Eurasia Press & News
On December 4, 2023, the Hamas movement announced the establishment of a new youth movement in the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon called the Al-Aqsa Flood Pioneers, which will constitute, according to Hamas, a “vanguard resistance force which will take part in the liberation of Jerusalem and al-Aqsa Mosque.” In practice, the movement will serve as an organizational framework for ideological recruitment, and will train young Palestinians in the refugee camps in Lebanon preparing them to be Hamas terrorist operatives who will attack Israel from the Lebanese border, following the model of youth movements of other terrorist organizations.
In the wake of reservations from many people in Lebanon, including government officials, regarding the establishment of the movement, Hamas tried to minimize its importance and represent it as an “ideological,” non-militant social movement, but apparently the Lebanese public was not convinced. Their reservations stem mainly from a concern that it will soon become a state within a state, as Fatah was in south Lebanon from the late 1960s until 1982 (the First Lebanon War), in an area dubbed “Fatahland,” and turn into another armed militia operating alongside Hezbollah and the “resistance axis”[2] from Lebanon.
