A report produced by the Middle Eastern Media Research Institute (MEMRI) has assembled shocking evidence of the indoctrination of Palestinian children in Gaza kindergartens into being jihad terrorists.

An article on the website of the Al-Quds Brigades – founded as the military wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a designated U.S. terrorist organization – records that in their recent, end-of-year ceremony, the kindergarten children, dressed in uniforms, acted out scenes of fighting jihad, of suffering humiliation and torture in Israeli prisons and so on. The photos accompanying the article showed the children performing military drills, holding a funeral for martyrs lying in coffins, and standing in front of a stage-set representing the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. The article explains that the children of Gaza “are raised on the love of jihad, of resistance and of Palestine, and on the massacres and crimes of the Zionists.” Revelations contained in the article included the following:

• A kindergarten teacher says that her aim is to raise the kids to be “jihad fighters and commanders who will defend the soil of Palestine and Jerusalem.”

• A little boy says that, when he grows up, he wants to fire rockets at the Zionists and carry out a martyrdom operation on a bus.

• “The culture of resistance has been instilled in the minds and hearts of the children of the Gaza Strip, who do not enjoy freedom like the other children in the world, due to the crimes that are perpetrated by the Zionists against them and the rest of the Palestinians, from 1948 until today… They have been raised on the love of jihad, of resistance and of Palestine, and on the massacres and crimes of the Zionists – to the point that their lives, even in kindergarten, have become similar to those of the resistance fighters, in all domains, and it is hoped that they [too] will become jihad fighters.”

• “A magnificent and glorious scene recurs in Gaza annually at the end-of-year ceremonies in the kindergartens: children enact the role of resistance and jihad [fighters] for the sake of Allah, and the suffering of the Palestinian people and of the heroic prisoners behind the bars of the Zionist [jails].”

• “Among the children are the sons and daughters of martyrs and prisoners, and of commanders who are still marching on the path of jihad. [The children] have undertaken to carry on the legacy of their fathers who have been honored with martyrdom [and are now] in the highest levels [of Paradise], or who are hidden in the darkness of [Israeli] prisons.”

• One of the kindergarten directors told the Al-Quds magazine, “In addition to taking them through the first steps of learning, we must also educate the children to love resistance, Jerusalem and Palestine. They must know what Palestine stands for, who its enemies are, what its importance and role are, and what their future role will be. In our annual end-of-year celebrations, we focus on having them enact the role of jihad and resistance fighters for the sake of Allah. Our aim is that they grow and mature on this noble path of love for the resistance, so they [can] play a prominent role in life and in promoting the Palestinian cause and its sacred enterprise of jihad, and become fighters and commanders of jihad who will defend the soil of Palestine and Jerusalem.”

• A boy named Hamza, son of a slain terrorists, said, “When I grow up, I will [join] the ranks of the Islamic Jihad, and resist the Zionist enemy and fire rockets at him until I die as a martyr and join my father in Paradise.” Dressed in an army uniform, with an Al-Quds Brigade ribbon on his forehead and a wood rifle [in his hand], Hamza added: “I love the resistance, the martyrs and Palestine. When I grow up, I want to blow myself up among the Zionists on a bus and kill them in a martyrdom operation… I am not afraid of the Zionist planes and tanks, and I fall asleep at night to the sound of the heavy shelling. When I grow up I will fire rockets at them, just as they do to us” (‘Indoctrination To Jihad And Resistance In Gaza Kindergartens,’  MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 4786, June 12, 2012).

ZOA National Chairman of the Board Dr. Michael Goldblatt said, “It is not enough to say that this is simply another set of examples of extraordinary Palestinian hatred and incitement to violence, though that would be bad enough. We see particularly in the case of Hamas-controlled Gaza extraordinary Nazi-like efforts to dehumanize the Jewish people. 

“Hatred is bad enough, but even hatred can be overcome in time in various conflicts. Here, however, we have dehumanization of a kind which precludes the possibility of peace as long as Palestinians children are raised this way. 

“People might make peace with one whom they consider to be an enemy, but not with an enemy they believe embodies pure evil whom it is a religious duty to destroy or to die attempting to destroy.”