JERUSALEM, Dec. 28 (UPI) -- A group of Palestinian children were barred by Hamas from entering Israel Sunday.
The trip, including 37 children whose parents were killed in the conflict, was organized by kibbutz leaders, the charity Candle for Peace and Arab-Israeli officials.
As part of what are often called "normalization" efforts, the children and their five adult handlers were to be taken to several Arab towns in Israel, as well as an Arab-Israeli mixed school. The children would have also gotten the chance to visit the beach in Tel Aviv.
A visit to meet the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, a part of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, was also scheduled.
According to Eyad al-Bazam, spokesman for the Hamas Interior Ministry, Hamas security forces stopped the children -- who they referred to as sons of Palestinian "martyrs" -- from traveling to "Zionist settlements inside the 1948 occupied lands."
The ban is enforced for the purpose of "preserving the culture of our children and people and protecting them against the policy of normalization (with Israel)," al-Bazam said -- according to the Jerusalem Post.
Though the death toll is disputed, some suggest at least three-quarters of the more than 2,000 Palestinians killed during this summer's conflict were civilians.
