On July 28, 2011, 12,350 kites were flown on Gaza’s beach, setting a Guinness World Record for the most kites flown simultaneously. This achievement was described as a David and Goliath moment, with Gaza surpassing China in the UNRWA Summer Games. It was a defining moment in history, reflecting the hopes and dreams of Gaza’s children.

The documentary film Flying Paper (2013), co-directed by Nitin Sawhney and Roger Hill, opens with two six-year-old girls on a dusty road holding a handmade kite not far from the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. The girls playfully negotiate who will fly the kite. The more assertive one runs down the road holding the strings of her colorful paper kite as it lifts into the sky, while children around her scream excitedly “It’s flying...it’s flying!” The documentary emerged from participatory media workshops conducted with children in the Jabaliya refugee camp led by Voices Beyond Walls, while following kite-making workshops and festivals organized by UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) in Gaza. Flying Paper examines the creative culture of kite making and flying under adversity, through the lens of Palestinian children living in Gaza.

Two of the children featured in the film—the siblings Musa and Widad—lived with their grandfather Abu Ziad, an expert kite maker in the village of al-Seifa on the northern frontier of Gaza. Musa was a charismatic, confident fourteen year old who enthusiastically built large kites with great precision using newspaper, sticks, and wheat paste. His twelve-year-old sister Widad competed with Musa to build her own colorful kites while teasing Musa with witty humor and sarcasm.

abu ziad: Tell them about the time you stole newspaper from your uncle. He stole newspaper from his uncle to make some kites.

musa: We take some newspaper and put it under the kite. After that we roll newspaper onto the kite and then we add the glue. Now we glue the paper from this side. Widad, give me the flour paste. No, wait! I just want to glue from this side.

widad: Tomorrow, when I fly my kite it won’t fall. My kite shall be strong. I want my kite to beat all the other kites! I will beat Musa! If you want competition, I will beat Musa!

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musa: There are two important factors in making a kite. The first is precision. Precision guarantees the kite will fly. The second thing is to balance the string very carefully. That’s good, the kite looks great. It’s ready now as you can see. Now we only need to attach the tail and fly it. These trimmings add balance to the kite. Beautiful, let’s go. We’re ready.

Musa and Widad’s excitement about kite flying emerged in a place deprived of many opportunities for childhood experience afforded elsewhere. Musa and Widad wanted to participate in a record-breaking event for the most kites ever flown so that the world would take notice of the war-torn, besieged coastal strip of land that is their home. In trying to be seen and heard, the children in Gaza also asserted a right to play despite their living conditions, as captured in the film.

widad: When we fly kites, we feel like we’re the ones flying in the sky. We feel that we have our freedom. That there is no siege on Gaza. When we fly the kite, we know that freedom exists.

While Gaza has been engulfed in devastating occupation, blockade, and wars over the years, with unbearable loss of life and suffering among people living there, the communal act of making and flying kites using found paper and materials remains one of the most empowering, accessible, and playful ways that Palestinian children have continued to engage in creative agency, self-expression, and resistance.

Today, fourteen years since setting the world record, we wonder where all those children are, knowing that some may no longer be alive. Yet their act of hope and determination inspired the creation of Kites in Solidarity, a movement that has since spread across the world. Tens of thousands of people have flown kites in solidarity with Gaza, carrying forward a message of hope. These moments—hearing children’s laughter, feeling the sun on our faces—remind us why we are here on this planet. They connect us across borders, affirming that every single life is precious, and that we are all human beings living just one life.

Sometimes a fight is not waged with fire, but with paper, some string—and, with love. It is this love that persists.

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NOTES

1. Quotations are from the film Flying Paper (2013). Film website: https://flyingpaper.org, available to watch online on Apple, Amazon, Distrify and Vimeo platforms.

2. Excerpts of this text appear in Nitin Sawhney, “Invisible Lives, Visible Determination: Creative Agency as Resilience among Palestinian Children under Siege in Gaza,” a chapter in Lived Resistance Against the War on Palestinian Children, edited by Heidi Morrison, University of Georgia Press, 2024.

3. Kites in Solidarity is a grassroots movement of volunteers founded in 2023. They help to organize global kite flying actions in solidarity with the children of Gaza. For more, see their instragram account @kitesinsolidarity.

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