The Muslim holy month of Ramadan is typically a time of religious devotion, dawn-to-dusk fasting, charity, family gatherings and nightly celebrations.
All of that seems far away this year in Gaza, now in the sixth month of an Israeli military offensive and near-total blockade. More than 31,000 people have been killed in Israel’s bombing and ground invasion, severe hunger is spreading and the coastal strip has been devastated. The war has erased the way Palestinians here lived and observed Ramadan.
In peaceful times, the streets of Gaza’s cities would be filled with families buying Ramadan decorations and supplies – colorful lamps, food and sweets – and preparing for days of fasting, evening meals with family and nights of prayer at mosques.
“I remember the month’s festivities walking through the streets of the market, with shouts and praise everywhere,” said Ahmad Shbat, a 24-year-old street vendor. “Everything was available and the mosques played a vital role.”
Now families have been separated and scattered as most of Gaza’s 2.2 million residents have been forced from their homes. Many live in crowded tent camps. Mosques that Israel claimed were used by Hamas militants have been bombed to rubble. Gazans had hoped that a ceasefire agreement would be reached before Ramadan began, but that did not happen.
Muslims can opt out of the fast for many reasons, and some in Gaza said the hardships of war would make it difficult to observe daily fasts. Others say that with starvation threatening Gaza, most eat only one meal a day anyway, and that fasting will be no different from the hunger they have been forced to endure for months.
The enclave is nearing famine, United Nations officials say. Almost no aid has reached northern Gaza for weeks. Gaza health officials say at least 20 Palestinian children have died of malnutrition and dehydration.
People are so hungry that some have resorted to eating leaves and fodder. Many live on a native wild plant known as Egyptian mallow, commonly eaten by Palestinians.
Mr. Shbat, who was displaced from his home, is sheltering with four members of his family in a school classroom in Jabaliya, northern Gaza. He said Ramadan this year “will not be pleasant, especially since we will be away from our homes and loved ones.”
“There is no meaning to the month without gathering around the table with family,” he said in a telephone interview. And with the destruction of the mosques, he added, it is as if we “lost the joy of Ramadan.”
However, people go out of their way to observe the holiday. At the school where Mr Shbat lives, he said, people have prepared the courtyard for the nightly Ramadan prayers called taraweeh.
Iman Ali, a 42-year-old mother of four whose husband was killed in the war, said in a telephone interview from Jabaliya that she would spend her days going out to look for food for her children, two of whom are injured. But he can’t find anything in the markets to buy, he said. For more than a month she and her children had almost nothing to eat.
“Even without Ramadan, we fast,” he said.
Normally in the run-up to Ramadan, Ms Ali was at her home in northern Gaza preparing the house for a month of worship and celebration. Instead, she spends her days walking the streets in search of food and praying for help from heaven.
Despite the daily struggles and uncertainty they live in, they keep their faith and religious practices.
“We can’t help fasting,” Ms. Ali said. “It’s Ramadan.”
Amera Harouda contributed to the report.
