Annisa Essack | kzn@radioislam.org.za
24 August 2026 | 17:30 CAT
5-min read

Israel has threatened to intensify its attacks on Gaza and forcibly displace Palestinians from areas identified as launch sites for kites, drones and balloons, prompting accusations that the government is using children’s toys as a pretext for further military action.

The threats by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz came after Israeli forces reported finding kites that had crossed from Gaza. The Israeli military, however, acknowledged that the kites contained no explosives or incendiary materials and posed no danger to Israeli communities.

The escalation came as Israeli air attacks continued across the Gaza Strip.

On Sunday, an Israeli strike hit a warehouse in az-Zawayda, reducing it to rubble. Further strikes near Salah al-Din Street killed four-year-old Muhammad Abdel Salam Taha. Israeli drone attacks also targeted areas in southern Khan Younis and a tent sheltering displaced Palestinians at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah.

Standing among the destruction in az-Zawayda, a witness identified as Abu Ahmed described the despair felt by Palestinians living under continued bombardment.

“There is no ceasefire; there is nothing. We want solutions; we want to live in peace,” he said.

Threats over kites

Netanyahu and Katz issued a joint statement on Sunday warning of what they described as severe retaliation over the launches. They said Israel would not allow a return to the situation that existed before October 7, 2023, and threatened to remove Palestinians from areas allegedly being used to launch kites, drones and balloons.

Yet the military’s own findings have raised questions about the severity of the alleged threat.

Israeli forces reportedly recovered 10 paper kites, all without explosives, and said they had been flown by children in displacement camps. Other reports said boys aged 12 and 13 were responsible for some of the launches, although no evidence was presented to substantiate claims that they were acting on behalf of Hamas.

Palestinian political analyst Hussam Shaheen dismissed the claims surrounding drones as baseless.

“It is a false and baseless assertion; it is non-existent. It has been denied, and there is no evidence whatsoever to prove any connection to drones,” Shaheen told Al Jazeera.

Adel Shadid, an expert on Israeli affairs, said the issue appeared to have been deliberately amplified.

“It was clear that there was an intention to invest in and use these paper kites as a pretext, and the whole issue might be fabricated,” Shadid said.

For Shaheen, the contrast between Israel’s military capabilities and the alleged threat posed by children’s kites was difficult to ignore.

“It is inconceivable that a state claiming to be a great power possessing a nuclear arsenal considers a paper kite flown by a Palestinian child a security threat,” he said.

He also questioned how kites could realistically constitute a significant security threat when much of Gaza remains under Israeli military control.

“Seventy percent of the Strip is still under the control of the Israeli army, so how can one talk about paper kites penetrating all this space and posing a security threat?” Shaheen said.

A political calculation?

The controversy has emerged against the backdrop of stalled ceasefire efforts and growing political pressure on Netanyahu.

Israel recently rejected a United States-backed 15-point ceasefire roadmap that Hamas had accepted. Analysts have linked the latest escalation to Israel’s domestic political calculations, particularly with elections approaching in October.

Shadid said Netanyahu’s political position had weakened considerably.

“Opinion polls indicate that Netanyahu’s chances of forming a government have become non-existent,” he said.

Shaheen argued that the issue was less about the kites themselves than about creating conditions that could facilitate further displacement.

“Netanyahu does not need to invent a major issue out of the paper kites; rather, the primary goal is pushing the Palestinians towards displacement and dodging any political commitment,” he said.

Political researcher Suleiman Bisharat said seemingly minor incidents could nevertheless be turned into powerful political tools by linking them to Israeli security concerns.

“It is true that we might consider these excuses superficial and weak, but ultimately … Israel ties them to the security equation,” Bisharat told Al Jazeera.

When children’s play becomes a security threat

The debate over kites has also drawn attention to the broader reality of childhood in Gaza, where ordinary activities have increasingly been viewed through a military lens.

Researcher and therapist [Zaynab Hinnawi], who co-authored the paper Healing Through the Skies: Coping With Grief Through a Therapeutic Group Activity for Children in Palestine with Elizabeth Berger, has previously written about kite-making and kite-flying as therapeutic activities for children living with grief and war.

The idea is strikingly simple: a child makes a kite, decorates it or writes a message on it, and watches it rise into the sky.

In a place where children are surrounded by drones, missiles and surveillance, that simple act can offer a brief sense of play, imagination and control. The sky, for a moment, becomes more than a source of danger.

The therapeutic approach has since been used in activities with children in Lebanon and Brazil and with refugees in Australia and Italy.

That makes the latest Israeli threats particularly troubling for those who see kite-flying as an expression of childhood rather than warfare.

Israel’s treatment of kites as a potential “act of war”, critics argue, illustrates how deeply militarisation has entered everyday Palestinian life. Even a child’s attempt to play, grieve or imagine a different future can become entangled in the language of security.

There is also a deeper symbolism attached to the act of rising.

Across religious traditions, ascent has long represented transcendence, hope and the possibility of reaching beyond earthly limitations. For a Palestinian child living amid war and displacement, a kite can carry something of that same meaning.

It is a small object, fragile and almost weightless.

But when the sky is filled with warplanes and drones, allowing a child to send something of their own into it can become an act of reclaiming a tiny piece of childhood.

And that is precisely why the transformation of a child’s kite into a military threat has resonated so strongly with critics of Israel’s Gaza policy.

1. Samah Jabr – Former Head of Mental Health Unit, Palestinian Ministry of Health/Psychiatrist, Author, Lecturer & Human Rights Advocate

2. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/8/24/israel-accused-of-using-kites-as-pretext-to-justify-escalating-gaza-attacks