Surprised the media ignored the 15-year-old killed at Gaza border was active military member of terror groups? - by Joe Truzman

Mainstream media falsely portrays Gaza’s March of Return as peaceful civilian protests, and ignores Palestinian use of child soldiers.

Joe Truzman..
Legal Imsurrection..
04 March '19..

On February 23rd, 2019, a 15 year-old Palestinian, Yusef al-Daya, was shot in the chest at a weekly event called the March of Return. The event is held every Friday at the Gaza border. Al-Daya was rushed to a local hospital where he was resuscitated but a short time later, succumbed to his wound.

Prominent media outlets such as Reuters stated; “Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian teen.” The article makes no mention of important facts about al-Daya and what he was doing at the security fence.

This is a common framing of the “protests” at the security fence, which portray the participants as civilians and highlight people under 18 (“children”) killed. The death received considerable media attention, and came not long before the UN Human Rights Council issued a report condemning Israeli killings of “civilians” at the Gaza security fence.

Al-Daya wasn’t just a civilian protesting, he was a member of the Palestinian Mujahideen Movement who have a military wing called Mujahideen Brigades.

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.

Financially Strapped Hamas's New Army of Children

...Hamas has made it clear that it plans to send the teenagers to launch rockets and mortars at Israel, with the hope that they would achieve "martyrdom." But this does not seem to bother Abbas or the Palestinian Authority, or even the international community. If and when the International Criminal Court convenes to consider "war crimes" in the Middle East, the first thing the judges should look into is how Hamas sent thousands of Palestinian teenagers to their deaths and, as that was happening, how Abbas and the Palestinian Authority looked the other way.

Khaled Abu Toameh..
Gatestone Institute..
18 February '15..

For the past several months, Hamas leaders have been complaining that they do not have enough money to rebuild the Gaza Strip in the aftermath of the last war with Israel.

However, it appears that Hamas does have enough funds to train, arm and indoctrinate thousands of young Palestinian men and boys.

While thousands of Palestinian families who lost their houses during the war continue to live in public shelters throughout the Gaza Strip, Hamas recently established 18 camps for military training.

The Hamas military training camps, under the motto "Vanguards of Liberation," have attracted some 17,000 Palestinian males aged 15-21. The young recruits were trained how to use various types of weapons, including pistols, rifles and mortars. They were also "educated" about the need to eliminate Israel and "restore Palestinian rights."

Samir Abu Aitah, a 15-year-old boy who joined the Hamas-run militia, said: "I now feel very happy because they trained me how to use weapons so that I could fight against the soldiers of the occupation. The Jews have killed thousands of innocent people and that's why I decided to join the path of jihad (holy war) and fight against them with weapons. We want to expel the Jews from our occupied country."

Another 15-year-old boy, Mahmoud al-Kurd, said he really enjoyed being trained with weapons at Hamas's camps. "Our enemy understands only one language – the language of swords."

Al-Kurd's friend, Ismail Elayan, who is also 15, told reporters who visited the training camps: "I decided to join the camp because this will pave the way for liberating all of our country. This is our major goal."

Mohamed al-Najjar, 16, said he joined the training camps because he "loves martyrdom." He added: "I want to pursue the path of resistance until I'm martyred."

Hamas later held a "graduation ceremony" for the young recruits who are expected to serve in its future "Liberation Army." And when Hamas talks about "liberation," it means it wants to wipe Israel off the face of the earth and replace it with an Islamic state.

Red Hand Day and the sacrificing of the lives of an entire generation of adolescents

...Many Americans will know that certain television channels down through the sixties, seventies and even today, broadcast a public service announcement late at night (it's described here), intended as a reminder to parents to worry about the younger generation. Times change, children are now agents of death in large parts of the world, and it's right (as Red Hand Day today reminds us) to think about what the despots and fanatics in charge of various jihad-addicted parts of the world, including the cities where many of us live, have done:

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
12 February '15..

