Everything coming from Gaza is seen as a threat to the Israeli communities surrounding the strip. Even if “terror” arrives driven by the sea breeze in the form of a kite, and even if at the end of the string of this toy there is a child.
Almost a year after the ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel, life is returning at half speed to the Palestinian enclave, where bombings continue, but more sporadically. In the absence of Israeli aviation, dozens of Gazans have resumed the habit of flying small handmade kites. Some of these devices have managed to cross the yellow line – where Israeli troops remain – and even the border.
The Israeli government does not see them as an innocent act. The Defense Minister, Israel Katz, has warned that he will intensify attacks on Gaza if these launches continue, and Netanyahu himself warned on Sunday that “those responsible” for launching kites, balloons, or drones towards Israel will be subject to targeted attacks, including evacuation of the areas from which they are launched. The warning comes after several kites appeared over the weekend in border towns, including four found in the kibbutz Nahal Oz, just 800 meters from the border.
The precedent weighs heavily. In 2018 – five years before the offensive on Gaza – kites and balloons loaded with incendiary material burned forests and farmland in southern Israel, in what the Gazans themselves then presented as a protest against the blockade. That memory now fuels suspicion about any flying object crossing the yellow line.
Rafi Babian, head of security of a town in the western Negev, tells this in an interview with La Vanguardia. “In 2018 they took the kites, tied an incendiary bottle or some kind of charge to the tail, and with the winds going from west to east they burned hundreds and thousands of hectares of farmland, forests, trees,” he recalls.
“And it was not only economic damage: it was also tangible damage, especially for the children, who were afraid of any balloon. We stopped bringing balloons to birthdays.” That episode later evolved into the “terror of the balloons,” harder to detect with the naked eye. Now, with Israeli aviation absent from Gaza’s sky, the new kites reopen that same scar. “It’s not just the string, it’s also the size,” Babian points out, suspecting that these devices “came to see what we do with this.”
Hamas, for its part, denies responsibility for the new kites – which did not carry explosives – and maintains that they belong to “children seeking their innocent childhood among the rubble,” accusing Israel of using the episode as a “pretext” to maintain bombings despite the ceasefire.
In Gaza, the popular committees – formed by local NGOs and charitable organizations that manage displaced persons camps – issued a statement Monday night, coordinated with Hamas authorities, asking parents to prevent their children from flying kites.
Read more Smoke signals
“We are doing everything possible to put an end to this practice, not to limit the childhood of our children, but to protect their innocent lives,” the text states. Umm Mohammed, a mother from Gaza City, told Reuters that she fears her son will get hurt: “Every summer, my son Ahmed, 10 years old, and the children in the neighborhood fly those kites to entertain themselves, but I will no longer let him do it.”
On the other side of the border, in the moshav Netiv Ha’Asara – the Israeli town closest to Gaza – Hila Fenton has been trying for almost two years to reconcile fear with hope. “Before October 7 I had to rebuild my beliefs, my optimism, and after that it is no longer easy,” she explains to this newspaper.
“I used to say that victory for both peoples would be that those walls would cease to exist; that we could take the bike and go back to the beach, and that they could come here, as before. Today I believe much less: those walls will have to remain standing for much longer.”
Israeli neighbors on the Gaza border
“I used to say that victory for both peoples would be that those walls would cease to exist (…), today I believe they will have to remain standing for much longer”
Still, she clings to one idea: “The solution is both the most complicated and the simplest there is: acceptance. Do we accept that Gaza is our neighbor? Israel took a step towards that acceptance in 2005, and Hamas, unfortunately, did not follow. Being a victim is also a choice, and that is the one Hamas has made for its people: at what price and for how long?”
Not everyone shares that margin for hope. Avida Bachar, a survivor of October 7, lost his wife, his 15-year-old son, and a leg when Hamas militants arrived at his home in kibbutz Be’eri, where 115 people died that day. He does not trust that Hamas will disarm nor that Trump’s Peace Board will change anything: “You don’t know them like I do. I don’t think Netanyahu knows what they are like.” In his view, “they should all leave for other countries and start over. They can’t live with us.”
Between Bachar’s fear and Fenton’s hope, Gaza’s future will also depend on the outcome of the polls: Israel has elections scheduled for October 27.
