Children at War.

We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children.

We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children.

We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.”

Golda Meir, former Israeli Prime Minister, 1972.

Convention on the Rights of the Child:

UN General Assembly resolution 44/25 of 20 November 1989 entry into force 2 September 1990, in accordance with article 49

Article 35 – Parties (PA included) shall take all appropriate national, bilateral and multilateral measures to prevent the abduction of, the sale of, or traffic in children for any purpose or in any form.

Article 37 – No child shall be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment …

Articles 32–39 – The Convention names and recognizes the child’s right to be free from various forms of exploitation and abuse, including physical and sexual abuse, economic and sexual exploitation, exposure to addictive drugs, and warfare.

Two optional protocols were adopted on 25 May 2000. The First Optional Protocol restricts the involvement of children in military conflicts[/highlight
It’s interesting to note that the only two countries to have signed this and not ratified it, are the United States of America and Djibouti.

Who and what are these people who use children for their own political gain ?

The majority of Palestinian Arabs have such a blind hatred of Israel, for whatever reason, that they teach their children to hate, kill and be killed as shahids/suicide bombers at an early age.

We send our children to parties as clowns, fairies, Batman, ballerinas etc., whilst theirs are dressed either as suicide bombers or soldiers.

We send our children to camps during school holidays to have fun and to play, to swim, participate in sport and have fun.

In Gaza parents send their children to holiday camps to learn to fight and kill not only others, but themselves too.

Why isn’t this reported? Why doesn’t the media report these things?

A recent example of indoctrination was tiny children giving the three fingers sign glorifying the fact the three young men, who were doing nothing but trying to go home after school, were abducted and killed by Hamas thugs.

CAMERA Launches New Campaign, ‘#ChildrenAreNOTWeapons’

The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) is trying to build upon past social media movements with the hashtag #ChildrenAreNOTWeapons, which attempts to spark a wave of protest, urging Palestinian leaders to stop using their children as tools of war.

Support from world leaders for the three Israeli boys kidnapped by Palestinian terrorists in Israel was tepid at best, but recognizing interest in the kidnapped Nigerian girls was in large part generated on social media with the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls. The success of that hashtag spurred the launch of one supporting the three kidnapped Israeli youths #BringBackOurBoys. CAMERA states:

Breibart Reports:

Hamas Used Child Labor to Build Terror Tunnels; Hundreds Killed

Hamas killed hundreds of children in the construction of its extensive tunnel network, built partly to carry out attacks on children across the Gaza border in Israel. That report–confirmed by Hamas itself–emerged in 2012, not from the Israeli government, but the sympathetic Journal of Palestine Studies, in an article that otherwise celebrated the secret tunnel system as a symbol of Palestinian resistance to the Israeli “siege” of the Gaza Strip.

The article, “Gaza’s Tunnel Phenomenon: The Unintended Dynamics of Israel’s Siege,” was published in the Summer 2012 edition of the Journal by Nicholas Pelham, who writes for the Economist and the New York Review of Books, according to his bio. It is receiving new attention thanks to Myer Freimann of Tablet, an online journal of Jewish affairs, whose post about Hamas’s use of child labor has gone viral in social media.

Pelham wrote that despite the economic success of the tunnels underneath the Egyptian border, which enriched Hamas through a thriving black market as well as arming it with new weapons, there were a few drawbacks. One of these was a “cavalier approach to child labor and tunnel fatalities,” he noted.

“During a police patrol that the author was permitted to accompany in December 2011, nothing was done to impede the use of children in the tunnels, where, much as in Victorian coal mines, they are prized for their nimble bodies. At least 160 children have been killed in the tunnels, according to Hamas officials“

The Jerusalem Post reports for The Guardian that schools in Gaza are providing military training to teenage boys, teaching them how to fire rocket launchers, Kalashnikov assault rifles and other weapons.

Members of Hamas’s Izzadin Kassam brigades assist in the training, according to the Gaza Ministry of Education website. They also teach schoolboys first aid, firefighting and “the values of discipline and responsibility.”

The school curriculum is supplemented with voluntary camps during school breaks where the boys get further training in handling guns and explosives.

