Muslims across the world in the holy month of Ramadan are fasting, spending time with their families, and dedicating themselves to prayer and worship. However, for the Muslims of Gaza, this holy month is filled with grief and mourning.
The Palestinians are enduring massacres, disease, starvation, and thirst at the hands of the Israeli army. Its violence and brutality have not stopped or lessened during Ramadan.
The Muslim families all over the world gather to have Sehri and iftar together but the Palestinians are bidding farewell to martyr after martyr. This pain gets worse by the realization that the world is allowing Israel to continue its genocide.
Ramadan is much more than just fasting and prayer for the Palestinian people. It is a remembrance of the strength of faith of the Palestinian people, and a celebration of the resilience of the Palestinian people. They cannot forget the bombs, the bullets, the hunger, and the rubble they are facing.
In Gaza streets, occupied and under constant threat of aggression, but defiantly full of hope and children’s laughter, Palestinians appreciate the unique beauty of the sound of Adhan and the understanding of being Muslim.
Palestinian families break their fast at every sundown amid the sounds of their homeland’s ongoing destruction. Can you imagine what Ramadan now looks and feels like for the beloved people of Gaza?
For those in Gaza, who survived months of genocide, there is no food for Sehri or Iftar. Israel is still blocking aid from reaching the most desperate, and people are cooking grass to have something, anything, to break their fast.
Babies and children are all malnourished, and dozens have already died from lack of food and clean water. Everyone in the besieged enclave lost someone and was not even provided with the time and space to breathe, and mourn the suffering.
There is no mosque left undamaged, and no safe place for collective prayer. Indeed, the people of Gaza are still under constant bombardment. Even those who tried to find refuge in Rafah, that last so-called safe zone in the besieged enclave faced a ground invasion that undoubtedly killed and maimed thousands more innocents.
Ramadan has not been cheerful for the people of Gaza for years due to Israel’s relentless blockade. Many parents went without food in this holiest month to feed their children long before the beginning of this genocide. Yet death and destruction have never been so big, and fear about the future so acute in this once beautiful land.
Ramadan was never a straightforward affair in the occupied territory. It always involved navigating illegal checkpoints, enduring harassment from occupation soldiers, and resisting provocations. However, this year, it is much, much worse.
Palestinians in the West Bank are not only distressed over the genocide of their brothers and sisters in Gaza but also trying to survive relentless attacks from settlers, police, and soldiers. They wonder who among them will be the next to undergo arrest, displacement, or assault. They wonder whether they and their loved ones will live to see another Ramadan.
Unfortunately, we are practicing our faith with an undying guilt that we cannot help the suffering brothers. How should we break our fast when so many Palestinian people have not properly eaten in months? We pray in a mosque while Palestinians pray on rubble. This feeling makes our hearts bleed.
Ramadan after Ramadan, the Palestinian people have suffered. The Palestinian spirit will outlive the tyranny of Israeli occupation. As we see Gazans perform Friday prayer amidst the rubble of their society, it reminds us of what steadfastness looks like that Israel can destroy their homes or mosques, but never their faith.
