By Mohammad Salem
GAZA (Reuters) – Palestinians visited the graves of loved ones killed in the Gaza war and prayed beside the rubble of a mosque and in devastated streets as the devastating conflict cast a pall over the Eid al-Fitr holiday.
Millions of Muslims around the world observe Eid, which marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, with celebrations, feasts and family gatherings.
But few in Gaza can take comfort in this special moment for Muslims. After six months of war, their attention is on surviving Israeli airstrikes, bombings, a ground offensive and a humanitarian crisis.
Amany Mansour and her mother stood at her young son’s grave, remembering happier times. He said that the last Eid was the best of his life.
“My son was next to me, in my arms, preparing him. Everything he wanted, I did for him,” she said.
“I wish he was here with me. He would go to the mosque in the morning and tell me ‘prepare my gift for when I return’. He’s gone. Everything good in my life is gone.”
‘SAD FOR THE DAYS THAT HAVE GONE’
In better times, people like Mahmoud al-Hamaydeh in the southern Gaza city of Rafah gathered with family and friends for celebrations and hearty meals during the Eid holiday.
“This day, for me, is heartbreaking, compared to the last Eid. I look at my children and I am heartbroken. When I sit with them and start crying, feeling sad for the days that have passed,” said Hamaydeh, who is now wheelchair-bound after being injured by the Israeli army.
“I remember the last Eid and I remember this Eid. The last Eid, I was surrounded by my children, looking at them with joy. But today I am injured, unable to move or go anywhere.”
Instead, it endures Israeli airstrikes that have turned much of Gaza, a densely populated enclave run by Hamas, into rows of rubble and dust.
The war erupted on October 7 when the Palestinian Islamist group stormed across the border and rampaged into southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 253 hostages, according to Israeli counts.
Israel responded with ferocious airstrikes and a ground invasion that killed more than 33,000 Palestinians, injured more than 75,000 and created a humanitarian crisis.
Most of the enclave’s 2.3 million people are homeless. Hospitals have been destroyed, medicines are in short supply and many Gazans are at risk of famine.
As Palestinians look around the Gaza Strip, there is little to celebrate. Israel has said it will maintain military pressure until it destroys Hamas.
Children played among shattered concrete and twisted medals left by airstrikes near the ruins of Rafah’s Al Farouk mosque, which was hit by an Israeli attack.
Another resident, Abu Shaer, called on his fellow Muslims to try to draw strength from the Eid holiday.
“Despite the great feeling of sorrow and the continuous Zionist killings during the last six months of our lives, we must show joy on this day,” he said.
PRAYERS AND PROTEST
Worshipers knelt in the street next to the rubble of the mosque, spreading their prayer mats in the shadow of a white minaret, still standing in the middle of the otherwise razed building.
More than a million people are crammed into Rafah, on Gaza’s southern border with Egypt, after fleeing shelling on their homes further north.
It is the last relatively safe place in Gaza. But Israel has repeatedly signaled plans to assault Rafah to destroy the remaining Hamas battalions.
Elsewhere in the Middle East, where many have experienced war and sectarian bloodshed, Muslims have prayed for an end to the war.
“We turn to God asking for relief and victory for our brothers in Palestine,” Omar Nizar Karim said in the Iraqi capital Baghdad. “This is a message we send today from this blessed place to our people in Gaza and to our people in Palestine.”
In Jordan, pro-Palestinians gathered near the Israeli embassy in Amman to show their solidarity with the people of Gaza.
“The title of today’s protest is ‘There is no Eid while Gaza is annihilated,’” Abdel Majid Rantisi said. “Our Eid is the day of the victory of the resistance, the victory of Gaza.”