Palestinian leaders and activists denied any involvement of their factions and armed wings in sending children and young boys to military checkpoints with explosives, namely Huwwara south of Nablus.
A spokesperson for the military wings said these incidents at the checkpoints are nothing more than theatrics.
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Ala’ Sanaqra, a leading figure in the Aqsa Martyrs Brigades said the incidents at the Huwwara checkpoint in the past few days in which the Israeli army arrested three children is nothing more than a plot instigated by the Israeli intelligence. He stressed that the Brigades would never send children, saying this is forbidden at a national and religious level. The aim of this plot, he continued, is to distort the resistance of the Palestinians.
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He continued that the repeated Israeli threats to carry out wide-scale operations in Nablus do not scare anyone. Sanaqra said anyone who followed the events at the Huwwara checkpoint would see that there is a calculated plot to show that children are carrying explosives, pointing out that the Israelis give ample opportunity for the media to cover this.
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Jamal Tirawai, a Fateh leader, said these events, especially at Huwwara, are a calculated scheme that reflects the mentality of the Israeli intelligence. He said there is no national or Islamic party that endorses such actions.
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He also said the fact that such incidents are recurrent prove that this is a precursor for striking at the national and Islamic resistance movements. ‘We are committed to the truce and to the Palestinian political line. But the Israelis do not want this commitment, especially in light of the internal Israeli political crisis. Israel wants to make the Palestinians pay the price of their problems.’
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Tirawi scoffed at the recent Israeli threats towards the resistance, saying, ‘We are used to such threats. They don’t scare us.’
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Sheikh Yasser Mansour, a Hamas leader denounced Israel’s exploitation of children by detaining them at checkpoints. He considered these incidents as calculated dramas aimed at distorting the jihad and the struggle of the Palestinian people by trying to portray these forces as exploiting innocent children.
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He added that all the stories documented at the checkpoints prove that collaborators with the occupation are behind these incidents, luring in these children to play this role and play straight into the hands of Israeli intelligence.
