Muslim woman (illustration)
Muslim woman (illustration)Thinkstock

Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV recently aired a report which featured Gazan women training in the use of weapons and explosive devices in the Al-Nasser Salah Al-Din Brigades, the “military wing” of the Popular Resistance Committees.

The report aired on February 20, 2015, and was translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

In the report, the women are described as learning the art of war “in order to become one day mujahid women fighting the occupation”.

The report also says that some 40 women “graduated” from the war training after the last Gaza war, meaning Israel’s anti-terrorism Operation Protective Edge in Gaza last summer. 40 others are currently in training.

The  Popular Resistance Committees is one of the three groups that participated in the kidnapping of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit in June 2006.

The terror groups in Gaza have been recruiting women and children to their ranks. MEMRI released a video earlier this month which shows footage from a youth camp organized by the Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s so-called “military wing”.

The video shows young cadets demonstrating military skills, such as use of weapons, and simulating the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier.

A clip released by MEMRI last year shows a televised graduation ceremony for a similar Hamas youth camp in Gaza. At the ceremony, suicide terror attacks against the “Zionist enemy” were glorified by Hamas officials.

Hamas has previously released a cartoon honoring its “military wing,” and last year began a program to teach “resistance” to Israel in Gaza’s public school system.

In a previous video exposed by MEMRI, principals in Gaza schools and Hamas officials defended the paramilitary training that children are forced to undergo in schools as “chivalry” class and “sports training.”