Hamas Puts 'Resistance' on Gaza Schools Curriculum

The Gaza Strip's Hamas government said on Tuesday it had added studies to encourage "resistance to Israel" to the territory's public schools curriculum.

Courses to "strengthen Palestinian rights, update programs and add studies on human rights" would be introduced at three levels in secondary schools, Education Minister Muetassem al-Minaui told Agence France Presse.

They were intended to instill "faith in the role of the resistance to win rights and to raise awareness of the importance of effective preparations to face the enemy," he said.

The new material, seen by AFP, tells of Israel's winter 2008-2009 and November 2012 military offensives into the Gaza Strip and shows photos of dead Palestinians and of buildings destroyed by Israeli strikes.

"All of Palestine from the (Mediterranean) sea to the river (Jordan) belongs to us, to us Muslims," it states, in accordance with the beliefs of the militant Islamic group, which refuses to recognize Israel.

The new courses will be taught only in education ministry schools and not those of the United Nations Relief and Works agency, in which close to half of the 463,000 pupils in the strip study, the agency's operations director Robert Turner told journalists on Tuesday.

At the start of this year, Hamas launched an experimental program of basic military training for about 10,000 high school students.