Seeing a kite flying over a territory marked by war produces a very strong contrast: children playing in a territory of death and destruction. In recent years the kite has entered the symbolic imagination of the Palestinian resistance: from a simple toy, constructed in a simple way even with rudimentary materials, in Gaza it has become a symbol linked to childhood, freedom and the possibility of looking beyond the borders of the Strip. It is probably also for this reason that the image of the kites has had great media power: in the Palestinian case, it is something that physically overcomes a barrier and which has returned to the fore after the Israeli government on August 27th threatened to also militarily attack the areas of the Strip from which kites will be flown, specifying that they will be treated and considered as a threat similar to drones and weapons. But why the kite? What is the Palestine-related history of this universal toy? To do this we must take a step back, precisely to 2018 and the Great March of Return.
The Great March of Return: kites as an instrument of protest in Palestine
On March 30, 2018, on the occasion of Palestinian Land Day, thousands of Palestinians began to participate in the so-called Great March of Return, a series of demonstrations along the barrier that separates the Gaza Strip from the territory under Israeli control. The protest, initially scheduled to last only until May 15, the day of commemoration of the Nakba, called among other things for the right of return of Palestinian refugees and an end to the blockade of the Strip.
From 30 March 2018, seven times every Friday, thousands of Palestinian protesters marched in the border area between Israel and the Gaza Strip, with forms of civil disobedience, trespassing, throwing objects towards Israeli territories. Among these, some protesters began flying kites equipped with incendiary materials across the border which started fires in nearby Israeli farmland to which the Israeli army responded with military attacks and increased tensions along the border. The result was that in the seven Fridays of mobilization, 47 Palestinians were killed and more than 1,400 injured, including numerous children.
Demonstrations then continued until the end of 2019, resulting in 220 Palestinian deaths, according to data from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). From that moment on, the kite took on a double meaning: on the one hand an instrument of protest, on the other a symbol of childhood and the resilience of the Gaza population. However, to understand why the kite has become such a powerful symbol, we need to start before 2018.
The symbol of denied childhood and the children of Gaza
In Gaza, kite flying was already deeply associated with children and open spaces: between 2009 and 2011, during summer activities organized by UNRWA (the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees), thousands of Palestinian children participated in collective kite-flying initiatives. In particular, in July 2011, 12,350 children gathered on the beach and flew their kites at the same time, setting a Guinness World Record on Al-Waha beach, in the north of the Strip.
This recreational activity was included in UNRWA’s summer programs to offer the children of Gaza a relatively simple opportunity to play and socialize. Even then, therefore, the kite represented something that went beyond simple play: the possibility for children to appropriate, at least symbolically, a space of freedom. A particularly significant detail is that some children chose to decorate their kites with the Palestinian flag, also transforming them into an element of collective identity.
In 2026 they return to the center of tensions with Israel
The link between kites and the Palestinian resistance returned to the spotlight in August 2026. Between August 21 and 23, kites and balloons were flown by Palestinian children in Gaza during a beach initiative. On August 27, following the sighting of kites coming from the Gaza Strip in some Israeli areas near the border, Israel Katz, Israel’s Defense Minister, threatened to expel Palestinians from areas of the Strip where kites and balloons were flown.
“A balloon is like a kite, and a kite is like a drone, whether it carries explosives or not,” Katz explained. The Israeli government has therefore specified that these objects will be treated and considered as a threat similar to drones and weapons, including the threat of attacking the areas of origin of the kites. According to Reuters, the authorities in Gaza therefore called on parents to prevent children from flying kites, even though the kites recently spotted near the border were not equipped with incendiary devices: some images show children and parents they destroy kites for fear of becoming a target of IDF attacks.
Numerous organizations including Assopace Palestina and Amnesty International have condemned the Israeli decision to consider kites and – in some cases – balloons as drones or military objects, defending the right of children to a dignified childhood and education, even in contexts of war.
Kites signify resistance
In February 2024, Al Jazeera reported the presence of children flying kites in camps for displaced people in Rafah, allowing them for a few moments to have a feeling of normality. The contrast is almost paradoxical: the same object that in 2018 had been associated with the fires across the border once again became, in the midst of the war, a toy in the hands of children.
For this reason, today the kite can be read as a symbol of Palestinian resistance: it is above all the symbol of a population that continues to use a fragile object linked to childhood to represent something much bigger, namely the possibility of playing, living, remembering one’s identity and imagining a freedom that, at least symbolically, can cross a border.
And this very story explains why his image has become so powerful: in the sky of Gaza, a kite represents childhood, freedom, protest and resistance and it is precisely this ambivalence that explains why even today his image continues to be used when talking about Palestine.
