Thursday, September 3, 2026

Hamas Confirms Child Soldier Use in October 7 War After Arabic Media Embraces Tactic - Michael Starr

 

by Michael Starr

After an alleged Hamas child soldier became a celebrity among Arabic news journalists, Hamas came out with a martyr poster for another minor.

 

Hamas Confirms Child Soldier Use in October 7 War After Arabic Media Embraces Tactic 

Key Takeaways:

  • Hamas confirmed on Tuesday that it used child soldiers in the October 7 War, becoming the third faction to do so after the DFLP and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
  • This followed the identification of another child soldier in a Hamas video, who was made a celebrity among Arab media journalists and covered by Al Jazeera.
  • Since July, HonestReporting has identified 22 child soldiers largely affiliated with Palestinian Islamic Jihad, with almost a dozen more suspected but lacking full cross-reference confirmation.

Hamas on Tuesday became the third faction to confirm that it used child soldiers during the October 7 War, following Arabic media embracing previous evidence of Hamas deploying minors in combat.

A martyr poster and video for Hazem Shadi Al-Arini were published on Telegram channels associated with Hamas on Tuesday. Video showed the armed operative conducting a variety of marksmanship and close-quarters combat drills. Al-Arini was described as a member of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, a fighter in the Northern Brigade’s Martyr Fawzi Abu al-Qara’ Battalion.

The birth date listed on the video was 2007, meaning that Al-Arini was about 16 when he was killed on November 19, 2023. The death date matches other Palestinian sources for a war casualty of the same name and age.

Hazem Shadi Al-Arini

Suhaib Labad as Child Hero on Social Media

Israel Policy Forum senior policy associate Gabriel Epstein had previously identified another 16-year-old combatant who had briefly appeared in the martyr video of another Hamas operative. The August 12 video for operative Anas Kamel Munir al-Darimi labeled a rocket launcher-wielding combatant as “al-Qassam martyr” Suhaib Labad. Epstein noted that there was only one name similar to the Al-Qassam operative in Hamas Health Ministry data, and who had a matching age and name to the terrorist.

Labad was widely celebrated in Arabic social media and news outlets. In an August 14 article, Al Jazeera presented Labad’s actions within the context of the loss of his family during the war, and the praise heaped on the child soldier by activists — but did not detail moral reservations about sending minors into combat. Ultra Sawt journalist Mohammed Elsakany said on Facebook that Labad was a “man of great deeds for the entire nation,” and Yemeni photographer Ubad Ahmad Al-Fallahi described on the same platform how Labad was an example of being true to one’s word and taking action against injustice. Shehab Agency journalist Mohammed Haniya said on X that Labad was taking revenge, and that the “thousands upon thousands” seeking vengeance like Labad was not terrorism, but the result of Israel’s actions.

Growing Evidence of Child Soldiers in October 7 War

Until Hamas’ confirmation of using child soldiers on Tuesday, only the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) had admitted to the practice. Besides the two teenage Hamas operatives, since July, 22 child soldiers have been identified by HonestReporting, and almost a dozen more are suspected but lack some key cross-reference details. The vast majority so far are affiliated with PIJ.

Seventeen-year-old Wadhah Ashour Al-Batsh was announced on August 14 to be an operative of PIJ’s Al-Quds Brigades, a fighter in the Northern Brigade’s Martyr Wadhah Al-Batsh Battalion. The battalion and the teenager may have been named for the same man, Wadhah Ibrahim Ashour Al-Batsh, who had been killed in 2002 while conducting an operation on behalf of PIJ. The younger Al-Batsh’s mother shared the image of the Second Intifada terrorist on her Facebook page in 2017.

Wadhah Ashour Al-Batsh

Child Soldiers Initiated by Family

Al-Batsh is far from the only Palestinian child soldier for whom terrorism was a family affair — many of those reviewed by HonestReporting had family within terrorist organizations.

Also on August 14, PIJ issued a martyr notice for 16-year-old Anas Muhammad Al-Sawarka. Eulogies by families and affiliated organizations confirmed the date of death and face when cross-referenced with the martyr poster and Gazan casualty databases. They also detailed that Al-Sawarka was killed in the same strike as his uncle and father. According to PIJ, his uncle Yusuf Ahmad Al-Sawarka was in the Northern Brigade’s Artillery Corps, and his father Muhammad Ahmad Al-Sawarka held some sort of coordination position in the same brigade. The 16-year-old was supposedly in the brigade’s Central Mobilization Unit.

Anas Muhammad Al-Sawarka

Even with the popularity of Labad on social media, there has been little news coverage of the child soldier phenomenon since a trend of minor combatant obituaries emerged in July. Two minor Italian and Spanish outlets covered Labad’s story, but among the deluge of Gazan human-interest stories about Palestinian beekeepers, kites, and swimming pools, the problem has still not been touched.

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© Divuach Ne’eman R”A, 2025

 

Michael Starr

Source: https://honestreporting.com/hamas-confirms-child-soldier-use-in-october-7-war-after-arabic-media-embraces-tactic/

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