Fatality figures, both civilian and combatant, have become a central feature of how the war in Gaza is understood, cited, and debated. Yet one category of combatant is almost never discussed: children. The long-standing use of child soldiers by Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups is absent from mainstream discourse. A search for news coverage on child soldiers in Gaza since 10/7 yields no results from major media outlets. While the deaths of thousands of children in the Gaza war are tragic and deserve acknowledgment, many of those recorded as “child civilians,” particularly teenage males, were active participants in the fighting. Recognizing this reality fundamentally changes what is meant by “civilian casualties” in Gaza and exposes a critical dimension of the war that has been entirely ignored.
The widespread use of child soldiers by Palestinian militant groups over the past decade is well documented. In June 2015, a UN report on children and armed conflict verified multiple cases of child recruitment and use in combat by Palestinian armed groups, including Hamas. That same year, a Washington Post article titled “Here’s What a Hamas Training Camp for Teens Looks Like” provided a detailed account of military-style training camps for children as young as 12. These camps teach combat skills using live fire, RPGs, IEDs. This is not general physical conditioning or preparatory training for future service, but direct instruction for participation in combat. A 2017 Reuters report similarly documented Hamas-run military “summer camps” for minors. Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) also operated youth training programs, publishing recruitment posters explicitly targeting boys aged 14 to 17. In 2014, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh addressed a graduation ceremony for child recruits, praising what he called a “jihadi education” and celebrating the next “generation of tunnels” and “martyrdom operations.”
This militarization of Gaza’s youth should come as no surprise, as Palestinian children are systematically indoctrinated into concepts of martyrdom and armed struggle. Several schools are named after Dalal Mughrabi, who led the 1978 bus hijacking and massacre that killed 38 Israelis, including 13 children. Her elevation as a national hero generated such revulsion that Belgium halted funding for these schools. From an early age, children are taught to glorify suicide bombings and attacks on Jews, creating a pipeline in which indoctrination leads naturally to recruitment and participation in combat.
NGOs and the UN have largely ignored or excused this practice since 10/7 because information that assigns responsibility to Hamas for the death and destruction in Gaza is routinely downplayed or dismissed. This pattern reflects a broader reluctance to highlight abuses by Palestinian armed groups when doing so is perceived to complicate or dilute accusations against Israel. This dynamic was acknowledged recently by a former CEO of Oxfam. As a result, even the exploitation of child soldiers is ignored when discussing it is seen as politically inconvenient.
Against this backdrop, the use of child soldiers in the current Gaza war should not be treated as speculative or exceptional. Thousands of child combatants have been used in this conflict, and many have been killed, with their deaths routinely presented as “civilian” casualties. One of the clearest indicators is the disproportionate number of fatalities among male teenagers. While deaths among children aged 0 to 12 are relatively balanced between males and females, a sharp divergence appears beginning at age 13 and continuing through age 17. In this age group, male fatalities exceed female fatalities by two to one, producing approximately 2,000 excess male teen deaths. This pattern evidences that many of these adolescents were directly involved and killed in the fighting.
Numerous social media posts and martyrdom notices have confirmed the deaths of child soldiers during the current Gaza war. These cases provide direct, verifiable evidence of the systematic exploitation of minors in the fighting. Notably, some of these names do not appear on Hamas’ published fatality lists, even after extensive searches using multiple name variations. This strongly suggests that some combatant deaths involving minors are being deliberately omitted or obscured by Hamas.
A recent confirmation comes from an unusually candid disclosure by the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP). The DFLP publicly acknowledged that 9% of 67 fighters it announced were killed in the Gaza war were minors, based on its own fighter death lists cross-referenced with Hamas’ detailed fatality lists. This admission demonstrates that the participation and deaths of child combatants were neither rare nor incidental. While the DFLP is smaller than Hamas or PIJ, applying a comparable 9% to the estimated 25,000 combatants reported killed by the IDF would imply over 2,000 child soldiers killed in the war. This figure closely aligns with the excess male teen fatality patterns observed in Hamas’ own casualty data.
Here are the publicly identified DFLP child combatants killed in Gaza:
(1) Aid Ahmed Ibrahim Abu Amarah, age 16, ID# 424490126
(2) Ahmed Salem Sakr, age 17, ID# 422786061
(3) Marawan Hazm Abu Kalob, age 17, ID# 424167468
(4) Loay Husam Mohammad Aql, age 17, ID# 422592006
(5) Jihad Ali Hosni Abu Hayya, age 16, ID# 422436899
(6) Nabil Ismail Jraboa, age 17, ID# 422611749
Notably, Loay Husam Mohammad Aql participated in the 10/7 attack inside Israel itself. A martyrdom notice for Aql was posted on the same day, stating that he was “martyred on 10/7/2023 while storming our occupied lands.” This confirms that minors directly took part in the murder, rape, and kidnappings carried out that day. It also establishes that Hamas’ fatality lists include combatants killed inside Israel on 10/7, not only those killed later in Gaza. Aql appears on the very first Hamas list of deaths issued on October 24, 2023, underscoring that child combatants were present from the opening hours of the war and counted among those later presented as Gaza's civilian fatalities.
