The game's board
The game's boardScreenshot. MEMRI

A new board game called “Reaching Jerusalem” has been launched in Gaza whose goal is “to strengthen military culture and love of jihad among children,” according to the founder of the game, a Gaza media producer.

The game, about which details were published by The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), is essentially a remake of the classic children’s game “Chutes and Ladders.” The objective is for players to advance on squares until they reach Jerusalem.

The "ladders" that bring the players closer to the finish line are tunnels and Hamas-manufactured rockets, such as R160, M75 and S55 rockets, whereas the "chutes" are changed to "snakes" that hinder their progress are IDF tanks and helicopters.

The board is sprinkled with illustrations of Hamas fighters lying in wait for the enemy, attacking, and crawling through tunnels.

During the course of the game, players stop off in cities found within the 1948 borders of Israel recognized by the United Nations, such as Tiberias, Ashdod, Akko, Haifa, Yaffo, Ramle and Tzfat, where Arabs as well as Jews lived before the founding of Israel in 1948 and to where many of them demand to return and succeed in eliminating the Jewish presence.

MEMRI cited the words of the game’s founder, Muhammad Ramadan Al-Amriti, who works at the Hamas Interior Ministry. According to Al-Amriti, “The game 'Reaching Jerusalem' is an important component in the correct upbringing [of our children] in the near future... We created this game so that children do not forget their cities of origin and in order to establish [these cities] in their consciousness, and also in order to strengthen the children's military culture and love of jihad. The goal of the game... is to teach children the names of the occupied Palestinian villages and cities, so that [our] youngsters know that return to the homeland will be achieved only through resistance and jihad."

He said that another purpose of the game is to help produce future leaders and decision-makers raised on the principles of the Islamic faith.He stated that 10,000 copies of the game have already been made, soon to be available in stores.