Al-Qassam youth training camps open again
The Vanguards of Liberation camps, previously organized under the supervision of the Education and Interior Ministries in Hamas-run Gaza, are now under the control of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, which some think might be using the camps to recruit young men as fighters.
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — On Jan. 20, less than six months after the end of the most recent Israeli war on Gaza, Hamas relaunched Vanguards of Liberation camps for youth ages 15-21. Some 17,000 young men graduated from this camp Jan. 29 to form, according to the movement, the nucleus of the next Liberation Army.
Zakaria al-Hour, general director of educational activities at the Ministry of Education, told Al-Monitor, “We are now affiliated with the reconciliation government, which did not provide us with financial benefits, nor operational or administrative orders, and thus the ministry could not organize the Vanguard of Liberation camps this year." Hour said that instead, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades organized the camps on its own. “Due to the lack of funds, other parties [the brigades] took it upon themselves to establish this program, which was affected by political issues,” he stated.
