Gaza Summer Games Sets World Records Again

The 2011 Gaza Summer Games opened on Thursday with an Olympic-style torch relay through the Strip. 57 kids carried the flame thru Gaza and finished the marathon with a ceremony lighting a huge torch placed on the top of UNRWA’s Headquarters, ushering in six weeks of sports, swimming, arts and drama. The flame inside my heart for Gaza grows brighter everyday, I wish I could have attended!

250,000 Gazan students participate in the summer program now in its 5th year.

For the past two years, children in Summer Games have proved they can be the best in the world by breaking three Guinness World Records – in kite flying and basketball bouncing.

This year, they will be attempting to break four Guinness World Records:

30 June: Most playing parachute games. 3,500 children (current record 1,547 children)

14 July: Most dribbling a football. 2,024 children (no current record)

21 July: Largest handprint painting. 5,400 square metres (current record 4,355.85 square metres)

28 July: Most flying kites simultaneously. 9,000 children (current record 6,198 UNRWA 2010)

by Mondoweiss

Mondoweiss is devoted to covering American foreign policy in the Middle East, chiefly from a progressive Jewish perspective. Mondoweiss is maintained by Philip Weiss and Adam Horowitz. Weiss is 55 and lives in New York state. Horowitz is 37 and lives in New York City. "We maintain this blog because of 9/11, Iraq, Gaza, the Nakba, the struggling people of Israel and Palestine, and our Jewish background."

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