About 5,000 boys have been trained in this programme since it started in September 2012. The curriculum is taught to 37,000 students aged 15-17 and parents are entitled to withdraw their sons from the course, but the newspaper reports that such a move is rare.

The Hamas education ministry website denies real weapons are being used in training, however, a video posted on YouTube shows a teenager at the Gamal Abdel Nasser school near Gaza City fire a rocket launcher at a target that includes a makeshift Israeli flag.

The Hamas general director of educational activities, Mohammed Syam, denied that there was any military training in the programme and said only one percent of it was devoted to learning about weapons. However, a press release in his name said the program focuses on “military exercises, particularly on weapons training and skills training in the field of military confrontation.”

The Hamas government is considering adapting the program for girls next year as well.

Guns and camouflage: Welcome to Hamas’ summer-camp

‘Israeli incursions into Gaza force Palestinian to learn basics of firearms for self-defense,’ says Hamas official regarding terror summer-camp set to host some 100,000 kids this summer.

Instead of classrooms and swimming lessons, the camp boasts military training facilities and uniform-clad children and teens.

The terror camp will host roughly 100,000 children aged 12-16 for seven days a week, three hours a day, Al-Monitor reported. The kids don camouflage fatigues and green berets, and are instructed by some forty members of Hamas’ military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades.

Read more Ynet News

Save the children from Hamas who brainwash children to kill and to hate.

The top UN envoy on children said that Islamist fighters in Iraq have killed hundreds of children including in summary executions and used some as suicide bombers.

“Up to 700 children have been killed or maimed in Iraq since the beginning of the year, including in summary executions”

Leila Zerrougui told the UN Security Council. She said Islamic State (IS) fighters were recruiting boys as young as 13 to carry weapons, guard strategic locations and arrest civilians.

“Other children are used as suicide bombers” .

(Reuters) – Myanmar’s army released 109 children from its military ranks on Thursday in its single biggest discharge of child soldiers, but boys are still being illegally recruited from poor families, the United Nations said.

Myanmar has for years been listed among countries where children have been recruited to fight – both by government forces and rebels.

The military ran the country for 49 years and was condemned internationally for human rights abuses including the use of child soldiers.

A reformist, semi-civilian government that took over in 2011 has been working with the United Nations to get children out of the military. It has released 472 service since June 2012 including Thursday’s discharge, which was the largest yet, according to the United Nations.

“There is a commitment by the Tatmadaw to have this practice eradicated from its ranks,”

said Bainvel, referring to the military by its traditional name.

Bainvel said recruitment continues at a decreased rate and that most young recruits come from poor families seeking the income that a son in the army can provide.

Recruiting most often takes place in the two largest cities, Yangon and Mandalay, and is often facilitated by civilian brokers who forge identification documents, making it difficult to determine how many child soldiers remain enlisted.

“This is a big question and there’s no way to say for sure how many there are,”

The United Nations said seven ethnic minority guerrilla forces, which have fought or are still fighting the government, were also using child soldiers.

UNICEF says:

Many children suffer appalling violence as soldiers, but even those who remain ‘civilians’ can be subjected to horrific experiences. Anything that can be done to adults, however monstrous, can also be visited on children. Children have been tortured as part of collective punishments for whole communities, or as a means of extracting information about peers or parents. They have also been tortured as a way of punishing their parents, or in some cases simply for entertainment. Once immersed in this savage environment, differences of age soon seem irrelevant.

Women and girls in particular suffer the added trauma of sexual abuse and rape. Without help, girls will carry the long-term effects of such abuse into their adult lives.

Sexual violence is particularly common in ethnic conflicts.

In Rwanda, rape was  systematically used as a weapon of ethnic cleansing to destroy community ties. In some raids, virtually every adolescent girl who survived an attack by the militia was subsequently raped. 

Even women and girls who are not physically forced to have sex may still be obliged to trade sexual favours for food, shelter or physical protection for themselves or their children.

Saudi father takes 10, 11-year-old sons to fight in Syria

A Saudi father gave his ex-wife the shock of her life when he informed her he was taking their 10 and 11 year-old-sons to join Islamist militants in Syria, telling her to count them as “birds in heaven”, Saudi-owned media reported.

