Palestinian Youths Join Fight
Six-year-old Mohammed was thrilled when he heard his school would reopen after being closed for safety reasons stemming from clashes between Palestinians and Israeli security forces.
It was not that Mohammed wanted to learn something new. He simply saw going back to school as a chance to gather with other children to throw stones at Israeli soldiers after classes.
"I was waiting for my school to pelt the Israeli army with stones," said Mohammed, who lives with his family in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Mohammed is not alone. Palestinians are the youngest population in the world -- half of the Gaza Strip is under the age of 14, according to a 1999 U.N. study. And its large youth population has played a visible role in the latest cycle of violence. In fact, so many of the combatants are young that some have branded the conflict the "teenagers war," reports CBS News Correspondent Richard Roth.
The man charged with shaping those young minds is 40-year-old Marwan Barghouti, the leader of a youth movement called "Tanzim," or apparatus. Barghouti said the young are critical to the Palestinian movement, both as foot soldiers and as symbolic victims of Israeli aggression. "I think our job is to continue in this intifada," he told CBS News, "to work, to continue, to strengthen this intifada."
As more Palestinian children have taken part in the aggression, so too they have become casualties. A Palestinian health official says 11 children have died in the clashes and nearly one in every three wounded is a child.
Frequently repeated television footage showing the killing of 12-year-old Mohammed al-Durra during clashes in the Gaza Strip has made a deep impression on the Mohammed CBS News spoke to and many other young Palestinians.
Al-Durra died in his father's arms when they were caught up in clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli troops in the Gaza Strip just over a week ago. The Israeli army has acknowledged its soldiers apparently shot him.
"I don't care about my school any more," Mohammed said. "All I want is to get the Israeli soldier who killed him (al-Durra)."
Barghouti's call for an Intifada is finding an audience even among the youngest Palestinian children. "Arabs and Jews" is a favorite war game. Children stand in lines opposite each other, carrying wooden rifles and hiding between rocks to act out their version of confrontations between Palestinians and Israelis.
In one such game, the "Jewish team," represented by six children, shouts at the "Palestinian team" using some words in Hebrew, imitating Israeli soldiers.
"We will sacrifice our blood and soul for al-Aqsa," seven-year-old Morad chants at the "Jewish team," referring to one of Islam's holiest shrines in Jerusalem.
The "Israeli soldier" pretended to fire at Morad with their wooden rifles, held together with rope.
Clashes erupted after Israeli ight-wing politician Ariel Sharon visited the al-Aqsa compound on September 28. The site is also sacred to Jews, who call it the Temple Mount.
"I am ready to die for al-Aqsa," said Morad, whose elder brothers were jailed many times by Israel during the intifada, or uprising, against Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank from 1987 to 1993.
He added: "I prefer to die than to let Israel take al-Aqsa."
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