Gaza Kites: Hamas Has Weaponized Innocence Before - Let’s be Extra Careful

By Dan Feferman

Kites sent from Gaza were found in Israel. Credit: Israeli media

The latest Gaza kites carried no explosives. But the history they evoke—from incendiary attacks to the strategic deception preceding October 7—is anything but innocent.

The Gaza kites recovered this week carried no explosives. The history they evoke is not innocent. While international attention has focused on implementing Phase II of President Donald Trump’s Gaza plan—a process meant to connect Hamas’s demilitarization to an Israeli withdrawal and the reconstruction of Gaza—a small but deeply worrying development has emerged along the border. Kites flown from Gaza have crossed into Israel.

Gaza’s kites and a familiar Hamas narrative

Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem has dismissed them as “children’s toys in displacement camps.” That framing has spread rapidly. Headlines and social-media posts portray Israel as a nuclear-armed state terrified of children at play.

Al Jazeera has presented the controversy largely as an Israeli fabrication designed to justify further attacks. Posts accusing Israel of preventing Palestinian children from enjoying what remains of their childhood have generated thousands of reactions.

There is one important fact in support of that account: according to the Israeli military, the kites recovered near Nahal Oz carried no explosives or other suspicious materials. The Associated Press reported the same finding. No publicly available evidence yet proves that these particular kites were launched as part of an organized Hamas operation.

That fact must be acknowledged. So must another: Israel has seen this playbook before. Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad have repeatedly exploited ambiguity—mixing authentic civilian activity with organized violence, converting ordinary objects into weapons and hiding military preparations inside patterns that appear routine. They have used protests containing armed agitators, incendiary balloons, burning tire smoke, fence disturbances and seemingly civilian activity near the border to generate uncertainty about what Israel is seeing and how it may legitimately respond.

The objective is not always to begin a full-scale war immediately. Often it is to test Israel, exhaust its troops, study its responses, create plausible deniability and gradually make abnormal activity appear normal. If Israel does nothing, the envelope can be pushed further. If it responds forcefully, Hamas can turn the response into an international media campaign in which the provocation disappears and only the Palestinian suffering remains. This is not speculation divorced from history.

When civilian symbols became weapons

In February 2018, an explosive device was attached to a Palestinian flag placed at the Gaza fence during a demonstration. Four Israeli soldiers were wounded when troops approached the flag the following day. A symbol of political protest had been converted into a booby trap. Contemporary reporting documented both the device and the resulting escalation.

The following month, the Great March of Return began. It included many Palestinians engaged in genuine political protest. That reality should not be erased. But neither should what happened next. Hamas became heavily involved. Amid the much larger civilian crowds, smaller groups cut and damaged the fence, threw Molotov cocktails and explosive devices, launched incendiary kites and attempted to enter Israel. Burning tires produced smoke that obscured the view of Israeli soldiers. Specialized “tire,” “kite and balloon” and later “night confusion” units appeared.

The United Nations inquiry into the demonstrations concluded that most demonstrators were nonviolent and also documented stones, Molotov cocktails, improvised explosives, fence-cutting and incendiary devices. It found conflicting evidence about whether Hamas directly commanded every specialized unit. But it also found that some protest organizers—including Hamas representatives—encouraged or defended incendiary attacks and that Hamas, as Gaza’s governing authority, failed to stop them.

That ambiguity was not a side effect. It was the strategic advantage.

Hamas’s 2018 incendiary-kite campaign

Beginning in April 2018, ordinary kites and balloons were systematically transformed into airborne incendiary devices. Burning rags, coals, fuel-soaked material and eventually Molotov cocktails and explosives were carried toward Israel by the prevailing winds. The consequences were not imaginary.

The UN inquiry recorded more than 1,600 fires in southern Israel between April and October 2018, burning approximately 7,000 acres and causing millions of dollars in damage. Agricultural fields, nature reserves and property were burned. Some devices landed near homes and educational facilities. Israeli children were warned not to touch fallen balloons or kites because something that looked attractive and harmless could ignite or explode.

The escalation did not remain confined to kites. Between May 28 and 30, 2018, Palestinian armed groups fired 216 rockets and mortar shells from Gaza. In July, roughly 200 more rockets and mortars were fired during another confrontation.

The pattern was becoming clear: civilian protest, organized border violence, low-cost airborne arson and then heavier projectile fire formed an escalation ladder. Hamas could move up or down that ladder depending on Israeli retaliation, Egyptian mediation, Qatari funding and the political pressure it hoped to generate.

Later in 2018 and 2019, “night confusion” groups approached the border after dark. They burned tires, shone lasers, sounded sirens and detonated explosives to disturb Israeli troops and nearby civilians. Smoke concealed activity near the fence.

These actions imposed exhaustion and psychological pressure while remaining below the threshold of conventional war. Incendiary and explosive balloons returned in 2019, 2020 and 2021. During August 2020 alone, Gaza factions launched hundreds of incendiary or explosive balloons and at least 16 rockets before another ceasefire was reached.

The tactic had become an instrument of coercive bargaining: violence sufficient to attract attention and impose costs, but calibrated—Hamas hoped—to avoid a devastating conflict.

From Gaza border pressure to October 7

Then came 2023. In September, only weeks before the October 7 massacre, so-called youth protests returned to the border. Participants burned tires, threw explosive devices and launched incendiary balloons.

Hamas described the unrest as a spontaneous expression of popular anger. Hamas-linked media circulated images from the confrontations. International reporting generally interpreted the disturbances as a way for Hamas to pressure Israel for economic concessions. One analysis described them as a tactical “warming up” intended to obtain money and relief rather than initiate a war. That interpretation proved catastrophically reassuring.

