This morning, 16 year old Palestinian Muhammad Fadi Nuri died after being shot by IDF forces in Al-Bireh last month during clashes.
Hamas' press release about it shows that Palestinians know very well that these youths are not innocent victims but active participants in fighting, saying that Nuri was participating in "ribat" - guarding the frontiers of Islam - and "defending the sanctities."
Beyond that, Hamas called on other children to join and die for the cause:
We in the Hamas movement, as we mourn the convoys of our people’s righteous martyrs, who sacrifice their lives and provide the most wonderful examples in the field of engagement with the enemy, and advance the ranks on behalf of all our people and our nation, in the defense of Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa, to call upon the masses of our people and our revolting youth to escalate the confrontation with the enemy, and to continue the path of resistance and heroism, in anger for the blood of our martyrs, as a victory for our lands, and as an end to the occupation of our land and our sanctities. It is jihad, victory or martyrdom.
Palestinian children are brainwashed daily to emulate the "martyrs," both in the media and in their schools. In the case of Nuri and dozens of others this year, this incitement leads them to attack IDF soldiers with firebombs and other deadly weapons.
As we see from Hamas, this is being encouraged and applauded.
Meanwhile, the Western "anti-Zionists," instead of being horrified at the explicit weaponization of children, eagerly seize on each death as fuel for their own excuses for spreading modern antisemitism and blood libels against the Jewish state.
Israel doesn't want to kill kids - but Hamas and "human rights" defenders sure love when they are forced to.
(h/t Ibn Boutros)
