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During the war in Gaza, the IDF has to date killed close to 30,000 Hamas combatants. The terror group has as a result been conducting just now a recruiting drive in the half of the Gaza Strip that it currently controls, between the IDF’s Yellow Line and the Mediterranean. It uses bribes, blackmail, the threat of bodily harm — whatever works to replenish its ranks. More on this recruitment effort can be found here: “Palestinian father reveals how Hamas manipulates Gazan teens to join terror ranks – interview,” by Dana Ben-Shimon, Jerusalem Post, January 1, 2026:
While Israel and the US continue to insist on the need for Hamas to disarm, the terror group is reasserting control in parts of the Gaza Strip by recruiting new members to its military wing and civilian institutions.
A Palestinian father, referred to as Mustafa for security reasons, said that Hamas has been offering cash to teenagers to tempt them to join the group. Speaking to The Jerusalem Post, he described how Hamas tried to recruit his 16-year-old son in central Gaza….
Mustafa, a Fatah supporter, is currently living near Ramallah. He was part of the PA security forces in Gaza until 2007, when Hamas toppled the PA and seized control of the strip. After the Hamas coup, he and hundreds of security personnel fled to the West Bank, leaving their families behind.
“Hamas is taking advantage of poverty and families who lack food and other basic necessities,” the father explained.
“Hamas told my son they would train him and his 18-year-old brother on weapons, and would give them anything they wanted.”
It didn’t end there. Later, Hamas members came to the family’s house in Gaza and offered Mustafa’s wife flour and food supplies. “My wife told them, ‘We don’t need anything, my husband sends us money.’”
When the boy’s uncle heard the story, he went to the home of one of the Hamas operatives and warned him not to approach the family again. They had an argument, but since then, no one from Hamas has tried to reach out to the brothers again.
“Hamas is brainwashing people, especially teenagers in Gaza,” said Mustafa, adding that the terror group attracts them with economic incentives at first, but later blackmails the teenagers, making it almost impossible for them to walk away once involved.
“Hamas finds ways to lure them,” he noted. “They promise them things like a tent to live in, and if someone tries to leave or no longer wants to be involved, they start threatening him, ‘give back everything we gave you- the money, the food supplies.’”
Mustafa explained that most young men cannot pay it back, so they have no choice but to stay with Hamas, even if they don’t want to. “Hamas keeps telling them, ‘Jews took our land, you will be heroes if you fight them.’”
“Hamas doesn’t really care about the lives of these teenagers. I explained to my children that there is a political struggle between us and the Jews, but the resistance should be peaceful. Why would I send my son to his death? I raised my children to live, to get married, and to build their future – not to die,” he said.
Given the mortality rate for Hamas members, many Palestinian fathers, like Mustafa, try desperately to keep their young sons from joining the terror group. And the terror group, needing more recruits to fight and die, tries every way it can to inveigle those teenagers into joining.
He [Mustafa, the Gazan father of the boy Hamas tried to recruit] described another method Hamas uses to recruit Palestinian residents. The group arrests teenagers on charges of drug possession or theft, then blackmails them and forces them to work for the organization.
These boys are falsely charged with crimes, and then Hamas blackmails them until they agree to work for the terror group.
Mustafa certainly sounds as if he is hoping the IDF will finally finish off Hamas, warning that it must do so “if it doesn’t want another October 7.” Hamas, after all, tried to bribe his son to join the group, where he would certainly have a high likelihood of being killed.
Hamas is desperate for more recruits. It uses every method — bribes (those large gifts of shekels), blackmail (threatening to spread the accusation that someone refusing to be recruited has been found guilty of theft or other crimes), and violence. And those who are inveigled by one of these methods to join Hamas, will end up, as their ruthless recruiters well know, as cannon fodder.
