BICOM

Two Palestinian eight-year-olds were apprehended by Israeli security forces as they approached an Israeli West Bank community brandishing knives, with the apparent intention of carrying out an attack.

The incident occurred yesterday near Migdal Oz, in the Etzion region south of Jerusalem. An IDF statement said: “Forces identified and apprehended two Palestinian children under the age of ten near the community of Migdal Oz. During the initial questioning the children admitted to have been sent, armed with knives, in order to carry out a terror attack.”

According to the Walla news website, the children told investigators: “They took us by car, gave us knives and told us to go do terrorist attacks.”

IDF spokesman Peter Lerner commented: “When two eight-year-old children are sent on a mission to attack Israeli civilians it is clear that the hateful rhetoric that echoes within Palestinian society abuses the most vulnerable of minds.”

A wave of Palestinian attacks that started in October 2015 has resulted in 42 victims being killed. The vast majority have been knife or vehicle attacks and a number have been perpetrated by Palestinian teenagers.

Earlier this week, the Palestinian Authority (PA) announced that a new public school in the West Bank city of Tulkarm would be named after Salah Khalaf, the leader of the Black September terrorist group, which carried out the murder of eleven Israeli athletes and trainers at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich.

The official PA daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida  said that it “will serve as a daily reminder to Arab children that murdering Israelis is a heroic act when they attend the Martyr Salah Khalaf School”.

On Monday a tunnel being constructed in the Gaza Strip by Hamas collapsed, killing a Hamas activist. 21-year-old Emir Jaber Al Hamad Abu Taima, from Khan Younis, was the second Hamas member to be killed in a Gaza tunnel collapse within 48 hours. Hamas is openly rebuilding its tunnel network in preparation for a future conflict with Israel.