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On World Children’s Day, We Looked at How Palestinian Leaders Abuse Their Children
Images featured in Palestinian Authority textbooks reviewed by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se). Photo: IMPACT-se.
Wednesday was World Children’s Day. According to the UN, this day is a call to action for schools, communities, and institutions to engage with and support children.
Thus, World Children’s Day is a great opportunity to examine how the Palestinian Authority (PA) engages with children in its own schools, communities, and institutions.
As it has been doing for decades, the Palestinian Authority continues to indoctrinate its young people to seek death as “Martyrs” or imprisonment as terrorists, thus emulating those it portrays as heroes and role models.
The PA also continues to reinforce its most fundamental of all messages — that Israel has no right to exist.
The following is a collection of recent children’s activities, and PA messages to children:
Terrorist prisoners are brave heroes
From a school event in Qabatiya honoring terrorist prisoners:
Text on sign on left: “A homeland whose heroes are Martyrs and prisoners is a free homeland”
A poster with the pictures of three terrorists: Yaqub Qaderi, who murdered one person together with an accomplice; Mahmoud Ardah, who was involved in numerous terror attacks; and Muhammad Ardah, who was involved in the murder of three people.
The picture on the left is terrorist Marwan Barghouti, who was convicted of planning three attacks in which five people were murdered. He also planned many others as head of the Tanzim terror organization.
Posted text: “Our prisoners are in the period of annihilation [by Israel]. Activities of solidarity from the schools of the Qabatiya Directorate of Education [i.e., branch of the PA Ministry of Education] to support the prisoners in the occupation’s prisons” [The Qabatiya Directorate of Education, Facebook page, Nov. 6, 2024 — emphasis added]
Israel has no right to exist in any borders
Poster in the center shows a map that presents all of Israel together with the PA areas as “Palestine.”
[South Hebron Directorate of Education, Facebook page, Nov. 11, 2024]
Child second from left wears a shirt with the PA map of “Palestine” erasing israel in the colors of the Palestinian flag, along with the text: “We will return.” [South Hebron Directorate of Education, Facebook page, Nov. 11, 2024]
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Girl holds a poster featuring the PA map of “Palestine” with a rifle barrel emerging from the top and the word “Palestine” alongs its center.
[South Hebron Directorate of Education, Facebook page, Nov. 11, 2024]
The girl in the center is holding a poster featuring a map that presents all of Israel together with the PA areas as “Palestine.” The map is wrapped in chains and a keffiyeh pattern. Next to it is a large symbol of the refugees’ so-called “right of return.”
[PA Hebron Governorate, Facebook page, Nov. 5, 2024]
In the below photo, schoolchildren are holding pictures of former PLO and PA Chairman Yasser Arafat. On the school wall in the background is a large key symbolizing the refugees’ so-called “right of return”:
Palestinian Media Watch exposed that on the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, the PA stressed to school children that all of Israel is “Palestine” and that Jews/Israelis have “no right.”
Finally, the use of the map of “Palestine” erasing Israel was explained explicitly in this recent video from an official in Fatah, the PA’s ruling party:
Fatah Tubas Branch Secretary Mahmoud Sawafta: “This mighty people is loyal to the blood that is drawing the map of the precious homeland. The map of Haifa, Jaffa, Acre, Lod, and Ramle [i.e., all Israeli cities], and the map of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the capital Jerusalem.”
[Official PA TV News, Nov. 11, 2024]
Itamar Marcus is the Founder and Director of Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), where Ephraim D. Tepler and Nan Zilberdik are on staff. A version of this article appears at PMW.
The post On World Children’s Day, We Looked at How Palestinian Leaders Abuse Their Children first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.