This Palestinian camp is run as a military training camp. The children who, to judge by their photos posted on social media, are in their early teens, learn to march, to carry and shoot rifles, to wield knives, to crawl over obstacles as if on a field of battle, to shout “Allahu akbar” as they surprise an enemy and make ready to kill him, to learn lessons on how they, these solemn young campers can best avenge, and ideally undo, the theft of their Muslim land by the cruel and corrupt Zionist enemy. 

It is summer, and that means that Hamas and Islamic Jihad are proudly parading photos of their violating the war crime of recruiting child soldiers, calling it “summer camp.”

This is a WAR CRIME. As thק ICRC says:

"The Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child differentiates between States and non-State armed groups in setting the age-limit for recruitment and use in hostilities. For States, the age limit for direct participation in hostilities and for compulsory recruitment is 18. This means they can accept voluntary enlistment of persons between the ages of 15 and 18. Armed groups, on the other hand, are bound by a stricter prohibition, affecting both voluntary and compulsory recruitment of under-18s."

There are no photos of the kids engaging in sports, playing games or otherwise having fun. Calling this a “summer camp” is a joke. It is a military training camp for kids. And Islamic Jihad makes this clear in their recruitment video.

According to the ICRC, the military training of children is a war crime. And while a state may under certain conditions allow the voluntary enlistment for such training of persons between the ages of 15 and 18, the rule is different for non-state actors, that are not permitted to accept for military training persons under the age of 18. The photographs of the campers released by Islamic Jihad, a non-state actor, show them all to range in age from 13 to 17, and therefore, giving them military training is considered a “war crime” by the ICRC.

Not only that, but Islamic Jihad freely admits that the targets of the weapons the children learn to use are Jews.  Islamic Jihad official Darwish al-Gharabli said, “These camps qualify the generation to carry the banner after this generation, part of which has been martyred; it also establishes a generation that is aligned with the path of jihad and resistance; believing in this option and that Palestine is the central issue and fighting the Jews is an act of worship.”

These children are not just being trained to use weapons and to march. They are being indoctrinated in hatred of “the Jews” (a more inclusive category than “Zionists”), told that fighting (and killing) them has a religious dimension as “an act of worship.”

The UN and its agencies, and Defense for Children International Palestine, and other “human rights” NGOs are curiously uninterested in this incitement to violence and these violations of children’s human rights and international law….

Even if these “Palestinian children” who are being trained at a summer military camp to kill “the Jews” are underage, why should anyone find fault? Certainly not the UN, nor the International Committee of the Red Cross, nor Human Rights Watch – they’re on board with that kind of training, for that very special kind of enemy. Who could object to happy campers singing in the gloaming, by the campfire, that beloved old tune “From the river to the sea, Palestine shall soon be free”?