Ramadan in Gaza: ruins and unshakable faith | Israeli-Palestine conflict

Ramadan destroyed Gaza. While the rest of the world is fasting a festive mood that fasts and prays for a month, we are sad and sad.

Echoes of the war still calls loudly. There is no confidence that this ceasefire will continue. People are concerned about what happened next. They are afraid that the war can come back.

The memory and trauma of what we are witnessed and experienced in last year hangs hard in our minds.

It was not the first time in Ramadan during the war last year. In 2014, I was only nine years old, but I remember how we had to hurry from our house to avoid airtight and destroying our nights and damage to our neighborhood.

But Ramadan was different last year. Were badly bad. Hunger was everywhere. We fasted all day, we just broke the fast with a box or beans shared between six people. We would chew the tasteless canned food in the dark, not electric. We would see each other’s faces on the table.

We were far from most of our expanded family. My grandmother, aunt and cousin, all of our cousins ​​were scattered in different places, some tents and others were glued. The Bearing Bear was a month and isolated.

Ramadan was deprived of the joyful spirit. We heard Adhan in Maghrib (prayer), before starting in Fajr before starting our fast or Fajr. But these sounds never came. Every mosque was destroyed. There were people who wanted to do Adhan, but they were afraid – the voice of their voices will bring the air blows, they will target them.

Instead of trying our fast to the familiar voice of the muezzin in the dynamics of the nearby mosque, we broke him into the terrible echo of missiles and gunshots.

Before the war, I went to the mosque after iftar to pray with my family and see their relatives. After that, we will enjoy the live Ramadan atmosphere before walking in the streets of Gaza, live in the world.

However, last year, there was no place where we could not go to pray Tarawih in the genocide.

Even the Great Omari Mosque – one of the most beautiful and historical mosques of Gaza, my father and brothers who spent the last 10th of my brothers, bombed the Qur’an, bombed the ruins, caused the ruins. Once prayers and peace, the place reflected in peace has become dust and rubble.

This year begins during Ramadan ceasefire. There are no air blows without shocking the earth when you break our frequency. There is no explosion from a blast in the silence of Fajr. There is no fear of decorating our homes, colorful lights that can target us.

Pain and destructive, life – a long-breaking life – trying to go back to Gaza’s streets.

Unsoluted shops and markets were reopened and street vendors returned.

Even the large supermarket in Nuseirat, Hyper Mall, opened its doors again. Before Ramadan, my father took me and my sister there. We could barely contain our excitement because we entered the bright Lit Shopping Center. Felt like we had come back in time for a moment. The shelves were packed again, full of everything we long to be – different types of chocolate, cookies and chips. Ramadan decorations, in all forms and sizes, the boxes of dates, there were colorful dried fruits and gamar al-religion.

However, this abundance is deceptive. Most of the things that fill the shelves come to commercial trucks that make up a large part of the trucks allowed in Gaza to Gaza. At the same time, these products are unavailable for the majority of people who lost their livelihoods and their homes.

Will most families break their fast this year? Canned beans, there will be a little more: a simple dish of rice, Molokhiya or the vegetables you can do.

For the first iftar, the family will have a Palestinian dish made of muzakhan, chicken, saj and many onions. Those who are lucky we know from being. The vast majority of people in Gaza can not get fresh chicken again in a double market.

However, rich, traditional Iftar is not the only thing that will be missing from Ramadan tables in Gaza.

More than 48,000 people were killed during the war. All families will be deleted from the civil registry and will not observe the month of Ramadan this year. At a large number of iftar desk, there will be empty seats: a father who called his children to the table, a son who did not want to break the fast, or skilled hands will never be delicious.

I also lost the people I love. Every year, the husband of his aunt inviting us to iftar was brutally killed. My friends Shaima, Lina and Roaa, met in the mosque after the Taravih prayer, all was killed.

The holiday spirit went, but the Ramadan nucleus is here. This month is a chance to get away from ordinary life from distractions and concerns and re-contact with our belief. It’s time to forgive. It is time to seek God and spiritual strength.

Our mosques can be destroyed, but our faith was not broken. In the half-destroyed houses and tents, Tarawih’yi, who is whispering all our desires in Dua, knowing that we will reward us for being God’s tolerance.

The views shown in this article are unique and definitely reflect the editorial position of Gazir.