Children are the latest victims - whether being shot dead or primed to carry bombs. Nuala Haughey reports from the West Bank

Islam al-Masri says he wants to be like his brother when he grows up. The scrawny 10-year-old, who is from the West Bank city of Nablus, is referring to his late 16-year-old brother, Iyad, who was on his way to carry out a suicide attack in Israel in January when he prematurely blew himself up in a field after being confronted by Israeli troops.

Iyad's parents say they had no inkling that their second eldest son was preparing himself for a "martyrdom" operation. They say he was distraught about the death a week earlier of his brother Amjad, who was shot by the Israeli army on January 3rd while standing on top of a wall on wasteland outside his home. The Israeli army says Amjad, who was 14, was preparing to throw a stone at a patrol during a disturbance. His parents dispute this, saying he was playing with friends.

Iyad, who occasionally worked in construction, became withdrawn after his brother's death, according to his father, Bilal, an accountant in a family-owned pharmacy. Iyad locked himself in his room, blasting recordings of the Koran until the small hours. "I used to get mad at him and tell him: what happened to you, are you crazy? But he told me to leave him alone," recalls Bilal, a gaunt 45-year-old who is left with two sons and a daughter.

At Amjad's funeral, he says, Iyad's 18-year-old cousin Muhammad al-Masri, a pallbearer, was shot by the Israeli army, and one of the bullets skimmed Iyad's head. "Iyad felt he was targeted by the Israeli army and could die any moment."

The family's triple loss is a tragic episode amid the ongoing tragedy that is life for many young people in the occupied Palestinian territories, where childhoods can be short and harsh. Instead of playing soldier games, many children in West Bank hot spots such as Nablus, Jenin and Gaza are living the reality of a war.

Some young Palestinians see "martyrdom" as the ultimate revenge against Israeli occupation as well as the ultimate redemption from often hopeless lives. It ensures posthumous glory as well as a better life in paradise. Meanwhile, some terrorist groups are cynically and shamelessly prepared to harness young people's idolisation of resistance fighters and martyrs to dispatch young teenagers to kill Israeli civilians.

The past five weeks have seen a spate of attempted terrorist attacks involving young Palestinian boys from Nablus, and this has sparked fresh outrage about the "militarisation" of young people.

The boys include 16-year-old Husam Abdu whose terrified face appeared on television screens worldwide less than a fortnight ago after he was caught at a checkpoint wearing a vest packed with explosives. At the same spot, the Israeli army on March 15th stopped a boy aged 12, who worked as a porter at the checkpoint and said he was paid five shekels (€1) to transport a bag - which was found to contain explosives - to someone on the other side.

While these two cases involved children apparently induced or duped by militant groups, in Iyad's case the motivation was clear, according to his father.

"The incursions by the Israeli army generate the hate and the killing. Had not Amjad been martyred, I don't think Iyad would have wanted to carry out a martyrdom operation. He was very ordinary human being and he had his dreams," said Bilal.

Bilal was quoted at the time of Iyad's death criticising the local cell of Islamic Jihad for exploiting his son's grief by giving him explosives.

Questioned about this issue now, he strikes a different note, saying he does not believe Iyad was recruited or exploited.

"I'm not angry with Islamic Jihad because as a Muslim we believe that everyone's life will come to an end and had he not died in that operation he probably would have died that same day in bed."

Across the city, in Nablus's Balata refugee camp, another family had just buried their young son, shot dead in their living room 10 days ago.

Khalid Walweil (six) was defying his mother's instruction not to look out the second-storey window of his house at the street fight below between Palestinians and the Israeli army. His curiosity cost him his life when a stray bullet penetrated the window and struck him in the neck. The Israeli army disputes the family's claim that the fatal shot came from one of its soldiers, claiming instead that it was fired by local militants.

The newspapers carried photographs of Khalid's limp little body, dressed in a bright red tracksuit, being carried to an ambulance. The following Sunday morning, red-eyed and subdued, his mother Lina (32) sat in mourning surrounded by female relatives and neighbours. She described Khalid as an intensely curious child, mature for his age, brave and interested in politics. He was barely two years old when the current Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, against Israeli occupation began in September 2000. All he had known in his short life was Israeli army incursions, house demolitions, street shoot-outs, closures, curfews, funerals, death. His playground was the dusty narrow streets of the refugee camp (set up shortly after the Jewish state was created) where the breezeblock houses bear pockmarks from the regular armed clashes.

Last December, Khalid's neighbour, Muhammed Al Araj (six), was shot in the back as he ate a sandwich outside his home, three days after troops invaded Balata and adjacent camps in the largest Israeli incursion in the West Bank in more than a year. Muhammed used to sit beside Khalid in school.

"After he was killed, my son started to get curious about death and what is a martyr," said Lina. "He used to ask me 'mum if I become a martyr will you cry?' I said of course I would cry. He said 'I want you to cry a little bit but then I want you to stop because I'm going to paradise'." The women mourning with Lina were angry and agitated, accusing the Israeli army of constantly entering the camp looking for trouble.

"They say that we are the terrorists, but it's the contrary," said Lamia Walwail, Khalid's 50-year-old aunt. "We want peace but they are not leaving us alone. They are like blood-suckers. The more they kill us, the more they thrive."

Israel's defence force insists that its soldiers go to great lengths to avoid harming civilians, especially children. It also says that incursions into West Bank cities such as Nablus - which it describes as a breeding ground for suicide terrorists - are a vital part of its efforts to thwart militants planning attacks on Israeli citizens, including children.

According to Israel, security officials have arrested more than 40 minors involved in planning suicide bombings since January 2001. They also attribute 22 shootings and bombings to minors.

More than 600 children aged under 18 have been killed during the Intifada, 533 Palestinian and 108 Israeli, according to UNICEF, the UN children's fund, in Jerusalem.

In a recent report, Amnesty International said Palestinian and Israeli children have been targeted in an unprecedented manner in the current Intifada. The group criticised both the Israeli defence force and Palestinian armed groups for their "utter disregard for the lives of children and other civilians".

Back in Balata camp, Khalid's aunt Samar leads us upstairs and points out the neat bullet hole in the window. "Where can we put our children?" she implores with her outstretched arms. "What is a safe place to put them? Should we not have kids? If we could open our hearts and put them in we would."

In another living room in the city, another mother sat surrounded by her relatives, awaiting news of the fate of her teenage son, Husam, who remains in Israeli army custody. When he was caught at a checkpoint wearing a suicide bomb vest, the Israeli army initially said Husam was 12, and later 14. He eventually turned out to be 16, but of very small build as he and his father's family suffer from dwarfism.

After his vest was removed and Husam was questioned by the army, he was promptly paraded in front of summonsed journalists, a crude public relations move which some have criticised as abusive in itself. The Israeli army issued a statement saying the boy told them his motives were the will to prove himself despite his unpopularity and the desire to "earn" 72 virgins, a reference to the popular belief that such a reward awaits martyrs in paradise.

Talking to The Irish Times, Husam's mother, Tamam (50), seemed more upset by media reports that her son was mentally slow and emotionally disturbed than by the fact that he was apparently on his way to kill Israeli civilians.

While critical of those who manipulated her innocent son, she said she supported suicide operations by adults.

"I support suicide operations if they are over 18," she said. "The reason I'm telling you this is that we are a people under occupation. We are oppressed. We are in a big open prison, and they attack us with airplanes, Apache helicopters, tanks, APCs [Armoured Personnel Carriers], and our kids have nothing to resist with except stones and some of them blow up their bodies in order to resist the occupation."