The pan-Arab al-Hayat newspaper said on Tuesday that the unsuspecting mother had been told that her sons, Abdullah and Ahmed, were going on holiday with their father, identified as Nasser al-Shayeq, in a neighbouring Gulf Arab country when she saw an Instagram photo of them in Turkey.

Al-Hayat said she telephoned her son to ask about the photo, only to receive a message from her ex-husband, a former Saudi civil servant, to say that he was taking the boys to Syria to join Islamic State, one of the most militant groups fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad.

“Count your children as birds in heaven,”

Mr Shayeq said in his message, according to al-Hayat, suggesting that they may be killed and become young “martyrs”.

Fellow Islamic State militants later posted a photo of the father and his two sons crouching in front of Islamic State’s black flag, with each boy brandishing an AK-47 rifle in one hand. The father was smiling as one of the boys also held a grenade in his other hand.

He is too small to be able to hold his weapon properly, but this little boy, Ahmed, 8 years old is already a fighter in the Syrian civil war. Please read what it says on YouTube by clicking the title or logo in the bottom right hand corner. It’s heart breaking.

On CNN read

At the start of Syria’s civil unrest, Omar would rally against the government alongside his schoolmates, later taking to the streets in his hometown of Salqin.

Two years later, at the age of 14, he became a child soldier, training to join the ranks of rebel group Jabhat al-Nusra. He learned how to use weapons, make bombs and use mines. But when it came to fighting on the front line, he was scared.

“Then our sheikh came to encourage us to go fight and gave us speeches about jihad,” Omar told Human Rights Watch. “So after two days, I went to front line.”

Omar is just one of many boys being used on the battlefield in Syria’s civil war, according to an HRW report released Monday. Many are forced to fight in battle. Others must act as snipers, man checkpoints, spy on opposing forces or carry out other, equally dangerous tasks.

Amr, 17, told Human Rights Watch that he first joined the Daoud Brigade, an Islamist rebel group, when he was 15. He later agreed to sign up for a suicide attack mission, feeling socially pressured to sign the volunteer list. Other children had also signed on, he said.

With Syria entering its fourth year of civil war, grim accounts of child soldiers being used on the battlefield are now emerging. Though the specific number of child fighters in Syria is unknown, the Violations Documenting Center, a Syrian monitoring group, has documented 194 deaths of “non-civilian” male children since 2011.

This composite photo has been one of the most disturbing around of an Australian father with his three children.

A campaign was launched at the United Nations earlier this year with the goal of ensuring that no children are serving in government forces by the end of 2016.

Finally Child Soldiers International says:

Who Are Child Soldiers?

The internationally agreed definition for a child associated with an armed force or armed group (child soldier) is any person below 18 years of age who is, or who has been, recruited or used by an armed force or armed group in any capacity, including but not limited to children, boys and girls, used as fighters, cooks, porters, messengers, spies or for sexual purposes. It does not only refer to a child who is taking or has taken a direct part in hostilities.
(Paris Principles and Guidelines on Children Associated with Armed Forces or Armed Groups, 2007.)

Since 2000, the participation of child soldiers has been reported in most armed conflicts and in almost every region of the world. Although there are no exact figures, and numbers continually change, tens of thousands of children under the age of 18 continue to serve in government forces or armed opposition groups. Some of those involved in armed conflict are under 10 years old.

Both girls and boys are used in armed conflict and play a wide variety of roles. These can involve front line duties including as fighters but they may also be used in other roles such as porters, couriers, spies, guards, suicide bombers or human shields, or to perform domestic duties such as cooking and cleaning. Girls and boys may also be used for sexual purposes by armed forces or groups.

Many children that participate in armed conflict are unlawfully recruited, either by force or at an age below that which is permitted in national law or international standards. Although international standards do not prohibit the voluntary recruitment of 16 and 17 year olds by armed forces, it is contrary to best practice. Today close to two thirds of states recognise that banning under-18s from military ranks is necessary to protect them from the risk of involvement in armed conflict and to ensure their well-being, and that their other rights as children are respected.