The Last Kite of Gaza -Md Tareq Hasan

The sky over Gaza used to be full of kites.

Children with bare feet and bright eyes would gather on rooftops, chasing wind with colored paper wings. They’d laugh, shout, and let their worries fly higher than the rubble around them. Reem, who was three, once held a red kite so tightly her grandfather Khaled joked that even the angels would have to fight her for it. Her brother, Tarek, five, would compete with other kids in the Nuseirat refugee camp, always boasting that his kite was fastest.

But today, the skies are quiet. Today, Gaza buries its kites with its children.

It has been 535 days since the sky began falling in Gaza, piece by piece.

The air no longer smells of the sea and summer — only smoke and grief. Every 45 minutes, a child is killed in Gaza. That’s thirty children, every day. It’s a math of murder that no child should ever be counted in. At least 17,400 children have been killed since October 7, 2023. Many still lie beneath the rubble of what used to be homes, bedrooms, schools, and dreams.

Their names were Mohammed. Reem. Hind. Mahmoud. They were sons and daughters, tiny hands in bigger hands, warm hugs at the end of long days, giggles in rooms now silent.
This is their story. A story the world must carry in its heart.

Mohammed Abu Hilal was one.

He never learned to speak in full sentences. His world was still one of giggles, lullabies, and reaching for his mother’s soft hands. When Israel declared al-Mawasi a “safe zone,” his father, Alaa, rushed his pregnant wife, Afnan, and Mohammed there, clutching hope like a lifeline.

But there is no safety in Gaza.

On March 18, 2025, Israeli airstrikes shattered even that last illusion. Afnan was seven months pregnant when she was killed, her baby dying inside her. Mohammed was torn from the world before his first birthday.

His father held his lifeless body and whispered:
“Oh, my dear son, go up to heaven, you’re going to find all your toys up there.”
Reem and Tarek were too young to understand war.

Reem loved to twirl in dresses that barely reached her knees, hugging her grandfather Khaled whenever he walked through the door. Tarek was full of questions — about stars, birds, and why people shouted outside at night.

One night in November 2023, the sky opened above Nuseirat camp.

Their home, already cracked from years of siege and fear, collapsed under the roar of an Israeli strike. They died together, their dreams buried beside them.

Khaled, who had once told Reem stories about the moon and angels, held her one last time. “Soul of my soul,” he cried, rocking her tiny body, as if love could wake her.

On December 16, Khaled was also killed — while helping others find food and hope in a city with neither.

Hind Rajab, five, was alone when she died.

Her family had tried to flee Tal al-Hawa, but an Israeli tank targeted their car. Her cousins, siblings, and parents lay dead around her. Hind somehow survived the first strike.

Terrified, she dialed the Palestine Red Crescent Society.

For three hours, she sobbed over the phone:

“I’m so scared, please come. Please send someone to take me.”

But help never came. Israeli forces blocked the medics.

Twelve days later, her body was found — next to her family and the rescue workers who tried to save her. She had waited, cried, and died in silence.

Today, the Hind Rajab Foundation works to honor her. But nothing can return the light in her eyes.

Suhail, Julie, and Majd al-Souri thought they had found a sanctuary.

Their parents had taken them to the ancient church of Saint Porphyrius — Gaza’s oldest — hoping, praying it would be respected. “God’s house will protect us,” their father had whispered.

But Israel’s missiles know no sacred ground.

On October 19, 2023, an airstrike hit the church. Suhail was 14, Julie 12, and Majd only 10. All three died instantly.

Their father, his voice shaking like the broken walls around him, said: “They bombed my angels without warning. We thought this was our safe haven.”

Mahmoud Dahdouh, 15, wanted to be a journalist — like his father.

He and his sister, Khuloud, began documenting the war, posting videos of what Gaza had become. “There is no place safe,” Mahmoud would say, his voice a mix of courage and fear.

He was Gaza’s youngest reporter. A voice for those the world ignored.

On October 25, 2023, Mahmoud was killed, along with his mother, sister, nephew, and 21 others. They had followed Israeli orders to evacuate and move south — but death followed them.
His camera was found in the rubble, lens cracked, memory card full.

Full of stories. Stories the world must now tell.

In Gaza, nearly half the population are children — over one million hearts beating with innocence. But in just 17 months, 825 babies died before their first birthday. 895 one-year-olds never took their first steps. 3,266 preschoolers never learned to write their names. 4,032 elementary children left behind schoolbooks smeared with ash.

3,646 middle schoolers — who lived through three wars — were killed in the fourth. And 2,949 teenagers — who had survived four wars — were killed in the fifth.

Among them were 8,899 sons and 6,714 daughters.

Can the world count this and still look away?

In a room of 100 Gaza children today:

2 are dead.
2 are missing beneath the rubble.
3 are wounded, some without limbs.
5 are orphaned or separated from their families.
5 are starving from severe malnutrition.
And the rest carry invisible wounds — trauma that scars deeper than any shrapnel.

Some haven’t spoken in weeks. Others scream in their sleep. All of them, somehow, still try to smile.

Still try to fly kites — when they can find string and paper.

What remains of Gaza’s children?

The answer lies in the silence after a bomb falls.

In the hospital corridors where no anesthesia is left.

In the sobs of parents who can no longer recognize their own child’s face.

But also, somehow, in defiant laughter. In murals painted on broken walls. In the last notes of lullabies still sung by mothers who know they might not see morning.
In hope.

There’s a little boy named Yousef, age six, who walks barefoot over rubble every day to look for his sister’s shoe. He says when he finds it, he’ll know she’s in heaven with both feet.

A girl named Nour, eight, writes letters to her best friend Aya — who was killed in January — and buries them under the olive tree where they used to play. “Maybe she’ll read them from the sky,” she whispers.

Their stories are not numbers. They are not headlines. They are not “collateral damage.”

They are love. They are pain. They are what remains of a people — of a generation stolen.

Let the world not forget. Let the world remember.

Let every youth, every heart, every reader of this story carry their memory.
And if you ever see a kite in the sky — red like Reem’s, fast like Tarek’s — remember that somewhere in Gaza, a child once flew that same kite with joy.
Until the sky betrayed them.
And now, it carries their dreams.