FASTING FOR RAMADAN WHILE GAZA GOES HUNGRY
Fasting for Ramadan While Gaza Goes Hungry
How do you celebrate the holy month when you fear the suffering may not end?
In 2019, Palestinians broke their Ramadan fast near the rubble of a building destroyed by Israeli air strikes, in Gaza City.Photograph by Ibraheem Abu Mustafa / Reuters / Redux
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On the evening of February 28th, thousands of people gathered on Al-Rashid Street, in Gaza City, in hopes that a convoy of aid trucks would bring them desperately needed food. The trucks arrived early the next morning, at around a quarter to five. When a large crowd encircled them in an effort to obtain food, Israeli forces, who were standing by, opened fire. More than a hundred people were killed, and hundreds more were injured. Later, the Israeli Army said that its troops had felt threatened, and that some Palestinians died in a stampede. The day has become known as the “flour massacre.”
After I saw the news, I called my father to check on him. I’m in New York and he lives in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., but much of our family is in Gaza and the West Bank. He’d heard about what had happened but didn’t know many details. “I can hardly stand to watch the news anymore,” he told me.
I pointed out that in ten days many Muslims would start fasting for Ramadan. I was struggling to imagine the holy month in Gaza, where the World Food Program has been warning of mass starvation.
“Do you think people will still fast?”
“Of course they will still fast,” my father said. “They are fasting already.”
He forwarded me a WhatsApp voice message from my cousin Jinan, in northern Gaza. In December, Israeli forces attacked the U.N. school where Jinan was taking shelter with her husband and two children. A blast broke her jaw, and she could no longer eat solid food. Her daughter, Nouran, who loved to draw anime, lost her right eye, part of her cheek, and the use of both hands. They waited three days for the Palestinian Red Crescent to take them to Al-Shifa hospital, and have been there ever since, waiting for surgeries. Lately, Al-Shifa has also been treating survivors of the flour massacre.
I was amazed to hear levity and humility in Jinan’s voice. “Our situation is better than many others,” she said. “But what can we do—this is our fate written by God. All we have is the Day of Judgment.”
I messaged Jinan to ask how she was doing, and what she was planning for Ramadan. A day passed before she was able to respond. “Do you believe that we haven’t tasted eggs or chicken for months,” she wrote back. She has been surviving on pre-cooked rice, sometimes with lentils, hummus, and fava beans. Her family can’t find fresh fruits or vegetables. “As for Ramadan, we’re going to fast as we can . . . Inshallah we will manage.”
Lately, images from Gaza have been filling my Instagram feed. I keep seeing photographs of Yazan al-Kafarneh, one of at least sixteen children who have reportedly died from malnutrition or dehydration in Gaza. In old photos of him, he looks like a ten-year-old boy. In more recent photos, his skin appears wrinkled and yellow, his open eyes look hollow, and his skeleton is clearly visible. I feel sick and sad and scared. How could anyone allow this to happen to a child? In another post, I see a photo of a refugee tent decorated with Ramadan lanterns.
As I read the news from Gaza, I think about the special cruelty of killing hungry people. Death ends their misery, but forever denies them the relief that they were seeking. Part of Ramadan’s joy is the act of looking forward: to iftar, the meal that breaks the fast every evening; to Laylat al-Qadr, the night when the first verses of the Quran were revealed to the Prophet Muhammad; to the feast of Eid, which marks the end of daily sacrifice. How do you celebrate the holy month when you fear the suffering will not end?
My parents grew up in the West Bank, and their entire city, Nablus, transformed for Ramadan: you could arrive late to work, businesses closed early, and shops and restaurants reopened in the evenings for souq nazel, a nightly descent into the Old Town market. My father, ten years older than my mother, remembers the days before the Israeli occupation. At his grandfather’s house, his family made dough and then brought it to a public oven, to bake it into bread. Homemade lentil soup and fattoush salad were always on the table, along with qamar al-deen, a juice made from dried apricot.
They waited to eat until they heard the call to prayer from the local mosque. At night, in the Old Town, he and his friends sang, walked, flirted, smoked argileh, and poured cups of mint tea or sous, a licorice drink, from copper pitchers. Sometimes people would stay out until suhoor, the predawn meal, and only then head home to sleep.
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