Hamas security officials propose a draft in face of PA challenge

By ICEJ News

29 Jul 2010

Military officials in the Islamic terror militia Hamas which rules the Gaza Strip are considering turning to conscription to augment their numbers, further tightening their grip on the civilian population of the coastal enclave and making it even more unlikely that the Western backed Palestinian Authority will be able to reassert control over the Strip in the near future. Hamas’s current security force consists of 18,000 paid fighters, and is considered one of the better jobs a young Gazan man can get, with more than half of Gaza’s 1.5 million residents under the age of 18 and economic activity at an all time low. However, some Hamas security men disagreed with the idea of a draft, saying it would lower the quality of the security forces and would in any case be too expensive to train and equip large numbers of fighters.

Print    Tell a friend