What Blood Diamond Teaches Us About Gaza’s Children

When militias use children as weapons and propaganda, the tragedy goes beyond numbers. It’s time to stop blaming the country defending itself and start demanding the end of Hamas, so children might live.

Look at the image. It’s right in front of you.

Blood Diamond is a gripping drama set during Sierra Leone’s brutal civil war in the late 1990s, a conflict notorious for the widespread use of child soldiers. While it is a Hollywood film, it is based on real events and aims to expose the horrific reality that many armed groups forcibly recruit children, stripping them of their childhoods and humanity.


One of the most powerful and heartbreaking elements of the film is the depiction of children who are not only forced to fight but are transformed into killers under threat of death. The character of Dia, a boy soldier, embodies this loss. Forced to kill, often in self-defense or under direct orders, Dia’s innocence is shattered. The film does not shy away from showing the tragic necessity of shooting such children when they become threats. This is gut-wrenching because it reveals the impossible choices faced by soldiers and civilians caught in these conflicts.


Dia’s relationship with his father, portrayed in flashbacks and moments of rare tenderness, shows the devastating cost of war on families. At one point, Dia points a gun at his own father, symbolising how the child soldier loses every part of himself: his identity, his family ties, and his humanity. This heartbreaking dynamic illustrates how armed groups rob children not only of their freedom but of their sense of self.


The film was not made simply to entertain but to shed light on these atrocities and to challenge audiences to confront uncomfortable truths. It highlights how children are not just tools in war but also weapons in propaganda. For militant groups, the use of child soldiers can be a terrifying but effective way to demoralise enemies, manipulate public opinion, and garner sympathy or outrage on the international stage.


This exploitation of children is not unique to Sierra Leone. Similar patterns are tragically repeated in many conflicts worldwide, including parts of the Middle East. In Gaza, reports have surfaced of militant groups recruiting or coercing children, exposing them to violence and indoctrination. These children become pawns in battles they didn’t choose, victims of cycles of hate, violence, and political manipulation.


It is important to remember that the battle in Gaza is not a conflict between equals. It is a fight between a heavily armed militant group and a liberal democracy with a diverse, mixed population. Israel is a democratic state with courts, civil rights, and citizens of multiple backgrounds, including Jews, Muslims, Christians, and Druze, living side by side. Hamas is not a freedom movement. It is a theocratic militia that rules Gaza through fear, crushes dissent, uses schools and hospitals as shields, and turns children into tools of war and propaganda.


None of this is to say that Israel is perfect. No democracy is. Civilian deaths are always tragic, and every life lost should shake the conscience. But we need to stop pretending this is simply a story of oppressor versus oppressed. Hamas does not liberate Palestinian children. It buries them, in rubble, in ideology, and in grief.


It is time we stopped attacking the country defending itself and trying to exist. It is time we started calling for the end of Hamas so that Palestinian children might live, not as martyrs, not as propaganda symbols, but as children who can grow up, go to school, and have a future.


Blood Diamond reminded us what happens when the world looks away from how children are exploited. Let’s not make the same mistake now. Calling out Israel isn’t going to save lives as they have no choice but to defend themselves and retrieve their hostages. Calling out Hamas might change something. They are getting away with it as they know they can act without criticism as loyalty from the left to their cause is unconditional. It shouldn’t be. 


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