The skies above the West Bank will be filled with colourful kites and the sounds of children laughing for at least one day this week.
On Friday, July 11, the Burin Land and Farming Cooperative plans to host its annual kite-flying festival.
Burin is a community near Nablus in Israel that is surrounded on all sides by settler outposts.
The community has hosted a kite festival almost every year since 2008 when possible, with 2025 being the 12th edition,
According to the organisers of the festival: ““We have the right to smile, we have the right to have fun. We have the right to be happy, we have the right to play, we have the right to move.
“From the Burin mountains to the sands of Gaza, they will not kill our hope and our smiles.”
The Burin Land and Farming Cooperative has invited children from the surrounding communities to the event, as well as from the refugee camps.
The co-op is also encouraging communities around the world to hold local kite festivals, or for people to fly kites themselves, from now until Sunday, July 13 in solidarity with the West Bank festival.
Farming co-op
Ghassan Najjar, who is one of the founders of the Burin Land and Farming Cooperative, spoke about the festival and the co-op in a webinar organised by Green Olive Tours, which hosts tours in the West Bank and Jerusalem.
Najjar said the co-op has a greenhouse to grow vegetables, and it also tends to fields of olive trees.
It started with 10 people, none of whom had studied agriculture, but whom were looking for a way to find work.
The co-op now has 20 people, and will have 25 by the end of the year.
“Each year, we add five people after they take the training, six months of training,” Najjar said.
The co-op uses agroecology methods to produce its crops, with no chemical fertilisers or weedkillers used.
Najjar explained: “We make our fertiliser and our medication from the plant, like the natural things.
“Sometimes we use the positive animal to kill the negative animal to save the plant.
“We give training to the farmers on how to take care of the land without chemical fertiliser or medicine.”
However, the co-op has drawn criticism from some members of the Burin community, according to Najjar.
This is because the co-op has been training women in the community on how to produce food.
“For us, for the woman, it’s not just the cooking and cleaning in the house. The woman should work and help the community for development.
“That makes trouble for us. Sometimes, in the village, some people have closed minds and they try to make trouble for us because the woman work on agricultural things with the boys.”
The co-op has been giving back 15% of the proceeds they make from selling their vegetables and olives to the community.
It has also been providing the 20 families in the community with free vegetables every week. If the co-op has no vegetables, it still buys vegetables to give to these families.
However, Najjar added that the co-op is changing its approach to supporting the community, and goes by the motto: ‘Give someone a fish, and they will eat for a day. Teach someone to fish, and they will eat for life’.
It is now teaching anyone who has land on how to farm it, and helping the local farmers sell their own vegetables as well.
“We help you, but also you have to help yourself.”
Najjar said the co-op is continuing to build on its success despite the difficult situation it finds itself in every day.
“When people ask me where do you want to go with the co-operative, I look to the sky. We don’t have a limited dream.”
