GL HERO SHIMA Posted April 11, 2024 Posted April 11, 2024 s cold, driving rain swept across the rubbish- and rubble-strewn streets of Rafah early on Wednesday morning, residents of the crowded city in the south of Gaza set out to celebrate the end of the holy month of Ramadan and the festival of Eid al-Fitr. Prayers were held in mosques badly damaged in the continuing Israeli offensive, in the crowded schools where many have lived since being forced to flee ruined homes elsewhere in the territory, and on the sand among the rows of tents now home to hundreds of thousands. By noon, the clouds had cleared but the spring sun brought little of the warmth usually associated with a day of faith, friendship and family. “It doesn’t feel like Eid because of the lack of a beautiful atmosphere, and we are not buying clothes and sweets, or gathering together like we usually do,” said Jana Muhammad Sorour, a 12-year-old dispatched by her displaced family to sell homemade goods to neighbours in Rafah to raise much-needed funds. “I hope that the war will stop and that I will get clothes and candy like other holidays, and most importantly, go home.” For Islam Wahba, 35, who fled to Rafah after her home in Nuseirat was destroyed in an airstrike, the festival brought new grief. Since the war started six months ago, her husband and six relatives have been killed. “When the prayers began, I started crying because it was my first Eid without my husband and so many of my family. When my children woke up, they began to look at pictures of their father and wish him a happy Eid. This is not Eid and cannot be Eid,” she said. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/10/this-cannot-be-eid-gazas-survivors-mark-the-end-of-ramadan-in-the-shadow-of-war
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