Official PA daily praises arson-kite terrorism as “One of the creative means that have a more positive effect on the Palestinian cause than any military force”
“Young people in Gaza – where peaceful processions (sic., the riots have included many attacks on Israeli forces) are being held as a sign of support for the refugees under the slogan ‘the March of Return’ – have turned kites from a children’s game into a means of resistance to the occupation that burned Israeli trees and fields adjacent to the eastern border of the besieged Gaza Strip…
A cartoon was published on social media of a child flying a kite – on which was written “Palestinian F-16” – towards an occupation soldier.
Under a tree in an olive grove several hundred meters from the eastern border of Gaza City several children gathered…
The moment that several of them finished preparing the first kite, whose diameter was approximately 60 centimeters and which was painted in the colors of the Palestinian flag, one young man tied a metal wire from the kite’s tail to a Coca-Cola can filled with a cloth soaked in gasoline.
Three children carried the prepared kite and approached a point dozens of meters from the border. They lit the can, and it flew to a point dozens of meters above agricultural areas on the border. Then they cut the rope, and the kite fell in a thicket next to the border, which caused a fire to break out among the trees.
Sixteen-year-old Abdallah, who stood together with several children and young people who carried several kites after checking the direction of the wind, said: ‘We are preparing them in order to convey the message that we are capable of harassing the occupation.’ He added: ‘We are not helpless. This is a new means of peaceful resistance (i.e., term used by Palestinians, which also refers to the use of violence and terror), which the occupation’s rockets will not succeed in stopping. Everywhere they fall in their territory the Israeli fields will burn.’
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Activists want to use these kites for a different goal. They told AFP that they will fly dozens of kites with messages written in Arabic and Hebrew: ‘You have no place in Palestine. Do not listen to your leadership, it is sending you to death or captivity’…
Political science lecturer in Gaza Jamal Al-Fadi said: ‘The protests of return on the border have produced creative means with a positive effect on the Palestinian cause in the world, more than any military force.’ He noted: ‘The hope among the young Gazans - who are frustrated and desperate due to the Israeli blockade and the [Hamas-Fatah] rift - has been renewed thanks to [new] forms of peaceful struggle.’”
The article includes an image from the protests in which two masked rioters wearing keffiyehs (Arab headdresses) are seen preparing a kite in the colors of the Palestinian flag, and apparently attaching a firebomb to it.
Text under the picture: “Young people prepare a kite for use in the March of Return – AFP”
"The March of Return" refers to massive violent riots in Gaza in which thousands of Palestinians are rioting on the border with Israel and attempting to cut through the security fence, attacking with firebombs, flaming kites, and gunfire. The riots began on March 30, 2018, and were scheduled to last for 6 weeks until Palestinian "Nakba" Day on May 15. On the day the US embassy opened in Jerusalem, May 14, 2018, the Palestinian attacks escalated and 62 Palestinians were killed. A senior official of the terror organization Hamas, Salah Bardawil, stated that 50 of the 62 belonged to Hamas, while Islamic Jihad identified 3 others as belonging to it.
The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, an Israeli research institute, published research documenting that from the start of the riots on March 30 until May 15, 93 of the 112 Palestinians killed in the riots (approximately 83%) were members of terrorist organizations.
Petitions against the IDF's use of live fire to combat the rioting submitted by organizations that advocate for Palestinian rights were rejected by Israel's Supreme Court on May 24, 2018. The court accepted the state's argument that the riots were "organized and directed" by Hamas, a terrorist organization, and thereby rejecting the claim that the riots were peaceful and civilian in nature. PMW reports were referred to in the Supreme Court's decision.
The terms "peaceful uprising/resistance,” and “popular uprising/resistance" are used by PA leaders at times to refer to peaceful protest and at times to refer to deadly terror attacks and terror waves. For example, Mahmoud Abbas defined as “peaceful popular” the murderous terror during the 2015-2016 terror wave (“The Knife Intifada”), in which 40 people were killed (36 Israelis, 1 Palestinian, 2 Americans and 1 Eritrean) and hundreds wounded in stabbings, shootings, and car ramming attacks. Abbas said: "We want peaceful popular uprising, and that’s what this is." http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=16437
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