Gaza Terror Kites

"It doesn't matter what this is; it matters what it does."
"They are sending us a message: We will burn your fields and maybe you will leave."
Ofer Liberman, agricultural operation, Nir Am Kibbutz, Israel

"We want to burn the crops of the settlers."
"Every day they burn our hearts in killing the young and injuring them. They torture us."
"It is a simple act, we enjoy our time flying kites, and we make the Israelis suffer like us. They can put pressure on their government to make us live better."
Ahmed, 17, Gazan Palestinian

"We ask each other, 'What are you going to do today?', and then answer, 'I'm going to burn a few acres on the other side' [of the Gaza-Israeli border]."
"Young people cannot find work here, and now their work is making kites to burn land inside Israel."
Murad, 27, Gazan Palestinian

Firefighters extinguish a fire in a field caused by incendiaries attached to kites flown by Palestinians, from the Gaza Strip, June 27, 2018. (Flash90)

"It [drone defence] is not 100 percent protection, but we get about 90 percent [of the kites]."
Col.Nadav Livne, head, Israeli military research and development unit

"Kites are the same as rockets; they might not have killed anyone yet, but they could."
"I used to love kites, but when you see how much damage a kite can cause, how much damage to nature, the environment, tourism, then you start hating them."
Daniel Ben David, regional director, Jewish National Fund

"The people in Gaza are desperate, and a hungry neighbour is a dangerous neighbour."
"They can't get in [to Israel, crossing the border], so instead of stabbings, we have balloons and kites, but the next stage might be drones or something else."
Adele Raemer, resident, Kibbutz Nirim, Israel-Gaza border

Israeli forces fire tear gas at demonstrators east of Gaza City along the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel, on June 29, 2018, during confrontations with Palestinian protesters. (AFP PHOTO / MAHMUD HAMS)

Labelled by most Western media politely as 'militant', the terrorist group Hamas -- which is also listed as a terrorist group by many Western nations --  has succeeded in portraying the weekly Friday-after-prayer 'protests' at the Gaza-Israel border as 'peaceful' protests of a victimized people who, 70 years after the modern-day reincarnation of the State of Israel continue to be spoken of as "refugees". The public relations war of a helpless, hapless 'occupied' people by a uncompromising military has turned the international perception of Israel as a nation of Jews to an inhumane wrenching of a population from their land to make way for others.

The reality that many Palestinians chose to remain where they were at Israel's birth and now number a million and a half Arab Palestinians with Israeli citizenship is never a factor of consideration, with the focus solely on those Palestinians who chose to leave temporarily, planning to return once the invading Arab armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Iraq succeeded in destroying the nascent state. Their plan went awry and Israel was not dislodged and some 700,000 Palestinians found themselves elsewhere than where they planned to be on return.

Other Arab nations' steadfast refusal to accept Palestinian refugees as citizens to be absorbed into their population and the United Nations' decision to recognize the Palestinians as refugees ad infinitum, along with all their descendants sees an estimated five million claiming the 'right of return'.
Hamas, ruling Gaza's two million Palestinians, makes no secret of its charter goal, to destroy the state of Israel. Under Hamas rule, both Egypt and Israel closed their borders for obvious reasons; terrorism.

Egypt, in recognition that Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, both of whom as Islamofascist groups remain a threat not only to Egypt but to democratic nations worldwide. Egypt has been targeted for violence by Islamist groups in the Sinai Peninsula and those penetrating deeper into Egypt planning the violent overthrow of the Egyptian government for replacement by the Brotherhood. Israel closed its borders with Gaza in self-defence against the constant incursion of vicious terrorists bombing Israeli civil infrastructure, killing civilians.

Israel has little option but to continue to defend its borders from incursions by Palestinians who have been raised on a steady, unvarying diet of victimization, hatred, revenge and martyrdom. Living under Hamas administration, Gazans are deprived of all the basic amenities of civilized life thanks to the Hamas fanaticism that plots to destroy Israel and in the process diverts materiel of all kinds to build tunnels rather than houses, schools and hospitals, occasionally challenging Israel to conflicts further degrading the living conditions of Gaza's civilians.

A balloon with a small explosive device attached to it, which got stuck on a trampoline in a backyard in the Eshkol region of southern Israel on June 19, 2018. (Eshkol Security)

 

The border protests and the urging by Hamas leaders of the Palestinians to confront Israeli military in hopes of spurring reactions leading to Palestinian injury and death that make for damning international headlines blaming Israel for gross maltreatment of Palestinians reflects the Hamas agenda and its success. In lending themselves to the protests whereby Hamas exploits those they oppress and maltreat, blaming Israel, the protesters themselves hold Israel accountable for their misery, imposed upon them by their Hamas leaders.

Incendiary balloons and kites made expressly for the purpose of igniting flammable fields, and balloons booby-trapped to appeal to children to try to grasp and retrieve, placing themselves in danger of handling small IEDs tied to the attractive devices places populations and arable fields and nature preserves in danger. Kits are made of basic materials; wood, ropes, paper and the eastward wind blowing off the Mediterranean helps propel these deadly devices to their destination.

At the Be'eri nature reserve there has been extensive damage to woodland and wildlife with 1,000 acres destroyed, by over 450 fires in the past two months. Thousands of incendiary kites and balloons have flown over the border in the last three months. On occasion, army jets strike military compounds and munitions sites belonging to Hamas "in response to arson and explosive kites and balloons that have been launched against Israel". 

Palestinians prepare a kite with flammable materials that they will fly into southern Israel from Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on June 22, 2018. (Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)

 

How can one side reasonably debate and respond and attempt to reach mutual solutions with another that is willing to sacrifice life and limb to achieve a Pyrrhic victory? There have been thousands of Palestinians wounded while defying the Israeli military's promise that no one will be permitted to breach the border into Israel and threaten the safety of Israeli citizens. An estimated 125 Palestinian Gazans have so far lost their lives. Friday mosque prayers see clerics urging the faithful to continue. And they do.

"It is very imaginative, using something so low-tech, but it's devastating to see the fields we've worked o hard to prepare totally destroyed."
"Honestly, I just cannot understand how this makes a difference to their protest."
Amir Adler, field worker, Kibbutz Nir Am, Israel