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Social media networks are being exploited by Palestinian terror factions to boost recruitment of minors, according to an Israeli military source. The source noted that although the trend of recruiting minors is not new, its current form and scope are both relatively new phenomena.
In
2004 during the Second Intifada, 16-year-old Hussam Abdo, who was stopped at a
Huwara military checkpoint wearing a suicide-bomb belt, made headlines across
the globe. Since then, however, the smartphone revolution and the arrival of
social media networks have created many new recruitment opportunities.
The
military source said that while in the past, incitement in Palestinian
education and informal educational systems was the main vehicle for terror
recruitment, today, the device in every minor’s possession is a potential
recruitment tool.
In
2019, United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres issued a statement
calling on Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and others to cease targeting
Palestinian minors for recruitment. Needless to say, his call fell on deaf
ears.
Terror
organizations continue to go after Palestinian children and teens of all ages,
though they especially target teenagers.
The
Israel Defense Forces has monitored efforts by the local Lions’ Den terror
group, based in Nablus, to target for recruitment youths with no previous
organizational affiliation by exposing them to incitement to violence. The
group has skillfully used platforms like TikTok to encourage youths to arm
themselves and join the group.
“Social
media networks are used for two goals. One is for recruitment— minors are told
to meet terror operatives, to join such and such activity— and the second is
for incitement. Jews and Israelis are described as evil Zionist occupiers and
youths are encouraged to turn to violence,” said the source.
While
established terror organizations like Hamas and PIJ use social media networks
to advance their narratives via longer videos, it is the localized factions in
Samaria that are most adept at producing the short TikTok videos that speak to
the youngest generation, according to the source.
Meanwhile,
in Palestinian Authority-run schools—which are partially funded by countries
such as the United States and Germany—children take part in plays that simulate
the kidnapping of IDF soldiers or the killing of Israeli civilians.
School
books describe demonic “Zionist enemies” to impressionable young children, and
yet another generation grows up lacking any cognitive educational foundation
for peaceful conflict resolution.
Twenty-four
Palestinian schools in Judea and Samaria are named after terrorists, including
Abu Daoud, the Black September mastermind behind the 1972 Munich massacre of
Israeli athletes taking part in the Olympics.
With
the Palestinian Authority paying salaries to imprisoned terrorists and
compensating the families of “martyrs,” the messaging to Palestinian youths is
clear. In P.A.-run mosques, meanwhile, imams also incite to violence, meaning
that Palestinian youths are being saturated with such messages from multiple
directions.
According
to IDF assessments, some 90 percent of Palestinian minors injured or killed
during clashes with the IDF were combatants, the source said. “This means they
were either armed or were hurling firebombs and rocks from close range,
endangering the forces.”
“The
other side, however, wants to present as many non-adult casualties as it can,
and to leverage this in the international arena,” said the source. “And we see
that this is working, in a terrible way.”
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