recruited to the frontline, alongside terror group leaders.

Children from as young as 9 and up to the age of 17 have been pushed into combat, to fight and die alongside the adults. This is not restricted just to engaging in combat – children, as well as the elderly and women are used as human shields and it is not uncommon to hear Hamas and their ilk boasting about the use of their civilians as cannon fodder. While in some cases the youngest of these casualties has been covered up with older, fake ages on casualty lists, Hamas and PIJ have been proud of the teenagers that have been “martyred” in battle. To be “martyred” often means being awarded rock star status with their images on posters around the neighbourhood and streets and other buildings named in their honour.  

Exploiting their innocence, terror groups have recruited children to become suicide bombers, stabbers or rock throwers. These children often do not fully understand the consequences of this; and believe that they are fulfilling a noble cause.

​Children used as “suicide stabbers” are a tactic often employed by Fatah. Encouraged by an economy of hate; where terrorists and their families are paid monthly stipends and a steady diet of incitement, there has been a significant increase in children being recruited for this. This has been referred to as “pay for slay” and for the Palestinians to show that they are sincere about peace, this practice needs to end. 

In order to stab and viciously murder men, women and children at the age of 17, one has to have been brainwashed for years prior to that.

Terror leaders often encourage children to engage in violent riots.  They are taught by radical organizations to throw stones at passing cars and people. This is not an innocuous act; several Israelis have been killed or severely maimed by this kind of action. The “romantic” image of the rock wielding Palestinian against the perceived Israeli Goliath also has very real consequences. Thousands, if not tens of thousands, of stone-throwing incidents occur every year at the behest of Palestinian organizations. Children are systematically used as riot fodder. Seen as great occasions of resistance, schools are closed and children are bused to the front lines to be used as a modern day shield-wall.  This was a regular occurrence during the “March of Return” where thousands of Palestinians would riot at the border fence between Israel and Gaza. The disabled were also bused to the frontline and on several occasions, rioters set donkeys alight. Quite often, children are bribed to rush security fences and try to sabotage them. What did this achieve? Absolutely nothing.

The parents are fully aware and know that their teenage children are in a danger zone and may be severely harmed; but still encourage them; knowing that they may not return home safely.

Children are also used as terror labourers. Terror organisations like Hamas within the Gaza strip have built an underground network of tunnels for the purposes of smuggling weapons and launching attacks on Israeli civilians. These tunnels are usually built with a child labour force, operating in lethal sweatshop conditions. By 2012, over 9 children had been buried alive and killed while digging tunnels and there has been no indication that this practice has stopped.

Using children as combatants in conflict is one of the grossest forms of child abuse and there needs to be more of an international outcry – and action to put an immediate stop to this practice. Children deserve to enjoy their childhood and their youth without become human weapons of terror. Any sincere path to peace depends on this.

While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO)

NGO sensationalizes false narrative of Israeli ‘Apartheid’ to keep donor taps running

By Shaun Sacks

Last Wednesday, January 21, 2021, Eyewitness News  – a South African multi-platform news publisher (EWN) – ran an AFP story that again amplified the “Apartheid” smear campaign against Israel.

The latest installment to the “Israeli Apartheid” canard was credited to the “Israeli rights group” B’Tselem, whose analysis the AFP refers to as “hard-hitting.” However, neither the newswire service nor EWN saw fit to include any opposing point of view in their report.

From its initial headline, EWN misleads its readers by ignoring or knowingly disregarding facts that do not suit its preconceived narrative of Israel.  By referring to B’Tselem simply as “Israeli”, AP and EWN conceal the fact that almost two-thirds of B’Tselem’s budget comes from foreign [i.e., non-Israeli] governmental bodies. 

B’Tselem and many other NGOs annually take in millions in government contracts for “human rights” work. These NGOs then report back to their donors about the continued deterioration of human rights in Israel and the Palestinian territories, consequently asking donor governments for additional funds. This circular funding system ensures that B’Tselem and many NGOs like it remain well-financed and disproportionately vocal, despite their marginal role within Israeli society. Based on financial information submitted to the Israeli Registrar of Non-Profits, B’Tselem’s income from foreign governments between 2016 and 2020 was over 14.5 million US dollars. This is in excess of R200 million, a staggering amount of money for a “rights organization.”

Even more troubling is that this exorbitant amount of money has, by B’Tselem’s own admission, been spent on objectives that were not achieved.  Despite receiving millions of dollars in government contracts to improve human rights, B’Tselem can now claim that they will need millions more because, in their words, “A [human rights] threshold has been crossed.”

In any other field, one may ask why programs that by their own admission do not achieve results should continue to receive funding. In the case of the Arab-Israeli conflict, however, human rights NGOs like B’Tselem are immune to criticism and will perpetually receive government funds as long they continue to fail.

B’Tselem publications are geared to foreign audiences, whether in South Africa or the United States, or Europe which supplies the majority of its budget. Its latest announcement, timed to coincide with the inauguration of President Biden, appears designed to latch on to trends in American politics. In declaring Israeli Apartheid, B’Tselem appear to be appealing to the more liberal policies of the new administration, but it also employs antisemitic language of “Jewish supremacy,” recalling the title of former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke’s 2002 book “Jewish Supremacism: My Awakening on the Jewish Question.”

As with its latest publication, B’Tselem has a habit of first finding Israel guilty, and only then defining the crime and preparing information to suit its predetermined conclusion. 

For example, in order to justify its Apartheid label, B’Tselem chooses to reclassify Israelis citizens into various categories. It then claims that Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are disenfranchised – not because the PA has refused to hold elections since 2006 – but rather because Israel has not ceded sufficient responsibilities to the PA.  It is difficult to understand how the delineation of responsibilities and rights, mutually negotiated and agreed to by the internationally recognized Oslo agreements, is proof of “Apartheid.”  Moreover, it ignores the fact that the governing body in Area A of the West Bank is the PA and Hamas in Gaza.

Media outlets enjoy amplifying sensational stories, and for reasons that are never fully explained, reports of Israeli wrongdoings, regardless of their factual veracity, are always sensational. NGOs like B’Tselem, which cannot appeal to their achievements for funding, now rely instead on sensationalism to keep their funding cycle going.

About the writer: 

Shaun Sacks immigrated to Israel from South Africa in 1998. He received his BA from Bar Ilan University. Before joining NGO Monitor as a Senior Researcher, Shaun was the Senior Project Manager for NETSOURCE, an Israeli firm that specializes in providing technology employment opportunities to Ultra-Orthodox communities, and emerging market manager for McAfee Inc.

While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO)