Special to WorldTribune.com
Children aren’t psychologically prepared to become terrorists, a psychoanalyst said of thousands of kids in Gaza who attend summer terror training camps.
Fadil Abu Hein told the Palestinian Arab Ma’an News Agency that “during childhood, children need to play, have fun, feel happy and all such things which help develop the human character after a school year full of pressures.”
Human rights activists have called the terror camps, which train kids as young as 14 to be jihadists, “a forced militarization of Gazan society and a violation of children’s rights.”
The UN has reported that half of Gaza’s estimated 1.8 million residents are under the age of 18 and are seen as easy fodder for terror leaders looking for fresh recruits.
One participant at the camp of Communist terror group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) told Ma’an that he wants to be a terror “leader” and that in order to accomplish that he needs to end his childhood.
“If you want to be a leader, there is no time left for playing,” the young camper said
Mahmoud al-Ras, general supervisor of the camp, said attendees “have become mature men because they grew up hearing sounds of shells and missiles and watching the resistance in Gaza cause heavy casualties against the occupation.”
A trainer at a Hamas camp told the paper the terror training is giving youth “positive values,” and that “if we don’t invest in this generation for the common good, they will be taken advantage of for evil things.”
“We show them that we aren’t terrorists, but resistance fighters defending our homeland, our religion and the people of Palestine, and that this is a religious issue, and not about political parties or factions.”
The Hamas camp leader claimed that up to 25,000 people took part in the camp this summer, and said the main goal is to indoctrinate children to prevent them from being recruited by Israeli intelligence.
At Jihad summer camp, kids told to man up: ‘No time left for playing’ added by World Tribune on
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