Israel has threatened to escalate attacks on Gaza and expel Palestinians from areas of the besieged and occupied enclave if children continue to fly paper kites.

Israeli defence minister Israel Katz said flying kites would be treated as “an act of war in every sense” and the IDF would retaliate “immediately and forcefully”.

In a joint statement with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday, Katz said: “A balloon is treated like a kite, and a kite is treated like a drone, with or without explosives.”

On the same day, Israeli air attacks on central Gaza killed at least three Palestinians, including a four-year-old child.

A handful of kites have drifted into communities in the south of Israel over the last month, Al Jazeera reported. None contained incendiary devices.

The statement from Netanyahu and Katz also included a threat to “evacuate the population from areas from which kites, drones and balloons are launched”.

The UN slammed Israel’s response to children’s kites, with UN rights office spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani saying: “On the threat of expulsion due to children’s kite flying, I hope we can all agree that this is outrageous.”

Popular committees in Gaza urged parents on Monday to discourage their children from flying kites “to protect their innocent lives”.

“Every summer, my kid, Ahmed, and the kids in the street fly those kites to entertain themselves,” Umm Mohammed, a mother in Gaza City, told Reuters. “But [now] I will not allow him to – not any more.”

Independent MP and former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn wrote on X: “Israel has said that paper kites flown by Palestinian children will be treated as weapons of war. Read that again.

“This is the reality of genocide: the total destruction of innocence, freedom and joy.”

At least seven Palestinians have been killed-,Gaza%20death%20toll%20rises,-At%20least%20seven) and 10 wounded by Israeli attacks across Gaza in the last 24 hours.

The IDF shot a ten-year-old Palestinian girl, Amal Abu Khater, in the back as she sat in his displaced family’s tent in western Khan Younis, southern Gaza, eating her lunch, Drop Site News reported on Monday.

A relative of Amal said: “They were children playing with kites. They were just sitting there playing. They are killing children.”

Israel has killed at least 73,000 Palestinians and injured 174,000 since October 2023.

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