Islamic Jihad Recruited Children to Fight — The Media Helped Hide the Evidence

There has been little to no news coverage of the use of child soldiers in mainstream Western English-speaking media.

By Michael Starr, HonestReporting

In recent weeks, the terrorist organization Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) published several martyr notices for child soldiers, highlighting the untouched story embedded inside October 7 War casualty statistics.

Statistics, news articles, and NGO reports have — often rightly — been published detailing the tragedy of Gazan children slain during the war in Gaza.

However, these items have often been geared toward accusing the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) of deliberately targeting Palestinian children as part of a genocidal campaign.

Yet implicit in the same statistics used to support such claims are some indications that Palestinian children are being pressed to fight in militias. Recent publications by PIJ only serve to underscore this.

Cross-referencing between the martyr notices and Palestinian and pro-Palestinian casualty databases, HonestReporting was able to confirm the identities of nine deceased PIJ child terrorists.

On July 21, a martyr poster was issued for 16-year-old Muhammad Saher Khattab on the PIJ Al-Quds Brigades website and Telegram channels.

He reportedly served in PIJ Central Brigade’s Deir al-Balah Battalion.

The Genocide in Gaza (GIG) database and a Facebook post by a brother detailed that he had been killed alongside family members in a January 2024 airstrike on their Deir al-Balah home.

The sources also linked him to his 30-year-old brother Bayan Saher Khattab.

A martyr notice was also issued for the older Khattab, indicating that he served in the same brigade as his younger brother, as a commander in its missile unit.

16-year-old Fawzi Kamel Fawzi Washah was killed in December 2023, according to GIG.

On July 17, PIJ claimed him as a member of the Northern Brigade’s Martyr Hussam Abu Habl Battalion.

According to Israel Policy Forum senior police associate Gabriel Epstein, the teenager terrorist was the son of high-ranking PIJ Central Information Unit commander Kamel Fawzi Washah.

Epstein noted that two of Washah’s other children were featured in posters holding firearms.

17-year-old Hamdan Abullah Khattab was eulogized as a victim who had supposedly been killed in September 2024 in the bombing of an Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital tent for internally displaced persons.

Yet yesterday PIJ announced that he was a member of the Central Brigade’s Deir al-Balah Battalion.

Sixteen-year-old Saleh Atef Al-Zamli was in the Rafah Brigade’s Rocket Unit. Seventeen-year-old Amin Adham Al-Zwaidi was in the Northern Brigade’s Central Mobilization Unit.

Seventeen-year-old Muhammad Hazem Abu Shawqa was in the Central Brigade’s Al-Bureij Battalion.

Seventeen-year-old Saif Ramadan Junaid was in the Northern Brigade’s Martyr Wadhah Al-Batsh Battalion.

Seventeen-year-old Hussein Samir Al-Hajin was in the same brigade, but in the Martyr Abdullah Al-Saba Battalion.

Seventeen-year-old Suleiman Abdul Rahman Abu Nasr was in another battalion in the Northern Brigade, the Martyr Muqallad Hamid Battalion.

The martyr notices for some PIJ terrorists like 18-year-olds Musa Majed Zannoun and Abdul Basit Abdul Rahman Al-Hams also suggest that some child soldiers are aging into legitimate fighting age.

This is indicated by the youthful appearance in their posters, and the fact that the war has dragged on for almost two years of their lives.

Al-Hams, who was supposedly killed while waiting for aid in the Rafah area in June 2025, could have been 16 or 17 when the war started, and it is unknown when he was drafted.

There has been little to no news coverage of the use of child soldiers in mainstream Western English-speaking media.

The June 18 Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory (COI) report), alleging that the Israeli military deliberately targeted Palestinian children, acknowledged that violations such as “use of children by the parties to the conflict” weren’t yet investigated.

Cited sources touch on Palestinian terrorist groups using human shields or holding military camps for minors, lost amid a sea of detailed alleged Israeli violations and statistics.

Yet the COI seemed unbothered that the use of children as terrorist combatants could be relevant in a study exploring wartime child casualties.

The same blind spot exists in the publication of statistics based on Hamas Health Ministry data.

Setting aside the believability of the terrorist source, if they are accepted, then they still engender more concern about the use of child soldiers.

Palestine Datasets, which bases its figures on Iraq Body Count, published updated data in May that showed a gender and age imbalance.

Deceased boys in general outnumbered girls about 1.3:1 across all ages, but this imbalance ballooned with age. The gender ratio among preteens was 1.15:1 for boys versus girls, but jumped to 1.89:1 for teenagers.

This imbalance was also documented in earlier statistical analyses. HonestReporting board member Salo Aizenberg reviewed Hamas figures last March, noting that 72% of Gaza fatalities were males aged 13-55.

The number of male casualties rises dramatically after near parity in early childhood, before equalizing among elderly casualties.

An April 2025 Henry Jackson Society report noted the same phenomenon, with visualized statistics showing the male casualties rapidly rising from age ten to peak at mid-twenties and thirties.

The figures are not conclusive about the extent of the child soldier phenomenon in Gaza, nor how many of the war’s child casualties were combatants.

Yet until the practice is exposed and denounced by the commentariat and NGO ecosystem, which profess to uphold the rights of children, it will continue.

If these international bodies truly cared about the deaths of Palestinian children, they would raise their voice when PIJ announces it has been sending them to die.