At Camp Hamas, Lessons in Intifada

They flock from all over the town to a road of sand and garbage, file past graffiti reading, “We won’t compromise on the blood of the martyrs,” and stride through the school gate.

On the hot stones of the courtyard, they scramble and mill, talking fast. But when their camp counselors stand before them, the Palestinian youngsters fall silent and arrange themselves into military files. Their matching “Faith in resistance” T-shirts dangle almost to their knees. The opening ritual of Hamas summer camp is about to begin.

“How is your morale?” yells the drill instructor with the bullhorn, weaving among the boys.

“Very, very high,” they holler back in unison, “like fire in the field!”

They stomp their worn sandals, and march furiously in place with furrowed brows.

“Long live Palestine!” Stomp, stomp. “Death to Israel!” Stomp, stomp, stomp.

Summer camps run by the radical Islamic organization meld welfare with militancy and serve as a fertile training ground for an unforgiving anti-Israel fighting force.

It is not official government incitement, but Israeli officials have made it plain that they consider the summer training by the extremist group to be part of the same bad influence as television news and maps that don’t include Israel -- and they expect the Palestinians to do something about it.

Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom has complained to the United States about the camps, but the young men who run them say they have no intention of changing.

“We have a right to tell them what their religion is, who is their enemy and why we consider them enemies,” said camp director Sohaib Alissi, a 22-year-old business student. “If you consider it incitement, we don’t, and we’ll keep teaching it.”

The boys of Gaza come year after year to get off the streets of the refugee camps, to stay out of trouble -- and to be schooled in the Gaza Strip’s violent political culture. They get free lunches, religious instruction and a summer full of intensely militant rhetoric.

In the past, students have been trained in light weapons, but in this camp, on this day, no weapons are in evidence. Still, the teachers say, they want the boys strong enough, in body and in soul, to fight.

Campers are taught to march like soldiers, to crawl on their bellies and elbows like infiltrators -- and to hate their enemy.

“The first thing we want to teach them is their cause. They know from daily experience that their enemy is the Jew -- our job is to explain why,” Alissi said.

“In the Koran, much is said about the bad behavior of the Jew,” Alissi says, watching a handful of boys march in circles from a shaded bench. “Some teachings say God cursed the Jews. On the political level, they are occupying us, doing terrible things to us.”

Himself an alumnus of Hamas’ extensive summer camp network, Alissi is proud to show off the crop of new campers. He reserves his only apology for uneven appearances, which he fears cast a shoddy light on the camp’s disciplinary caliber: It’s the first day, he laments, and some of the boys haven’t yet been issued their matching T-shirts and baseball caps.

As the day wears on, the campers learn to stretch their thin voices over religious ballads. In the courtyard they march, snapping their heels, turning left, then right. Upstairs, they sit rapt before a cartoon history of Genghis Khan’s raid on Baghdad. “This is a historical fight between Muslims and infidels,” their teacher explains.

Down the hall, childish voices echo off a chalkboard: “In the line of fire we stay. We love you who are protecting the land.”