It is not yet possible to prove that every September protest was a direct intelligence-gathering operation. But Hamas was simultaneously engaged in a much broader campaign of strategic deception. It sought to persuade Israel that governing Gaza, obtaining work permits and improving economic conditions mattered more to it than another war.

Hamas even remained on the sidelines during earlier confrontations between Israel and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, reinforcing the impression that it had become cautious and pragmatic. Israel saw Hamas training. It saw border activity. It knew that Hamas possessed plans for a mass assault. Yet Israeli decision-makers learned to interpret those signals as background noise rather than preparations for invasion.

Subsequent Israeli military findings concluded that Israel had fundamentally misjudged both Hamas’s intentions and its capabilities. The central misconception, according to the Associated Press’s account, was the belief that Hamas had become more interested in governing Gaza than in attacking Israel. A recent academic study describes October 7 not only as an Israeli intelligence failure but as a Hamas “strategic deception and intelligence success.”

Hamas did not simply hide. It cultivated the interpretation it wanted Israel to adopt. It allowed Israel to see activity while teaching Israeli leaders to misunderstand what they were seeing. That study’s analysis should hang over every discussion of apparently harmless activity at the Gaza border. This is why Israel cannot treat the present Gaza kites as though they appeared in a historical vacuum.

Israel must combine vigilance with restraint

That does not mean every child with a kite is a combatant. A child is a child, not a military target. It does not mean Israel should bomb Gaza because an ordinary paper kite crosses the border. And it does not excuse Israel from distinguishing between an immediate security threat, an ambiguous incident and harmless civilian activity.

The United States and the Board of Peace are right to insist that Israel limit its strikes to genuine, imminent threats.

With an Israeli election approaching, it is fair to question whether political incentives are influencing the government’s decisions. Jared Kushner reportedly told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Washington does not expect Israel to ignore an imminent Hamas threat, while also warning against defining that category so broadly that it undermines the ceasefire and the American plan. That is a reasonable standard.

Restraint and vigilance are not opposites. Israel should be required to produce evidence before using lethal force, short of stopping an imminent attack that risks lives. Hamas should be required to prevent any deliberate cross-border launches and to explain organized activity near the fence.

International monitors should investigate incidents rather than automatically accepting the narrative supplied by either side. What is not reasonable is demanding that Israel erase its memory.

How the Gaza kite narrative spreads

The media response illustrates the problem. A 2018 New York Times print headline described Hamas as giving “peaceful protests a chance.” That framing became harder to defend as incendiary units, explosive devices and organized attacks at the fence were documented. The Los Angeles Times used the compelling image of a “simple plaything” becoming a weapon. Yet its own detailed reporting described thousands of burned acres, booby-trapped balloons and kite-makers explaining how they improved incendiary payloads. The facts were present, but the emotional power of the toy remained stronger than the reality of the weapon.

Today, the narrative is forming even faster. One viral post presented the controversy simply as Palestinian children seeking to “fly kites in peace”. Another video of a frightened boy destroying his kites attracted thousands of reactions. At least one widely shared post used AI-generated imagery, which commenters themselves identified as artificial.

This is not yet proof of a centrally directed Hamas campaign. Similar messages, shared hashtags and synchronized outrage do not by themselves establish coordination. It is more accurate to describe an emerging, mutually reinforcing information ecosystem: Hamas supplies a simple emotional frame, sympathetic media and political activists repeat it, social platforms reward it, and the complex history disappears. Such an ecosystem does not need a central command room to serve Hamas’s purpose.

Hamas disarmament must remain the test

Meanwhile, the central obligation under the current Gaza agreement risks being displaced. Hamas must disarm. It must surrender independent military control. It must allow a legitimate Palestinian administration—not an armed faction—to govern Gaza and oversee its reconstruction.

After previous wars, reconstruction took place alongside Hamas’s rearmament. Tunnels were rebuilt, rocket capabilities restored and personnel prepared for another confrontation. Even former Secretary of State John Kerry, often highly critical of Israel, warned in 2016 that Hamas and other armed groups were rearming and diverting reconstruction materials toward tunnels.

Gaza cannot survive another cycle in which the international community rebuilds above ground while Hamas prepares for war below it. As Moataz Khalil and I recently argued in MidEast Journal, “There is an enormous difference between Hamas agreeing to disarm and Hamas actually becoming disarmed.” Verification is not a technical appendix to the peace plan. It is the heart of it. 

Reconstruction should proceed alongside independently verified demilitarization. Hamas’s weapons, tunnel infrastructure, production capacity and ability to regenerate its military power must be addressed.

At the same time, Israeli withdrawal and restraint must follow verified compliance so that disarmament leads to a political future rather than permanent war. The international community must hold both parties to their obligations. But it must not allow every Israeli warning to become the main story while Hamas’s history, strategy and responsibilities fade into the background.

Evidence, restraint and vigilance

The kites currently crossing the border may prove to be nothing more than kites. We should hope that they are. But after the incendiary campaign of 2018, the repeated balloon attacks, the border disturbances and the strategic deception that preceded October 7, Israel has ample reason to investigate them and insist that cross-border launches stop.

Moral clarity requires protecting Palestinian children. It also requires refusing to let Hamas exploit the image of those children to conceal, excuse or prepare violence. We have seen this trap before. This time, the world should insist on evidence, restraint and vigilance—before it is too late.

Dan Feferman is the editor of MidEast.Journal and co-editor of MiddleEast24. He is a former IDF strategic advisory and intelligence analyst who has written and spoken extensively on Middle East security and intelligence affairs.