Hamas invites children to take selfies with guns and RPGs

Families were invited to pose for selfies with guns and rocket-propelled grenades as Hamas held its first-ever weapons exhibition in the wake of worsening Israeli-Palestinian violence.

Members of Hamas’s Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, dressed in fatigues and balaclavas, mingled with the public while inviting them to cradle sniper rifles, RPGs and automatic weapons. Photographs show children peering through gun scopes with big smiles on their faces and holding up weapons twice their size. “Resistance is an image and a memory. Take souvenir photos with many of al-Qassam’s weapons,” said the group in an invitation on social media.

The event – the first of its kind in Gaza, which coincided with Eid al Adha, a major Islamic holiday – was one of several exhibitions held by the group across the Gaza Strip and featured drones, RPGs and Russian “Kornet” missiles.

I loved the Imperial War Museum as a child, and as an adult still. But I seem to remember the emphasis is on the human cost of war juxtaposed with a purely technical display of weapons of all countries.