[The significance of this story filed by CBN in March 2003 is that the US law forbids US AID from assisting any humanitarian agency that is engaged in any form of military training]

www.CBN.com — on the ISRAEL-LEBANON BORDER — Thousands of young Palestinians live in the crowded refugee camps of Lebanon. The camps have never been pleasant places to live, but now some say they have become islands of terrorism, a breeding ground for children to learn military tactics in the war against Israel.

CBN News was able to obtain exclusive footage of the training in the Lebanon camps, showing what really goes on. And if it isn’t shocking enough that little children are being trained for war, these same camps are largely funded by western tax dollars, funneled through the United Nations.

It is a regimented life for the children in Lebanon’s Ain El Hilweh refugee camp. Sometimes, they play. But more often they train in the ways of war, learning to march, learning to fight against Israel. Fresh-faced and serious beyond their years, they describe their deadly goals.

Muhmad Rida al Morsi, age 12, said his dream is, “to make an operation against Israel as a holy martyr.”

Another refugee camp resident, Issa El Igraibi, confirmed an identical ambition. “I am getting the training to carry on an operation as a holy martyr against the Israeli enemy,” he said.

Ayya, another 12-year-old, said his goal is: “To liberate our land, Palestine.”

Many Palestinians in the Lebanon camps would like to cross the border and attack Israelis. But some observers are asking why the Palestinians are getting military training in camps sponsored by the United Nations.

Avi Becker, Secretary-General of the World Jewish Congress, says the camps pose a threat to Israelis. “Some of these camps are today practically terrorist camps, military bases. And they are used as part and parcel of the war machinery against Israeli civilians,” he said.

The Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and elsewhere are largely funded by UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. The United States contributes far more than any other nation to the UNRWA budget.

The Ain El Hilweh Camp, Lebanon’s largest, is located near Sidon in South Lebanon. But the UN-sponsored camps are spread throughout Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and the West Bank and Gaza.

CBN News showed its footage of the children’s military training to Maher Nasser, an UNRWA official with the liaison office in New York. Nasser said, “UNRWA is not responsible for what’s going on in the camps. UNRWA is a provider of humanitarian services. We run schools, we run clinics, we provide sanitation services.”

Nasser says the UN does not deal with security issues in the refugee camps. He said, “What happens outside our installations, what happens with the children in our schools after they go home, we have no control of.”

According to Nasser, the Lebanese government and the P.L.O. are accountable for the military activities in the camps. But Avi Becker says the real culprit is Syria.

“Syria today is really, practically, the sovereign of Lebanon, and whatever happens there, whatever happens in the northern borders of Israel, and whatever happens in the Palestinian camps, is of course under the complete responsibility of Syria,” Becker said.

Palestinian refugees are not just fighting Israel. They are also fighting each other. A number of deadly incidents in the camps show that the tension between the Islamic groups could explode at any time.

Colonel Munir Al Makdah is part of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction of the P.L.O. He supervises the military training in the Lebanese camps. Critics say Al Makdah is a counterfeiter and a terrorist who gets money from Iran and gives arms and money to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

Al Makdah said, “We prepare our sons and children, and we mobilize them and tell them about our right to the land which was raped by the Israeli enemy. And many nations are trying together to legalize the occupation and to make our people forget about their land.”

The UN, the Arab states, Europe and the U.S. have all allowed the situation in the refugee camps to fester for decades. Most of the refugees are the descendants of Palestinian Arabs, who fled when Arab armies attacked the new state of Israel in 1948. More than three million Palestinians around the world demand the right of return, to go back and live in what is now the land of Israel.

Al Makdah trains the children with that goal in mind. “Yes, they can support the Intifada. Yes, they can resist the occupation. And they will not let the region enjoy peace as long as there is one refugee out of his homeland, and as long as a part of our Palestinian soil is occupied,” he said.

Both supporters and critics of the UN believe that conditions must improve for the Palestinian refugees. But Avi Becker says that to allow them back into Israel would be national suicide for the Jewish state.

Becker said, “There must be an attempt, a sincere attempt, to rehabilitate the life of the Palestinians and to give them an opportunity outside the camps wherever they are, because the right of return cannot materialize. This is the end of the state of Israel, and it is clear to everybody.”

And Becker wonders why the UN bans military activity in its refugee camps worldwide, but allows it in the Middle East. “The United Nations should follow its own standard, and it should not apply a double standard to the Middle East,” he said. “Kids should not be part of military education and military groups, and this is done every day in the UNRWA camps.”

Meanwhile, the children of the camps — perhaps tomorrow’s terrorists — prepare for war against Israel and, if their leaders have their way, war against the U.S., as well. Al Makdah said, “If Iraq will allow the Palestinian volunteers, they will fight with Iraq side by side in defending our Arabic and Muslim nation, resources, history, and geography.”

This piece ran on CBN News on March 31, 2003

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