As Eid al-Fitr approached, Amani Abu Awda’s four children began asking her for new clothes and toys — festive items that Muslims typically buy to celebrate the holiday that marks the end of the holy month. of Ramadan.
But the mother of four from northern Gaza is now displaced with her family in a tent in the southern city of Rafah, far from any sense of celebration and the home that used to host large family gatherings.
“Oh God, I can’t get anything for them because of the high prices,” he said on Saturday, days before most Muslims around the world celebrate Eid al-Fitr. “I had to try and find used clothes. On normal days, we don’t buy such things. But I couldn’t even find any used clothes.”
Eid al-Fitr — the three-day celebration starting Wednesday that marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan — used to be a joyous time in Gaza. But with famine threatening Gaza amid an ongoing Israeli military offensive, Palestinians there say there is little to celebrate.
The family of Ms. Abu Awda to bring some clothes with them when they fled their home in Jabaliya two months ago. But at one checkpoint, Israeli soldiers threw away everything they were carrying as they walked along a dangerous road where some Palestinians were lost in detention and others were killed in Israeli airstrikes, he said.
“What kind of Eid is this?” said Ms. Abu Awda, adding, “We have lost so much. We lost family and loved ones. We lost our home and we lost our safety. The sense of death is with us at every moment, and the smell of death is everywhere.”
More than anything else, said Ms. Abu Awda, they want a cease-fire for Eid.
Just as Ramadan, a month of all-day fasting and religious observance, is marked by bitter memories of how it was celebrated before Israel’s war on Gaza, Eid will also be characterized by keen comparisons of how different things of the past year.
before the war, The malls will be filled with families buying new holiday clothes and sweets to give to all the relatives who stop by to visit in the days leading up to Eid.
Now those relatives are mostly homeless, packed into small homes with others or warming tents made of plastic sheeting.
There are many Muslims in the Middle East visit the graves of their loved ones on Eid. But with so many killed since the war began in October and many of them buried in makeshift graves or yet to be recovered from under the rubble, holding on to that tradition is now impossible for most.
Gaza Ministry of Health More than 33,000 people are said to have been killed in Gaza during six months of Israeli bombardment.
In Gaza City, some people hang small lights or paper decorations in the streets. But it did nothing to combat the general sad feeling, said Alina Al-Yazji, a 20-year-old university student.
“The streets, instead of smelling of cookies and mamoul and sumaqia and faseekh and all these wonderful smells,” said Ms. Al-Yazji, citing some of the traditional sweet and savory foods eaten during Eid, “instead, the streets smell of blood and killing and destruction.”
As he spoke, the sound of an Israeli fighter jet echoed overhead.
Sitting in her tent in Rafah, Muna Daloob, 50, can’t help but think back to past vacations, before her family fled their home in Gaza City.
He said he doesn’t make any Eid cookies or mamoul or faseekh because he doesn’t have cooking gas and all the ingredients, including flour and sugar, are too expensive or in short supply.
She hoped she could somehow find — and afford — the smallest gift to bring a smile to her grandchildren: a lollipop.
For 22-year-old Mohammad Shehada, like other Palestinian men, Eid comes with the prospect of giving monetary gifts, called eidiya.
In most Muslim cultures, adults give small eidiyas to children. But Palestinians give money to both children and adult female relatives. Even before the war, some Palestinian men in Gaza struggled to give up aid as a result of the 17-year land, air and sea blockade imposed on Gaza by Israel and supported by Egypt. Now, in the midst of war, Eid would be impossible for most people.
“The joy of the children who gather around you when you give them eidiya, we cannot give it to this year, and we will be ashamed,” he said.
Mr. expects Shehada that some mosques, most of which have become shelters for many displaced Gazans, will still hold Eid prayers in the morning. He looked forward to eating faseekh, a fermented fish dish, the simplest of Eid delights, he said.
“I have high hopes for Eid,” he said, “but first for them to end this insurgent war.”
