The Palestinian child Mohammad Al-Saksak has transformed waste nylon and used bags into paper planes that he sells to other children, creating a festive atmosphere in a displacement camp in the city of Rafah, at the far southern end of the Gaza Strip. Al-Saksak, who was displaced from northern Gaza to its south, is trying to offer his peers a chance to look at the sky with planes of fun, not the planes of death that have been hovering over the region for 106 days.
In his family’s displacement tent, Al-Saksak is busy crafting a paper plane by assembling three wooden sticks into a hexagon and covering it with nylon, making sure it is balanced before then creating the plane's tail with small scraps of nylon. He told Anadolu Agency that he started this project in collaboration with his siblings and cousin children to provide a simple source of livelihood to support their families.
The child displays his paper planes for sale by releasing them into the camp’s sky, allowing all the children to see them, who gather around him right after he launches them amidst an atmosphere of joy that breaks the intensity of war and the buzz of Israeli warplanes that constantly occupy Gaza's sky.
He added: "The plane consists of wooden sticks and threads that I buy from people or working shops, and the nylon I collect from acquaintances and the street or purchase." Al-Saksak and his relatives make these planes using the simplest tools available in the tents where they reside, due to the high cost of necessary materials, such as “scissors,” which he replaced with “a knife.”
He added: "When we want to buy the materials needed to make these planes, we gather one shekel from each person to purchase them (the dollar equals 3.74 shekels)." Besides providing a source of income, Al-Saksak enjoys making these planes, which he previously relied on as a small project during summer vacations before the war erupted on October 7th.
