Hamas is recruiting the Gazan youth to replace the 15,000 jihadis killed by the IDF since 7 October. Many of these ‘child soldiers’ already are used as scouts, cooks, porters, guards, messengers and for comforting jihadis.
Children end up as combatants for many reasons: being abducted, threatened, coerced or manipulated; due to poverty; for survival or to protect others.
The recruitment and use of children by armed forces is a grave violation of child rights and international humanitarian law, but the desperate UNRWA, might lobby for the UN to make an exception in this case and condone the jihadis use of children. Many wait the legal opinion/fatwa of the UN expert Franchee Albanesi.