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December 2, 2008 7:42:32 PM CST

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Gaza Camps Offer Arts and Crafts, Not AK-47s

Posted Sep 4, 08 1:58 PM CDT in World 

(Newser) – The UN’s Relief and Works Agency is combating extremism in the Gaza Strip with some unconventional weapons: hula hoops, finger-painting, and sports, the Christian Science Monitor reports. The agency runs summer programs in 350 locations for Gaza’s youth in an attempt to counteract Hamas’ militant equivalent, where young Palestinians learn martial arts, train with fake weapons, and are taught religious intolerance.

That goal has earned the program’s director two assassination attempts in as many years in the Palestinian territory. He has foes in Israel and the West, too, who claim the camps are infiltrated and radicalized—but John Ging insists his programs are kept as apolitical as possible. Kids “come here freely to get away from politics and away from the differences that separate us," one official said.

Source Christian Science Monitor

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During a mock confrontation, militants of the Hamas-affiliated Popular Resistance Committees evacuate a wounded person from an explosion in Nusseirat refugee camp, Gaza Strip, Wednesday Aug. 6, 2008.   (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)
"The generation coming is the one we are most concerned about because the experiences they are having are the people they are becoming--violent, hopeless--it is self-reinforcing," a UN official says.   (AP Photo)
A Palestinian militant from the Islamic group Hamas runs as a explosion is seen in the background as he and others take part in a training session in Gaza City, Monday, July 28, 2008.   (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)
Palestinian children carry bottles of waters in Khan Younis refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip, June 22, 2008.   (AP Photo)
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Every time we have put it to the population here to choose between the agenda of extremists or the agenda of a civilized society, we have never been disappointed. - John Ding, UNRWA's Gaza Director

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Hamas • Palestine • Gaza • Israel and Palestinians • Gaza Strip • Islamic extremists • Islamic extremism • terrorists • United Nations Relief and Works Agency


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