Beyond the DFLP data, there are numerous individual cases that document the direct participation of minors in combat roles. The following examples illustrate, in detail, how children were trained, deployed, and celebrated as fighters, demonstrating that their involvement was not incidental, but systemic.
Ali Mohammad Abdullah Rihan, age 16, ID# 424051225, was killed in December 2023 and later listed by Hamas in its October 23, 2024 fatality list. His eulogy describes him as “one of the heroes of the clashes in Jabalia city” who “dies only in the fields of jihad.” The accompanying image (below) shows the boy in military gear, lauded as a fighter killed in battle.
Musab Bkar Soleiman al-Derawi, age 14, ID# 429854524, was killed on March 30, 2025 alongside his father, Bakr al-Derawi, age 38, ID# 801143587. His father was publicly praised as a top sniper. Both were included on the Hamas-issued fatality list dated June 23, 2025. This case illustrates a recurring pattern in Gaza, where participation in militant groups often becomes a family enterprise. Musab’s martyrdom post includes video footage showing him armed and handling an IED detonator, activity consistent with the training provided in Hamas-run youth military camps.
Abdullah Mohammed Abu Salama, age 17, was killed in Jabalia in April 2025. His eulogy described him as “known in the field of jihad” and stated that he was “martyred while advancing and never retreating.” His father, who was also a combatant, was likewise celebrated as a “martyr.” Notably, a thorough search of the Hamas fatality lists issued in June and July 2025 does not include Abu Salama’s name. This omission suggests that some combatant deaths are being excluded from the official casualty lists.
Child participation in Hamas’ military operations is not limited to direct armed combat. Children are routinely used as messengers, lookouts, and probes to test IDF positions and response patterns. According to the IDF, former Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar routinely employed children and women as observers to report on IDF activity.
Under international humanitarian law, individuals who perform such functions directly contribute to military operations and therefore lose civilian protection while engaged in those acts. The U.S. Department of Defense Law of War Manual (Section 5.8.3.1) explicitly states that lookouts or individuals transmitting information of military value are not considered civilians while performing those roles. By deliberately assigning children to lookout and messaging roles, Hamas seeks to complicate IDF decision-making, reduce the likelihood of engagement, and advance its military aims. This practice knowingly places children in lethal danger while preserving the appearance of civilian status. A documented example from the current war illustrates how children are deliberately used in these support roles:
Mujahid Ammar Abu Hein, age 13, was killed in June 2025 while acting as a messenger for militants in the Shujayia area of Gaza. His eulogy explicitly described him as a “young Mujahid” who acted as "a messenger for the mujahideen in al-Shujaiya, moving between them to fulfill their needs with courage and bravery.” Incidents like this are routinely cited as evidence that the IDF kills children in restricted zones, yet the crucial context is almost always omitted. Some of these children did not wander into off-limits corridors by chance. They were sent there intentionally by Hamas to advance military operations.
The final example illustrates the depth of Hamas’ exploitation of children and open willingness to sacrifice civilians, showing that no boundary is considered inviolable in pursuit of its stated goal of killing Jews and destroying Israel. This includes the use of children as young as twelve for combat:
Suhib Talal Nafath al-Jundi, age 12, ID# 432315653, was killed in December 2024. In December 2025, both his father and a known Palestinians military obituary page publicly identified him as a combatant, referring to him as a “Little Mujahideen.” This acknowledgment came a full year after his death. In the interim, he was publicly counted as another “innocent child” killed by Israel and was placed by Hamas on its eighth fatality list issued on March 24, 2025. Photographs posted to two Facebook accounts belonging to his father show al-Jundi holding weapons and wearing a vest bearing the insignia of the Palestinian Mujahideen Movement, the fourth largest armed group operating in Gaza.
The use of child combatants in Gaza should be among the most shocking and urgent elements of this war, demanding sustained scrutiny from NGOs, the UN, and the media. Instead, it has been entirely ignored. The cases documented here represent only a small sample, and many more will undoubtedly emerge as additional records, social media posts, and martyrdom notices surface.
This article is not an attempt to deny or minimize the thousands of innocent Gazan children killed in a war that Hamas initiated on 10/7 and repeatedly refused to end by releasing the hostages or surrendering, a toll exacerbated by its systematic use of human shields. It is to state an uncomfortable and undeniable truth: many of those children were deliberately placed into combat roles by Hamas, which has shown no remorse, no accountability, and no indication that it would not carry out atrocities like 10/7 again, with children once more used on the frontlines.
Major credit is due to @MiddleEastBuka and @GabrielEpsteinX whose painstaking work across numerous sources uncovered much of the evidence presented here.
