THE NEW HAMAS CHILD ARMY

Khaled Abu Toameh writes about the children Hamas continues to train for jihad:

For the past several months, Hamas leaders have been complaining that they do not have enough money to rebuild the Gaza Strip in the aftermath of the last war with Israel.

However, it appears that Hamas does have enough funds to train, arm and indoctrinate thousands of young Palestinian men and boys.

While thousands of Palestinian families who lost their houses during the war continue to live in public shelters throughout the Gaza Strip, Hamas recently established 18 camps for military training.

The Hamas military training camps, under the motto "Vanguards of Liberation," have attracted some 17,000 Palestinian males aged 15-21. The young recruits were trained how to use various types of weapons, including pistols, rifles and mortars. They were also "educated" about the need to eliminate Israel and "restore Palestinian rights."

Samir Abu Aitah, a 15-year-old boy who joined the Hamas-run militia, said: "I now feel very happy because they trained me how to use weapons so that I could fight against the soldiers of the occupation. The Jews have killed thousands of innocent people and that's why I decided to join the path of jihad (holy war) and fight against them with weapons. We want to expel the Jews from our occupied country."

Another 15-year-old boy, Mahmoud al-Kurd, said he really enjoyed being trained with weapons at Hamas's camps. "Our enemy understands only one language – the language of swords."

Sometimes you have to wonder what's worse: guns or knives?

And it should be pretty obvious that much of the money they get is being used not to improve their already sharia-dictated enclave, but rather, to built a jihad army.