We first mentioned Red Hand Day here two years ago ["24-Jan-13: Sacrificing the lives of an entire generation of adolescents..."] which is marked on February 12 of each year. That's of course today's date. It's a day that serves as an occasion to encourage political leaders to be aware of the fate of children forced to serve as soldiers in wars and armed conflicts. Wikipedia says

The aim of Red Hand Day is to call for action against this practice, and support for children who are affected by it. Children have been used repeatedly as soldiers in recent years including armed conflicts... A number of international organizations are active against the use of children as soldiers. These organizations include, for example, the United Nations Child Fund (UNICEF), Amnesty International, Terre des Hommes or the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.

As memorable events go, Red Hand Day isn't, frankly. It's hugely overshadowed by commemorations that have a stronger following at this time of year: Valentines Day, for instance, which has the enthusiastic backing of shop-keepers and gift manufacturers. There isn't much enthusiastic backing from the people whose mandate ought to include generating awareness of Red Hand Day, and in particular the egregious ways its message is trampled in Gaza,

(Continue)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work as well as a big vote to follow our good friend Kay Wilson on Twitter, 
.

Gazan child abuse, again preparing children to kill and be killed. Where's the outrage?

...Something hideous is being done to the children of Gaza. Those doing it declare it's what Islam demands. As far as we can tell, Islam's adherents in other places are largely silent. This cannot be because they don't know it's happening. It cannot be that the guardians of children's rights - or human rights - don't know. Could it be they don't want to know? Or want us to understand?

Gaza: one of the flocked children [Image Source]

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
10 February '15..

Many of us are not fully sensitive to the way our emotional reaction to news stories is a function of how it is reported. The tone of news articles - critical, supportive, cynical, angry, amused - is something that editors, writers and the people who write the headlines and add the pictures understand well. Consumers of the news? Not so much.

Agence France Presse, one of the world's major packagers and syndicators of news reporting and imagery, and the oldest (founded in 1835), provides news outlets throughout the world with many of the stories they publish. From conversations, we sense that the role of the large packagers - including Reuters, Associated Press and Xinhua - is barely comprehended by end-users. But their influence, as newspapers lack the profitability and cash to employ their own reporters in the many (often troubled) locations where news is made, is vast.

So a person might think that with a heavy and growing responsibility for getting those stories right, AFP (which is still entirely owned by the French government) and the others would make efforts to present things in a balanced, objective way, free of editorializing and bias.

Which brings us to a story that AFP syndicated out to its news customers in the last 24 hours. It's datelined Gaza, and describes systematic child abuse carried out yet again, on a colossal scale, by the thugs of certain outlawed terrorist organizations operating in dark Islamist/Moslem Brotherhood-controlled corners of the world, and the outrage from the many organizations, those with the huge budgets and the heart-rending websites and a mandate to speak for the urgent need to protect innocent children, loudly condemning the facts presented in the article.

Actually we're being sarcastic. Today's AFP report, headlined "Gaza youngsters flock to Hamas training camps", does no such thing, though the facts describe a humanitarian disaster of global significance.

(Continue)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work as well as a big vote to follow our good friend Kay Wilson on Twitter, 
.

Hamas - Ensuring a bright and promising future for all Gaza's children

"Every year until Palestine is liberated, thousands will join the training camps, so will they arrive in the occupied West Bank [already] prepared. The phenomenon of the generation of liberation is not a fleeting one, but is rooted in reality. Perhaps tomorrow, they will be standing behind the rockets, firing them at every inch of Palestine in the war of Judgment Day – the war for the liberation of Palestine. The youth of liberation are the near future generation that will fire rockets at the Zionists in the next liberation campaign against the [Zionist] entity...

Poster announcing the camps
(Facebook.com/camps.gaza?fref=photo,
 January 10, 2015) 

MEMRI..
Special Dispatch No.5951..
03 February '15..

