:Gaza- Nawa Network- Filastiniyat
Sara Ahmed, five, was born just two years before the war erupted in Gaza. She grew up surrounded by her family and toys. Whenever a relative came to visit, they would bring her a small toy, turning those simple gifts into cherished memories of childhood.
But on October 7, everything changed. War, displacement, fear and deprivation replaced the ordinary details of growing up. While children elsewhere can play safely in parks, playgrounds and neighborhood streets, Sara has grown up knowing a completely different reality.
"During the war, I made her a doll from a worn piece of cloth I found among the rubble,” her mother told Nawa. “When we were displaced from one place to another, we lost the doll too. Things are still difficult, and the war is still going on, so a kite was one of the simplest things we could make for a five-year-old girl".
When Sara’s father returns from work, she runs to him and asks him to take her somewhere with enough open space and wind for her to fly her kite. She sits beside him, watching the kite rise into the sky, as they share one of the few simple moments of joy still available to them.
"We want to fly too and see the world outside, where people live in safety and peace. I want to live like them too."
She would tell her father, "We want to fly too and see the world outside, where people live in safety and peace. I want to live like them too."
He would simply reply, "God willing."
Sara does not yet understand what it takes to reach that world, or how much it would cost to leave Gaza. Her family is struggling simply to secure enough food to get through each day amid the war.
A Childhood Far From Ordinary
Elsewhere, children go to parks and amusement centers, play in the streets and alleys of their neighborhoods, walk along intact sidewalks, and return home to bathe in their own bathrooms.
In Gaza, children search for small spaces to play among tents, rubble and destroyed roads. They struggle to access water and other basic necessities. Even toys, those small objects that once brought children moments of joy, now cost more than $30 each—an amount beyond the reach of families already struggling to meet their basic needs.
Now, even kites have become part of the war.
"They took away the thing we love. I swear, my heart breaks as I break them."
In a video filmed by a family member, a child is seen breaking his handmade kites, one after another. He had carefully made them, added colors to them, and found joy in creating something of his own.
As he breaks the first one, he says, "This is so Netanyahu will be satisfied."
Then he breaks the second: "So Katz will be satisfied."
He breaks the third: "So Trump will be satisfied."
When he reaches the fourth, he breaks down and says, “They took away the thing we love. I swear, my heart breaks as I b"eak them."
He was not simply tearing apart paper and sticks. He was giving up one of the few things that had brought him joy during the war.
When War Reaches Children’s Play
In a statement, Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem responded to threats by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Security Minister Israel Katz to escalate assassination operations and displace Palestinians from areas of the Gaza Strip if balloons and kites continued to be launched from Gaza toward Israel.
The Israeli side links kites and balloons to memories of fires that broke out in agricultural areas between 2018 and 2023, when some of them, according to the Israeli narrative, carried incendiary materials launched from Gaza.
But for children in Gaza, a kite can mean something entirely different.
How can those who possess nuclear weapons and a vast array of military aircraft fear a kite that carries nothing ?but a child’s joy
A kite can mean a few minutes of play, a chance to create something with their own hands, and a reason to look up at the sky rather than at the destruction around them.
"How can those who possess nuclear weapons and a vast array of military aircraft fear a kite that carries nothing but a child’s joy?"
Saeed al-Harazin, 10, is one of those children.
"He never really had a childhood or school friends to play with and share his happiness," his sister told Nawa. "He would be happy when he made his own kite and added colors to it. Even that small joy was taken away from him."
She added, "Can a child really be deprived of every form of childhood simply because we love our land and remain committed to our rights?"
When Play Is More Than Just Play
Psychologist Layla Ali says that play is not merely a way to pass the time. For children living through war, it is a way to express their feelings, cope with fear, and regain a sense of safety.
She explains that a child living through fear, displacement and the loss of home, school and friends needs a space where they can play and create things. Even brief moments of play can give children a temporary sense of normality amid lives dominated by uncertainty and loss.
Ali adds that being continually deprived of play and the simple things they love can deepen their feelings of sadness and helplessness, particularly when they become unable even to hold on to something they made with their own hands.
A Childhood Waiting to Take Flight
Sara does not ask for much.
She does not dream of an amusement park or a room filled with toys. She wants something much simpler: a safe place where she can fly her kite with her father.
Whenever the kite rises, Sara looks up at it as though it were a window onto another world—a world she knows only through stories, where children go to school without fear, play in the streets, and return safely to their families.
She is still waiting for her father’s “God willing” to become a reality.
In Gaza, children are not only losing their homes, schools and friends; they are also losing those ordinary moments that make childhood feel like childhood.
"How much of childhood can be taken away before children are finally allowed to simply be children"
For Sara and thousands of other children, even a simple kite has become a reminder of everything they have been deprived of.
And as their kites disappear from the sky, one painful question remains:
How much of childhood can be taken away before children are finally allowed to simply be children?
