Fatah Hosts a Palestinian Summer Camp for Child Soldiers

While children worldwide are participating in sports and leisure activities at summer camps, children living under the Palestinian Authority (PA) are in a “Fatah Army” summer camp with armed members of the PA Security Services, being taught to be terrorists.

This goal was explicitly declared during the camp’s closing ceremony, when the children were told the camp’s goal was to create a generation that will “continue the path of the Martyrs and prisoners” — in other words, the path of killed and imprisoned terrorists:

Posted text: “The Fatah Nablus Branch concluded the activities of the ‘Fatah Army’ summer camp, which lasted three days and included more than two hundred male and female campers …

Fatah Nablus Branch Secretary-General Muhammad Hamdan emphasized that the ‘Fatah Army’ camp is part of the effort to prepare a national generation that will carry the message, adhere to the basic principles of its people, and continue the path of the Martyrs and prisoners [i.e., terrorists] towards freedom and independence.” [emphasis added]

[Fatah Movement – Nablus Branch, Facebook page, Aug. 4, 2025]

Pictures from the “Fatah Army” summer camp accompanied the post, showing boys and girls wearing military uniforms while participating in the camp activities. Significantly, the pictures show that PA Security Forces (PASF) personnel also took part in the camp.

In one picture, a female PASF member in full uniform is seen marching with the young campers. In another, three male PASF members wearing flak jackets and holding Kalashnikov assault rifles are sitting with the children:

As Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) recently exposed in a detailed report, the PA Security Forces (PASF) are deeply and fundamentally involved in terrorism.

Likewise, Fatah officials have bragged that most of the dead terrorists in recent years were from the PASF or Fatah. In this context, it is clear why Fatah specifically invited them to teach the children to “continue the path of the Martyrs and prisoners.”

It goes without saying that the indoctrination of child soldiers is cynical child abuse and a severe breach of international humanitarian law.

But that has not stopped Fatah — the ruling party of the PA that is supported by international donors — from running such indoctrination camps for child soldiers in recent years.

Young boys performed drills with assault rifles in a 2023 summer camp run by Fatah and the PASF. At another Fatah camp that same year, boys were taught to handle and disassemble Kalashnikov assault rifles, and received close combat training:

Fatah Commission of Information and Culture, Facebook page, Aug. 3, 2023

PASF members let hundreds of children pose with their assault rifles at a Fatah camp the year prior. And another joint Fatah-PASF summer camp in 2022 gave children weapons training so as to teach them to fight the Israelis — “the sons of dogs,” as a Fatah representative termed them.

These summer camps are part of a large-scale PA and Fatah strategy of deep indoctrination, aiming to turn Palestinian children into child soldiers. PMW exposed this indoctrination in detail in its 2022 Special Report for UN World Children’s Day.

The indoctrination has continued unchecked, as seen when Fatah had a girl chant a poem at an event this January celebrating the 60th anniversary of its first terror attack.

The girl called for children to turn their seemingly innocent toys and possessions, such as bicycles, ribbons, and baby bottles into weapons against Israel:

Girl: “Students of the Gaza Strip, teach us a bit of what you know, for we have forgotten. Teach us how to be men, for we have men who have turned into dough. Teach us how the stone becomes a precious diamond in the hands of the children. How the child’s bicycle turns into a mine and the silk ribbon turns into an ambush. How the spout of the baby bottle, when placed under arrest, turns into a knife.” [emphasis added]

[Official PA TV, Jan. 5, 2025]

The author is a contributor to Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article first appeared.