Israeli officials accused Hamas of planning renewed attacks on its territory using kites and balloons, and gave the Iran-backed militant group until Wednesday to rein in their use or face reprisals.
The long strings attached to the kites sends “a message, and we need to respond to that message very, very clearly,” Orit Strock, a minister in Israel’s security cabinet, told Army Radio on Monday.
Israel is seeking “to deal harshly with paper airplanes emerging from Gaza, launched by children in search of their innocent childhood amid the rubble. “A balloon or kite will be treated the same as a drone, with or without explosives. Attempts to broker a more lasting truce and an Israeli withdrawal have been held up largely by differing views over how and when Hamas will disarm.
Israeli troops currently occupy two-thirds of Gaza and have continued to attack Hamas strongholds, killing more than 1,200 Palestinians in the territory since the truce, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. Rafi Babian, head of security at a regional council responsible for a cluster of border communities that lost scores of people when Hamas infiltrated the border, said he had examined two kites that fell in the area with strings of as long as 4.5 kilometer (2.8 miles).
The Israel Defense Forces has been instructed to “adopt a policy of zero containment and zero tolerance toward the launching of kites and balloons from Gaza toward the communities of the Negev,” Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement on Monday, referring to a region targeted during the October 2023 Hamas attacks that triggered the war in Gaza. “If the launches continue, forceful action will be taken to put an end to the phenomenon,” he said. “Israel gives Hamas three days to stop launching kites or else it will launch a massive aerial attack,” Bassem Naim, a Hamas official, said in a post on social media on Sunday. Israeli security officials said this suggests Hamas may be preparing to utilize fiber optic drones that Hezbollah has used to great effect against Israel in the north.
