2014 article
https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-181056/On June 12, three Israeli teens — Gilad Shaar, Naftali Frankel, and Eyal Yifrah — were abducted from a bus stop and murdered by Hamas terrorists. Their bodies were mutilated and discarded in a shallow grave only to be discovered two weeks after their disappearance. The Israeli public collectively engaged in intense grief and rallied in support of the boys' families.
In contrast, the Palestinian public widely celebrated the crime, adopting a three-fingered salute honoring the "heroic" perpetrators and mocking the grieving families on social media. Coupled with these celebrations was an major intensification by the Hamas terror group of rocket attacks on Israeli population centers targeting civilians. Many of these missile strikes hit kindergartens, schools, and synagogues. The massive increase in rocket fire escalated into a war that is still raging, nearly two months later. Hamas, the rulers in Gaza, have broken eight ceasefires and rejected agreements putting an end to the fighting.
The kidnapping and murder of the Israelis and the Palestinian response highlight the use of children as an integral part of the Palestinian war strategy targeting the right of the Jewish people to sovereign equality.
As innocents, children are to be shielded as much as possible from the horrors of adult conflict and violence. Yet, children have long been the target of choice for Palestinian terrorists, just as they are for other Islamist terror groups such as ISIS, Boko Haram, and the Taliban.
The Palestinian assault, however, is not limited to Israeli children. Palestinian children, too, are exploited as weapons of war: Pictures abound of Palestinian babies dressed as suicide bombers and brandishing arms. Children's TV programs, many sponsored by the Palestinian Authority itself, preach jihad, advocate genocide against Jews and infidels, and glorify martyrdom. A young girl on a program recently aired on Hamas TV was encouraged by the host to be in the police when she grew up so that she could "shoot Jews … all of them."
After years of being educated with incitement, Palestinian pre-teens are then pressed into service by "popular committees" to engage in riots and violent confrontations with Israeli soldiers. Older kids are sent to hurl firebombs and slingshot projectiles. Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Fatah's MartyrsBrigades enlist teens to be suicide bombers and to commit other atrocities against Israeli civilians. Even rock-throwing, which has often been deadly, puts Palestinian minors at risk for arrest and jail time. The horrific and reprehensible murder of 16-year old Mohammed Abu Khdeir was also exploited by these committees to incite teens to engage in violent rioting and mass destruction of property.In addition to turning minors into combatants, Palestinians deliberately place children at risk from Israeli counter-terror measures by co-locating weapons and terror infrastructure inside schools, hospitals, and mosques. Hamas officials have appeared on TV calling on Gazans to serve as human shields and to ignore Israeli warning of pending strikes. Terrorists adorn civilian dress and launch rockets and other weapons from within civilian areas to maximize loss during retaliatory attacks, which will increase the propaganda effect. According to IDF estimates, more than 25% of Palestinian rockets fall short of their Israeli civilian targets within Gaza. Many Palestinian children have been killed as a result, including 11-month old Jihad Misharawi in November 2012 and a three-year old girl in July. The bodies of dead Palestinian children are often posed and otherwise exploited for the media.
The most shocking aspect of this deliberate disregard for children's lives and dignity, however, is the blind eye turned to it by the UN, the EU, and so-called human rights organizations…….
