Posted on 01/13/2003 12:51:47 PM PST by SJackson
Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) - The Palestinian terrorist organizations are testing Israel's alertness and trying to gain world sympathy by sending younger terrorists, an Israeli army spokesman charged on Monday.
Two Palestinian brothers 14 and 17 years of age infiltrated the Gaza Strip settlement of Netzarim on Saturday evening. Ahmed Hamis Ismail Alhanajra and his older brother, Mahmoud, were armed with knives.
The two tried to stab a boy in the community, but he managed to escape. The boy's father shot at the two when he saw their knives. They fled, but the two were moderately injured - one with a gunshot wound and the other with a broken hip - before being captured and taken to an Israeli hospital.
Less than two weeks ago, three Palestinian teens, 15 and 16 years of age, were shot and killed by Israeli troops as they attempted to infiltrate another Gaza Strip community, Elei Sinai.
The teens, who had penetrated an outer perimeter fence, were dressed in civilian clothes and carried wire cutters and a knife.
They had reportedly been sent by the Popular Resistance Committee - an ad hoc group comprised of Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other terrorist factions, raised up two years ago to direct the intifadah.
According to the army spokesman, it is a "strategic choice" and not a coincidence that younger terrorists are being sent to perpetrate attacks against Israel. He was adamant that the youths should not be referred to as children but as terrorists.
"[The Palestinians have made] a strategic decision to use younger terrorists in order to get more sympathy in the international press," the spokesman said in a telephone interview.
"Also, the use of teenagers is seen as a test," said the spokesman, who asked not to be named due to army regulations.
The terrorist organizations want to see if the army can detect the youngsters, who are armed with knives instead of guns, and cut through the fences in the middle of the night, he said.
"Once they know that the fence is safe [from Israel's point of view], the older ones probably won't try it," he added.
Nevertheless, he said, the development did not take Israel entirely by surprise because parents and schools are educating their children for it.
"When the educational system teaches for shahedeem [martyrs] among children, we shouldn't be surprised when they use children," the spokesman said.
The Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), an independent Israeli watchdog organization, has charged that schools, summer camps and sports teams are named after so-called martyrs, encouraging children to follow suit.
The PMW has also pointed to numerous commercials and children's programs on official PA television, which encourage children to become martyrs.
A survey carried out by the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion last week showed that more than 56 percent of Palestinians support the continuation of suicide attacks.
Parents of suicide bombers - and other terrorists interviewed after a terror attack - often express their joy and approval of the actions of their children.
Children themselves are often interviewed saying that they want to become martyrs for the cause.
Nablus students show their solidarity with suicide bombers
The families of the two suicide bombers responsible for the terrorist attack in Tel Aviv (Jan. 5, 2003), in which 22 Israeli and foreign nationals were killed, are being honored and praised in the Palestinian street. The National and Islamic Forces (the supreme organization for the coordination of the intifada), as well as representatives from schools in Nablus and students from Al Najah University placed a banner in support of the suicide bombers in the families' houses.
Note: The city of Nablus is a terrorist haven, where support for suicide bombers is freely expressed. The Hamas movement heads the student union in Al Najah University. Many suicide bombers were students in Al Najah [in comparison with other Palestinian universities], and members of Hamas. The solidarity shown by the schoolchildren of Nablus and the University students of Al Najah with the suicide bombers who murdered 22 civilians attests to the depth of the penetration of radical Islamic ideas to the heart of the Palestinian education system.
Article on the Hamas website about the schoolchildren and university students' solidarity with suicide bombers:
Will this not help the bulldozers find the homes more quickly?
There are a million Arabs who are willing to recruit young men for these "martyrdom operations" - but I never see any forty year old imams or PLO commissars running into town strapped with dynamite.
They seem to be able to curb their enthusiasm.
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