'It is our duty to kill those who oppress us'

Gaza City: As the garage door closed behind us we realised we had gotten ourselves into a slightly dodgy situation. "We don't want anyone to recognise us," our driver told us.

We had come to Rafah, the dusty Palestinian border town next to Egypt, to interview a group of resistance fighters.

We were ushered into a dark room with no furniture, just a green fluorescent light overhead and a Makkah calendar dating from 2007 on the wall.

Click here to watch exclusive video

We were slightly nervous. Moments later five men entered the room, their faces hidden behind balaclavas and scarves. They were carrying AK-47s. One held a grenade launcher over his shoulder.

They stood like statues as they posed for photographs. We weren't there to listen to their propaganda. We sat down and started talking, as they kept their weapons clutched in their hands.

"We fight in the name God. It is our duty to kill those who oppress us."

The man who speaks to us is eloquent and is keen to tell us why he fights in the resistance.

"This is the least we can do to defend our country and resist Israel. At the end of the day we are all headed for heaven. From young to old, we are ready to fight. We will never let them destroy our spirit." His voice shakes from time to time and the other men in the room are looking nervously around.

He tells us what goes through his mind each time he pulls the trigger.

"I think to myself that I have to kill them like they killed my innocent people."

In light of the heavy Palestinian death toll, we ask how he justifies being a resistance fighter.

"Without this resistance we have no way of defending our people," he tells us.

"It is our duty to defend this land. We will resist until the very end. We don't want peace from [Israel] because it will allow them to exploit us. The resistance is the only way to bring our land back."

They look young. The youngest of the group is just over 20.

We ask them if they are grooming children to fight.

"We never use children in the resistance. As fighters we love death. We want to be martyred, which is our duty, but we care about the lives of our population, of our children, of the innocents."

The five men before us are from two factions: Islamic Jihad and Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade.

"During the war all of the factions came together and were fighting along side each other," he says proudly. "Of course, every organisation has its own system of operations, but during the war we were all fighting side by side against the Israelis."

One of the key requirements of the current peace proposal is an end to the smuggling of arms into Palestine.

"Even if they closed all of the borders, we will still be able to get weapons into the country. We will bring them in through a secret way and no one will know how we get them in".

As they exit the room, a scarf falls away from one of the men, and a soft, round face is revealed - the face of a conflict that has polarised yet another generation of young people.