Ramadan in Gaza: Ruins and unshakable faith

We have lost loved ones, homes, livelihoods, mosques, but our faith remains as strong as ever.
Ramadan has come to devastated Gaza. While the rest of the world embarks with a festive mood on a month of fasting and prayer, we do so with grief and sorrow.

The echoes of war still ring loud. There is no certainty that this ceasefire will last. People are anxious about what happens next. They fear the war may come back.

The memory and trauma of what we have witnessed and experienced over the past year hang heavy in our minds.

Last year was not the first time for us to observe Ramadan during a war. In 2014, I was only nine years old, but I remember very well how our Ramadan nights were filled with air strikes and destruction and how we had to rush out of our home in the dark, fleeing the bombing in our neighbourhood..

But Ramadan last year was different.. It was unimaginably worse. Hunger was everywhere. We fasted the entire day, only to break our fast with a can of hummus or beans shared between six people. With no electricity, we would chew the tasteless canned food in the dark. We would barely see each other’s faces across the table..

We were away from most of our extended family. My grandmother, aunts and cousins who I used to spend Ramadan with were all scattered in different places, some displaced in tents and others stuck in the north. The month of togetherness became a month of separation and isolation.
Ramadan stripped of its joyous spirit. We longed to hear the adhan (call to prayer) at Maghrib before breaking our fast or at Fajr before starting it. But those sounds never came.. Every mosque destroyed. There were people who wanted to do the adhan, but they were afraid – afraid that the sound of their voices would bring air strikes, that it would make them targets.

Instead of breaking our fast to the familiar sound of the muezzin on the loudspeakers of the nearby mosque, we broke it to the terrifying echoes of missiles and gunfire.

Before the war, I used to go with my family to the mosque after iftar to pray and see our loved ones. Afterwards, we would stroll through the streets of Gaza, enjoying the lively Ramadan atmosphere before heading home to have freshly made qatayef..

But last year, there was nowhere we could go to pray tarawih amid the genocide..
Even the Great Omari Mosque – one of Gaza’s most beautiful and historic mosques, where my father and brothers used to spend the final 10 nights of Ramadan, listening to the Quran recited in the most beautiful voices – gone, bombed into ruins, shattered beyond recognition. The place that once echoed with prayers and peace turned into dust and rubble.

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