On January 20-27, 2015, Hamas's military branch, the 'Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, held military training camps for some 17,000 youths aged 15-21. According to a Hamas-affiliated website (palinfo.com), the camps, called "Talai' Al-Tahrir" (Pioneers of Liberation), were "extremely popular", and the movement therefore had to hold both morning and afternoon camps.[1] The camp activities, attended by Hamas officials, included training with live ammunition. The purpose of the enterprise is to form the core of a popular army comprising members from all sectors of society, and to prepare the teens, ideologically and militarily, for jihad and for the struggle with Israel. Youths who participated in the camps declared that they had come to learn how to kidnap Israeli soldiers and liberate Jerusalem.

The following are details about the camps and statements about them from Hamas officials.

Hamas Officials: The Youths Trained At The Camps Will Fire The Rockets In The Next Campaign And Liberate Palestine

At the camp's closing ceremony, held on January 27, 2015, Isma'il Haniya, deputy head of Hamas's political bureau, said: "The people's rallying around the resistance will foil all of [Israel's] plans to harm the image of Hamas and of the 'Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades... The Al-Qassam Brigades' camps are a strategic enterprise [aimed at] raising the generation of victory and liberation. Resistance and preparations for bearing arms against the enemy are no longer optional, but have become a culture embraced not only by Hamas, but by every Palestinian home and every Palestinian sector." Haniya emphasized that the main message is that Hamas wishes to convey with these camps is that it "cares for all popular strata, so they will be fully prepared for defending Palestinian soil and the Palestinian people."[2]

(Continue)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work as well as a big vote to follow our good friend Kay Wilson on Twitter, 
.

The World's Encouragement of Hamas to Recruit Child Soldiers

...You might call this the “dead teenager” variant of Hamas’s strategy: Fan international hatred of Israel by recruiting child soldiers whose deaths will be reported worldwide as “Israel kills innocent children.” And as long as the international community keeps collaborating with this strategy, Hamas will have every incentive to keep right on recruiting child soldiers.

Evelyn Gordon..
Commentary Magazine..
21 Januaury '15..

Hamas is currently recruiting thousands of Palestinians aged 15 to 21 into its new “Liberation Army” in Gaza, journalist Khaled Abu Toameh reported today. So on top of the fact that it’s spending its money on a military buildup even as thousands of residents of Hamas-controlled Gaza remain homeless with no help in sight, half the age cohort Hamas seeks to recruit consists of people under 18, whom the United Nations and international human-rights groups define as children. Recruiting child soldiers is generally considered a gross violation of human rights. Yet far from condemning this behavior, the “international community” is actively encouraging it.

After all, you don’t hear much about Hamas’s recruitment efforts from the UN, the EU, the media or major human-rights organizations. But if those child soldiers are someday killed fighting Israel, all of these bodies will vie over who can condemn Israel for “killing children” most vociferously. And it’s precisely that reaction that makes recruiting child soldiers a win-win for Hamas: By so doing, not only can it significantly expand its fighting forces, but it can also ensure that Israel suffers international vilification whenever a war breaks out–all without suffering any negative consequences to itself.

In fact, it’s a triple win for Hamas, because this tactic doesn’t only endanger the child soldiers themselves; it also endangers innocent 15-, 16-, and 17-year-olds. After all, if Hamas is recruiting children this age into its “army,” then Israeli soldiers have to treat every male in that age range as a potential combatant. And in the fog of battle–where it’s often hard for soldiers to tell exactly who is shooting at them, especially since Hamas operatives don’t wear uniforms and frequently open fire from amid civilians–anyone who looks like a potential combatant is more likely to be killed. Thus Israel will be accused of killing even more children.

During last summer’s war in Gaza, for instance, the “official” UN statistics reported worldwide asserted that almost a quarter of the Palestinian fatalities–24 percent–were children. Most people, hearing a figure like that, are shocked and appalled, and immediately conclude that Israel was at best guilty of using excessive force and at worst of war crimes. Consequently, Hamas benefits when this figure is inflated; Alan Dershowitz aptly termed this Hamas’s “dead-baby strategy.”

But it only works because the UN, the media, human-rights groups, world leaders, and all the other sources people depend on for information collaborate with it.