A battle for the hearts and minds of children in the Gaza Strip has broken out with competing summer camps.

Both the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and the Islamic organization Hamas run camps for the region's children--but the activities are somewhat different.

The UN has a summer program that concentrates on games and sports for boys and girls. Catering to both sexes has brought charges that the camps are degenerate and corrupting Gaza's youth and resulted in two arson attacks.

The Hamas camps feature swimming and horseback riding as well as teaching Islam, involve military-style marching and carry an anti-Israeli message. As the major slogan for the summer camps this year, the Islamic movement chose the slogan, "Our Aqsa Mosque, Our prisoners, Freedom is pending."

"Each summer camp carries the name of a Hamas militant killed by the occupation, or the name of a village destroyed in Palestine in 1948 and the names of the prisoners," Ihab al-Eisawai, Hamas summer camp media officer, was quoted by the Xinhua news agency as saying.

"UN summer camps have affected our summer activities this year, because they attract the children by offering them entertaining games. Our camps are different; we carry out cultural, media, arts and technology activities, in addition to focusing on teaching them about the real Islam."

Last month, unknown masked men vandalized the biggest UNRWA summer camp on the beach of southern Gaza City, which was under construction. Dozens of masked gunmen tied up a night watchman, burned down tents, left behind three bullets and a note threatening to kill John Ging, the head of UNRWA in Gaza.

On the same day, Hamas announced it was launching its own camps to entertain children. On that day, hundreds of children--destined for Hamas summer camps -- protested before the headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Gaza City to express solidarity with thousands of Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli jails.

They also carried banners urging parents to send their children to join Hamas camps. One of the banners -- referring to the UN camps -- said, "Our camps are religious and cultural and not summer camps of debauchery."

Yesterday, masked gunmen set fire to another UN-run summer camp. UN spokesman Adnan Abu Hasna said the attackers tied up the guards at the camp in central Gaza before setting fire to chairs, tables, easels and other equipment. UNRWA vowed to repair the camp and said it would continue to maintain its 1,200 summer camps, in which over 250,000 Gaza children participate.

"This is another example of the growing levels of extremism in Gaza and further evidence, if that were needed, of the urgency to change the circumstances on the ground," Mr. Ging said.

The Hamas-run interior ministry condemned the attack and blamed it on "groups led by those with misguided ideas who want to distort the situation in Gaza."