The Last Kite of Gaza

The Last Kite of Gaza

By Ikhtisham Hayat

The sun in Gaza was always cruel, but that afternoon, it softened just enough to let the children play. The sky, once a ceiling of fear, stretched wide and blue — a rare gift. Youssef stood on the broken rooftop of his family’s apartment, a red kite clutched in his tiny hands. It was made of old plastic bags and two sticks his uncle had found in the rubble. But to Youssef, it was a dragon, a bird, a dream.

He was seven. That age when you don’t fully understand war, but you understand silence. The kind of silence that follows an explosion, or the way your mother hugs you tighter when the windows rattle at night. Youssef had lost count of how many nights they’d slept in the hallway, farthest from the outside walls.

His sister, Mariam, had helped him make the kite. She was eleven, clever with her fingers, and quieter since Baba had disappeared. One day he went to get bread, and never came back. No body. No burial. Just silence.

Youssef threw the kite into the air and ran. It soared shakily, catching the breeze that swept across the shattered city. He laughed — really laughed — the kind that sounded out of place in Gaza. The kind of laugh that made his mother come to the window and watch him with tears in her eyes.

From the rooftop next door, other children watched. Some smiled. One clapped. For a moment, Gaza was not Gaza. It was a place where kites flew and children cheered and mothers forgot to be afraid.

Then came the sound.

Distant at first. A mechanical buzz, like a mosquito — but deadlier. The kite danced in the wind, unaware of the drone overhead. Youssef kept running, pulling the string with joy in his chest. He didn’t see his mother rush outside. Didn’t see Mariam screaming from the stairs. He only saw the sky.

Then the world turned white.

Three days later, the kite was found in the ruins, stuck in a piece of rebar. Torn and scorched, but still red. Mariam found it. She didn’t cry when she saw it. She just sat down and held the broken string in her hand like it was the only thing left of her brother.

They never found all of him.

The world moved on. News cycles changed. People posted hashtags and then forgot. But Mariam didn’t. Every evening, she returned to the roof and stared at the sky. She didn’t play. Didn’t smile. She just waited — as if the sky might bring Youssef back.

One night, her mother sat beside her and asked, “Why do you come here, habibti?”

Mariam looked up. “Because this is where he was happy.”

The mother didn’t speak. She took Mariam’s hand and held it. The city groaned below them. The power was out again. The silence had returned.

In the months that followed, Mariam stopped speaking much. But she kept the kite string under her pillow. When aid workers came to the neighborhood with notebooks and foreign eyes, they asked her what she wanted.

“A kite,” she whispered.

They looked confused. They offered pencils, coloring books, shoes. But she repeated:

“A red kite.”

That winter, the sky over Gaza was a dull gray. But one morning, a single kite — red and patched — floated in the air above the broken buildings.

Some said it was Mariam’s doing. Others said a neighbor boy had helped her. Some swore it was a sign, a message, a miracle. But those who saw it agreed on one thing: for the briefest moment, it felt like hope.

The kite danced in the wind, just like Youssef’s had.

And though Mariam never spoke of it, those who knew her said she smiled for the first time in months.

Not because she believed things would get better.

But because, in that sky, her brother flew again.