In shocking security camera footage taken last Friday, a young Palestinian child is seen participating in a violent demonstration against IDF troops on the border with Gaza. While boys around him throw stones and taunt the IDF troops, one young boy pulls a handgun from his waist, points it at the soldiers and fires.

The situation certainly presented a disturbing moral decision for the IDF soldiers. It also raises the question of what role the parents had in the child arriving at the area, and even more so with a weapon that could very well have gotten him killed.

The video was posted by the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), a unit of the Israeli Ministry of Defense that engages in coordinating civilian issues between the Government of Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA).

Tragically, Palestinian children are used in the conflict in horrifying ways. In July, a video was released of an Arab father during a protest in Ni’ilin, urging his flag-bearing toddler son to approach an IDF jeep, shouting out a challenge to the soldiers to shoot the young boy. The father pushed his son forward, yelling at the troops, “Shoot him, shoot him!”.  When the troops fail to respond aggressively to the toddler, the father is heard urging the boy in Arabic to throw stones at the soldiers. The boy does not comply.