Farfour the Mouse and Hamas’ Indoctrination of Palestinian Children

For months, the Palestinian children of the Gaza Strip would tune in to watch an adult in a knockoff Mickey Mouse costume blame Jewish people for the misery and sins of the world.

Farfour the Mouse, a costumed character with an eerie, high-pitched voice who captured the attention of children, was broadcast on Al-Aqsa, the Hamas-run TV channel at the centre of the terror group's propaganda operation.

The channel is currently directed by Fathi Hammad, a former interior minister for the Hamas government in Gaza who, in 2016, was designated a terrorist by the US for his role as Al-Aqsa's chief.

The US described the TV channel as a ' primary Hamas media outlet with programs designed to recruit children to become Hamas armed fighters and suicide bombers upon reaching adulthood.'

Hammad said at the time he was proud of being called a terrorist by the US, telling the Washington Post at the time: ' The decision only makes me more confident about my path. The threat of killing or arrest? It doesn't freak me out, not at all. I am looking forward to it.'

Between April and June 2007, Farfour was a mainstay on 'The Pioneers of Tomorrow', a children's programme that has a similar style to Sesame Street, but with a shocking layer of anti-Semitism that was designed to radicalise Gazan children.