Abuse and Exploitation of Minors to Carry out Terrorist Attacks
April 18, 2002

Palestinian terrorist organizations are making increasing use of children and minors to carry out suicide and terrorist attacks. Over the past nine months more than thirteen Palestinian minors have been involved in carrying out suicide attacks. This constitutes shameful exploitation of innocent youngsters by the terrorist organizations for heinous purposes, violating the universal rights of these children.

The Palestinian Authority continues to turn a blind eye to this phenomenon.

The terrorist organizations continue in their gross violation of human and civil rights, this time among their own population. Recently we have witnessed these organizations making cynical use of women for terrorist purposes, exploiting their feminine qualities to avoid suspicion.

In order to facilitate their attacks, it now emerges that the terrorist organizations do not even shrink from the exploitation of children.

In recent months more than thirteen suicide attacks have been exposed which were carried out or planned to be carried out by minors under the age of 18. In each of these cases the young people were recruited by the terrorist organizations.

Children, whose innocent appearance does not arouse suspicion, are an ideal pool of recruitment by terrorist organizations for carrying out suicide attacks.

Below are a number of striking examples of attacks in which Palestinian minors took part:

Jamil Hamid, a 16-year-old from Bethlehem, recruited by Fatah, blew himself up on March 31, 2002 alongside a clinic in Efrat, injuring six Israeli citizens.

Another example of this terrible phenomenon is Shiriz Rabiya, a 15-year-old girl detained for questioning when the IDF forces entered Bethlehem, who admitted that she had been recruited by her uncle, a senior Tanzim operative in the area, to carry out a suicide attack in Israel.

Anwar Hamad, a 17-year-old youth from Rafah, was sent to carry out a suicide attack against a convoy of vehicles transporting IDF soldiers in the Gaza Strip. Prior to his recruitment by Fatah, Anwar, a teenager with no education, who does not even know how to read and write, was involved in the use and trafficking of drugs. The personal story of this minor serves to demonstrate once again the abusive and cynical use made by Palestinian terrorist organizations of the young and the socially vulnerable in order to carry out massive attacks against Israel.

It should be noted that the Palestinian Authority is not even trying to confront this phenomenon and continues consistently to turn a blind eye to the fact that young Palestinian boys and girls are victimized, ostensibly on behalf of the entire Palestinian society.

Upholding the rights of these children, as enshrined in the basic norms and principles of international law, is a universal interest of humanity as a whole, and everything possible should be done to prevent children from being turned into cannon fodder by the terrorists.

It is sad to discover that in the twenty-first century there are innocent and tender children in the Palestinian Authority who are being educated and raised in an environment of hatred towards other human beings, and who are exploited by the terrorist organizations to carry out deadly suicidal violence.