CrossFireArabia
This is what Ahmed Khaled Al Najjar wrote:
In 2011, the children of Gaza broke the world record for the largest kite flying event.
I remember that day clearly. We used to attend UNRWA summer camps during the school holidays. Before the event, we made our kites at school, and I was incredibly excited for the moment we would finally fly them.
The next day, we went to the camp held at our school, then boarded buses heading to the beach. It was a day that felt like normal life.. children running around, kites filling the sky, and biscuits and juice being handed out to us. We were just children who wanted nothing more than a few hours of joy.
Today, everything has changed.
In Gaza, a kite is no longer simply a toy in a child’s hands، in Israel’s eyes, it has been described as a “weapon of war.”
A four-year-old child was killed while flying a kite.
Think about the absurdity and brutality of that sentence.. a four year old child… a kite… and a bombing.
Years ago, children in Gaza made kites to fill the sky with joy.
Today, a child who looks up at the sky to watch his kite must fear that the very sky above him could become the source of his death.
This is how childhood is stolen in Gaza..
A child is not allowed to play, to run, to dream, or even to fly a kite without his joy being turned into a crime, his toy into a pretext, and his sky into a target.
This is not a war against kites.
It is a war against children’s right to simply be children.
