2024-03-11 18:39:45
Ramadan in Gaza: Fasting and starvation… and lanterns that challenge the darkness of war
The people of the Gaza Strip welcomed the first day of Ramadan with a pre-existing fast, imposed by the Israeli war that has been going on for more than 5 months, and they did not receive the month with the usual joy.
Instead of waking up at dawn to the drums of magicians as they had done previously, the sounds of planes and non-stop artillery terrified the people of Gaza, but that did not prevent some manifestations of defiance and an attempt to show symbolic celebrations for the coming of the month, some of whose features appeared in Rafah (the southernmost part of the Strip), where The displaced crowd.
Khadija Hamada (47 years old), a resident of the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood north of Gaza City, whose residents are experiencing a real famine, did not know how to express herself in welcoming Ramadan, saying, “We have already been fasting… We have been fasting for a long time, we and the children have been fasting.” She added to Asharq Al-Awsat: “There is no atmosphere, no food. The truth about eating. How are we going to have suhoor? How are we going to have breakfast? I don’t know… We bought one kilogram of dates for 60 shekels (equivalent to about 16 dollars) to have Suhoor. We have to eat suhoor. The children cannot fast because they are already tired from hunger, but I hope that dates will help us… and I don’t know how to get breakfast.”
She continued: “There is no rice, no lentils, no pasta, nothing. “There is just hunger, and I don’t know how we will spend the month of Ramadan.”
Displaced Palestinians outside their camps in Deir al-Balah, south of Gaza (AP)
Hamada’s suffering is summarized by the fact that hundreds of thousands of Gazans are still in the areas of the northern Gaza Strip, including Gaza City, areas that are suffering from a real famine, which did not enable them to welcome Ramadan as it befits it. The city’s markets, unlike their usual joyful month, appeared destroyed. And empty of goods.
The Asharq Al-Awsat correspondent, who toured the markets of northern Gaza, observed the absence of any type of food, while young men worked hard to prepare the famous “Qatayef” sweets in Ramadan among the Palestinians.
Majd Al-Awawda, a resident of the town of Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip, said: “Everything is missing or its price is abnormal.” He added to Asharq Al-Awsat: “There is no food, no water to drink. “This is the most difficult Ramadan that any person on earth can experience.”
Al-Awawda (51 years old), a father of six children, including two minors, tried to buy some food from the markets, but he did not find any types of meat or vegetables.
He said: “I was tired thinking about how I wanted to feed my children. Before Ramadan, we used to eat thyme without bread, or beans and chickpeas, and today what will we do?” In the face of this situation, young men risked their lives in order to reach planted areas and bring some vegetables.
Quantities of potatoes were seen in Gaza markets, but at high prices, reaching 60 shekels ($16), which is an unfathomable price for many, given that a kilogram in the West Bank is sold for about one dollar.
Malnutrition
According to statistics from relief and international organizations, about 800,000 people live in the areas of the northern Gaza Strip that are exposed to real famine. International and local organizations have warned of the deterioration of the living conditions of residents in those areas, and various areas of the Gaza Strip, as the current situation continues.
According to the Ministry of Health in Gaza, 25 Palestinians, the majority of whom were children and infants, including a young woman and an elderly man, “were martyred as a result of malnutrition and dehydration in the northern areas of the Strip.”
Raed Tafesh (31 years old), a resident of the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood south of Gaza City, told Asharq Al-Awsat: “In short, there is no life here. “It is non-existent, and that is the least we can describe it.”
Palestinians gather at night around a pile of fire on the outskirts of a camp for displaced people in Rafah (AFP)
The Palestinian News Agency quoted Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh as saying that starvation in the Gaza Strip “is not treated only by dropping meals,” but rather by “stopping the crime first,” and delivering aid under the supervision of “UNRWA.”
Shtayyeh added at the beginning of a meeting of the caretaker government: “The easiest and most generous solution for the hungry is to stop crime first, and deliver aid through the crossings and ports under the supervision of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Refugees. If the goal is to provide aid, there are 5 crossings that lead to Gaza, through which aid can be delivered within hours.” Instead of waiting 3 days at sea.”
He renewed his demand that the Israeli government release the withheld funds, which amounted to more than a billion dollars, which are the deductions paid to prisoners and martyrs. He called on the International Red Cross to visit detainees in Israeli prisons, stressing the need for urgent intervention to stop “the brutality taking place in those prisons.”
Lanterns and prayers
Unplannedly, pioneers of social media platforms sent videos from Gaza entitled: “They will not steal Ramadan from us,” in which children were seen receiving lanterns in the displacement camps that were decorated with Ramadan decorations, singing about the Holy Ramadan, beating tambourines, and gathering around simple suhoor tables.
Palestinian children carry lanterns in Rafah on Sunday evening (AFP)
Gazans tried to make qatayef in camps and homes, prayed over destroyed mosques, lit lamps, and wrote on undestroyed walls.
About 500 worshipers were also able to perform Tarawih prayers, on Sunday evening, in Al-Awda Mosque, which is the largest in Rafah. About 100 others prayed near the destroyed Al-Huda Mosque in Al-Shaboura. But water and dates were not distributed to them as usual. The Ramadan lantern was not lit due to a power outage. Worshipers relied on their phones in the dark.
Next to the rubble of Al-Farouq Mosque in the Rafah camp, which was targeted by an Israeli raid two weeks ago, volunteers laid out mats on Monday in preparation for Tarawih prayers.
But the Ministry of Endowments in Gaza said that hundreds of thousands of worshipers will not be able to perform this prayer in the “wounded” mosques of the Strip, after hundreds of them became “ruble and piles of destruction, or were damaged as a result of the Israeli bombing.”
The Hamas government information office said that the Israeli army targeted “more than 500 mosques, including 220 mosques that were completely demolished, and 290 mosques that were partially demolished and rendered unfit for prayer.”
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