Four kites apparently flown from the Gaza Strip landed in Kibbutz Nahal Oz over the weekend, prompting concerned residents to demand that Israel take action against what they believed to be a threat to their safety, given Hamas’s history of launching kites carrying incendiary devices at border communities.

The Israel Defense Forces said that one of the kites was found inside the kibbutz on Friday, and the three others were found on Saturday morning. It assessed that the kites, which were attached to kilometers-long strings, were flown across the border from Gaza.

The military stressed that “no suspicious findings were identified on the kites,” and that “at no stage was there any danger to the public,” although this did little to reassure residents of Nahal Oz, who warned that “this was how it started before October 7.”

Kibbutz Nahal Oz was one of the Gaza border communities targeted by invading Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023. Some 180 terrorists overran the small community, killing 13 residents and four security personnel, and abducting eight civilians. Many homes were damaged or destroyed amid the fighting, as were the kibbutz’s agricultural fields. The community was then evacuated, with residents slowly starting to return in 2024.

According to Hebrew media reports, the IDF believes that Hamas was responsible for launching the kites, and was doing so to test if and how Israel would respond.

From 2018, Palestinian terrorists regularly launched kites carrying incendiary devices at Israeli border communities, setting fire to wide swaths of land.

The kibbutz, in a response to the IDF, said that it was taking the incident seriously,........

© The Times of Israel