Maroubra Beach was the venue for “Paper Kites for Palestine” on October 19— a poignant, beautiful memorial for the children of Gaza, murdered since October 2023 by the genocidal state of Israel.
The Paper Kites for Palestine project is the brainchild of Naarm/Melbourne artist and activist Lucas Yuwaganit Li, who was inspired by Gaza’s 2011 world record when 12,350 children flew kites together.
Yuwaganit Li worked with volunteers to create a paper kite for every child killed in Gaza — now more than 20,000. “A promise to a child lost that we see them; that we will speak their name.”
Each fragile kite honours a stolen life, a story, a dream.
Yuwaganit Li has taken the paper kites all over Naarm and to Canberra, too. He has held kite craft days for volunteers to help grow the kite installation — more kites as more children’s lives were extinguished.
Yuwaganit Li wanted to end this tour of the kites on a beach in Sydney and to invite families to fly their kites on the beach. Jews Against the Occupation ‘48 (JAO48) was honoured to collaborate alongside Families for Palestine and Maroubra Hope Uniting Church to bring the installation to Sydney.
Originally, Bondi Beach — Sydney’s most famous — was considered the obvious choice. However, following Zionist and neo-Nazi thugs’ threatening behaviour at JAO48’s Father’s Day event, it was decided that Maroubra, with its long, stretch of sand, was the perfect beach spot for this important event.
Maroubra locals, beach goers, community police officers and surf life savers showed their support and were clearly moved by what they saw on the day.
Volunteers prepared the installation at the Uniting Church Hall, before carrying the long nets displaying the paper kites to the beach. Each kite is stapled to netting — some bearing messages of love and peace while others, heartbreakingly, marked with a child’s name and age.
A giant white fabric kite shape was laid out onto the sand and the 12 nets became its flowing tail, stretching hundreds of metres along the beach.
The mid-spring weather — pure blue skies, warm sun and enough breeze — was perfect for kite flying. Many attendees had come from the anti-racism rally in the CBD.
Families arrived and their young children played and danced on, and then beneath, a vast watermelon flag. Their laughter echoed across the sand — a sound both joyous and unbearably sad.
It was impossible not to think of the Palestinian children who should be playing with their friends and siblings on the Gaza beaches or at their homes, now turned to rubble.
People walked slowly along the kite installation, reading the names, touching the paper kites and weeping quietly.
Police explained to curious locals what the memorial represented, and many joined, moved by the sight of the names of so many lost children.
At one point, Yuwaganit Li invited a few to kneel in the sand and staple new kites to the netting — another name, another young life taken. I held one in my hand; a boy, aged nine. I felt shattered.
A young mother nearby helped her small children attach kites. Her son, perhaps four or five years old, asked if he could have his name written on one. How do you explain to a child why these kites exist and who these children are?
We stayed on the beach from 1pm until dusk – a gathering of people who become friends through protesting the genocide for over two years.
The wind carried our grief, love and our promise to remember. It was a day of beauty and mourning, a reminder that while Israel tries to erase a people, the world will keep speaking their names — one kite at a time.
“The kites don’t just symbolize a child lost; they are a promise made to every Palestinian child that we will not stop demanding justice. The kites are a physical manifestation of our commitment to their liberation,” said Yuwaganit Li.
[Judith Treanor is a member of Jews Against the Occupation ’48. Watch out for the documentary on Paper Kites for Palestine.]
