Palestinian incitement in schools, mosques, and summer camps has been one of the biggest obstacles to any sort of agreements between Palestinians and Israelis since the Oslo Accords of the 1990s.
Since 2007, Hamas has been in control of Gaza’s education system, producing generations of children taught to hate Jews and Israelis. The sheer depravity of the October 7 massacres is testament to the impact that this has had.
The issue should be central to understanding Gazan society but is rarely mentioned in the international media. So kudos to the UK’s Mail on Sunday for interviewing brave Gazans who have recognized the damage that Hamas indoctrination has had on their children.
Shireen (not her real name) is a 29-year-old mother of two who spoke to the MoS from inside Gaza at great risk to herself, describing how she watched the territory change after Hamas seized power and how, years later, she became terrified that the same ideology was reaching into her own home.
The moment that frightened her most came when her son returned from studying at a mosque.
‘Under Hamas, it became a curriculum of terrorism. They teach them terrorism, killing and the path of death. There is extreme racism and they teach them how to kill and how to fight Jews.
‘We send children to the mosque to learn religion and the Koran and to become closer to Almighty God. I was shocked our children would come back from the mosque knowing about how to die.’
Then came the words from her own young son that left her horrified. ‘He told me, ‘When I become a martyr, I will receive houris [an Islamic description of paradise].’
‘He was not even ten. I wondered how a child his age could have these things in his mind.’
Horrified, Shireen began teaching him at home. ‘I don’t want him going to the mosque and having ideas about terrorism, death and killing put into his head – how to fight and how to enter paradise.’
Read the full story here.
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© Divuach Ne’eman R”A, 2025
