October 1, 2003:
Mohammed's younger brother
Issam was seriously injured
and was taken to the hospital
about a week ago. His leg
was amputated and he is
undergoing medical treatment.

October 18, 2003:
Mohammad's younger brother,
Hussam [17 yrs old], was killed
by the Israeli army today.

Hussam was sitting at home
when he was shot in the face,
chest, back, legs. He had
nothing to do with any violent
or even political movement.

Hussam's crime is that he was
a Palestinian.

— The Webmaster

The kites of Gaza: Childrens’ messages fly higher than warplanes

http://www.vermontguardian.com/global/0904/KitesofGaza.shtml

Special to the Vermont Guardian
Posted July 1, 2005

RAFAH, Gaza — As the summer solstice draws closer, the sun rises over the Negev a few minutes earlier every day, brightening the cloudless sky. Before it finishes its long arc, and sets over the Mediterranean, hidden from Rafah’s refugee camps by barbed wire, walls, settlements and Israeli sniper towers, its noon heat bakes the sky almost white.

Throughout the day, Apache gunships occasionally hover, unmanned drones come by now and then, but there are new squadrons of manmade objects in the sky as well—sometimes one or two, sometimes dozens of colorful kites soaring above the tents, the rubble, the tiny houses and narrow streets of the camps. Seen from a distance, they are diving, swooping, soaring shapes of brilliant red, blue, green, and white. You have to get closer to hear the delighted laughter of the children flying them, closer still to see their smiles.

Like children everywhere, the kite flyers are fascinated by birds, planes, cartoon characters like Superman and Batman—anything and everything that flies. Palestinian children have seen skies full of U.S.-made Apache warships for years, but most of those now flying kites in Rafah are too young to remember clearly that short time before the Intifada when Palestine’s national airline, with its tiny fleet of jets, was the pride and hope of the nation.

Gaza International Airport is just a few miles east of Rafah, its runways destroyed by the Israeli Occupation Army. But its terminal crew still reports to work daily and maintains the building as best they can. With all the plans for Israeli disengagement from Gaza this summer, repairing and re-opening the Gaza International Airport is a key item in Palestinan-Israeli negotiations about post-disengagement Gaza.

While the politicians do what politicians do best—namely, talk, and talk some more—Rafah’s children have mastered flight that requires no salaries for pilots, air hostesses, or ground crews, and no jet fuel, planes, or airports. With paper, string, a bit of glue and lots of ingenuity, their kites soar aloft every summer day in Rafah. Instead of carrying passengers and cargo, these flimsy constructions carry the dreams, questions, hopes, and demands of the children who send them into the sky.

“My kite carries a message,” 13-year-old Hussni Hamad explained. “My dream is that the Israeli Apache pilots will see the question written plainly on it, namely, ‘Why are you shelling us?’” Almost every Palestinian could ask that question, as it is rare for a day to go by even now without at least one person in Gaza being killed or injured by an Israelian aerial attack. Even now, during a supposed cease-fire, shelling is a near daily occurrence.

A few meters away from Hussni, Imad was hot and exhausted, but determined to finish his kite.The frame was made of dried ditch reeds; the paper covering it designed with the colors of the Palestinian flag — black, green, white, and red. But this kite is far more than a pleasant toy for Imad, for in the center he has pasted a photograph of a young man.

When asked who it is, Imad pauses and seems to go deep inside himself before explaining that the man in the photo is his beloved older brother, dead nearly two years now, murdered by the Israeli Occupation forces in the winter of 2003.

He has a dream, he says shyly. A simple one. Maybe he can make his kite, the marvelous kite honoring his brother, fly higher than the Israeli warplanes and Apaches. “I feel freedom; I feel like I’m flying through my kite,” he says. “Though someday, I hope to travel by airplane.”

Imad probably doesn’t realize that people have been flying kites at least 3000 years, or that in sending his dead brother’s photo soaring into the heavens, he is creating his own version of symbols found in many cultures. In Chinese folklore, colorful kites symbolize the souls of honored ancestors rising to eternity. Very likely, the more enterprising Rafah kite-makers, who turn out an extra or two to sell to the other kids, also don’t realize that in many countries, elaborate kites have been prized and valuable art works for centuries.

The children of Gaza have also used their kites to send messages to one another. Last autumn, when the villages of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya were under prolonged siege, children in nearby areas flew kites daily to show their solidarity with their neighbors under attack. Their hope was that when people looked up, they would see not just drones and gunships, but those bright kites saying, “We know what’s happening. We care. We support you. Don’t give up hope.”

Growing up under occupation has made the physical world tiny for the children of Gaza. There are beautiful beaches they cannot visit, warm nights when it is too dangerous to venture out, sniper towers that make it dangerous to play; friends and relatives in the next village they cannot visit. But the extent of their resilience is limitless, as they send their vivid messages of hope, their demand for peace, soaring into the sky day after brilliant summer day.

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