Ramadan: What does the scene look like in Gaza?

Umm Muhammad moved several times between schools and shelters, because most of them continued to be exposed to bombing and gunfire from the Israeli side.

The woman recounts that her husband refused to leave the north, adding in her local dialect: “I told my husband, ‘Let’s go to the south.’ He said, ‘We want to die in our country. It is better for us to go to the south.’ And even the people of the south do not know how to return them to their homes.”

Umm Muhammad answered our question about any preparations for the month of Ramadan in the negative, saying: “There is no Ramadan, and all of my family are in the south. No one has left us alone, neither in food nor in drink… In fact, we are currently fasting.”

Umm Muhammad describes their daily situation, noting that their food is currently limited to “hay,” a plant that is dried and fed to animals.

In addition to “hay,” she cooks “hibiscus” daily for her children, the harvest season of which coincides with this season. She says that even hibiscus is close to disappearing from the lands of northern Gaza, after it became the staple food for hundreds of thousands of displaced people.

Umm Muhammad adds: “We have hay, food for animals, donkeys, and rabbits. We grind it and eat it. My son shouted yesterday to you, ‘Mother, I want white bread to eat. Where can I get it?’”

As for the water, families in northern Gaza drink salty water, due to the lack of drinking water, while the United Nations Office for Humanitarian Affairs said in its latest report that the displaced in the northern Gaza Strip use brackish water from nearby desalination plants, due to the lack of sufficient clean water.

There are no preparatory scenes for Ramadan in northern Gaza, says Umm Muhammad, in light of the separation of families and their dispersion in several areas, and the lack of food, water, medicine, and many necessities of living, despite the attempts of some residents to obtain aid that is dropped by air, but she describes that this Aid falls in distant places at sea, and she cannot obtain it, while all the people rush to any aid box that falls near them, which makes obtaining aid impossible, according to her words.

Our conversation with Umm Muhammad on the phone is interrupted by the voice of her daughter (5 years old), as she asks her mother to allow her to go out so that she can pick up a “coupon,” that is, a box of aid being dropped by air. The little girl believed that a plane carrying aid was flying above their house, and she intended to go out to join them.

The mother says: “When they see the plane, they tell me, ‘Mama, Mama, there is aid. Where can I get them from? If we want to catch the planes, we won’t catch them.’”

In the midst of talking about the difficult daily life that the woman lives with her children and husband, she recalls Ramadan in previous years, saying: “Ramadan in the past was beautiful and everything was provided for us. I was preparing to decorate, eat, drink, and have a good life… My children told me, ‘Mama, Ramadan is coming.’ I told them, ‘Mama, there is nothing.’” “His joy, unless you come across a thrown lantern in the street and rejoice in it.”

Although the areas of the southern Gaza Strip are witnessing greater entry of humanitarian missions from the United Nations, this has not prevented severe food shortages due to the numbers of displaced people and the humanitarian conditions in which they live, according to the United Nations.

Mona, a displaced woman in Rafah, refuses to be asked about any preparations for Ramadan, considering that the term preparation for Ramadan does not apply to the circumstances and reality of the people of Gaza. “We are essentially homeless. How do we prepare for Ramadan? People live in tents, and there are people on the streets. Life does not exist at all.”

One of the difficulties that the people of the south will face this year during the month of Ramadan is the absence of gas, which means additional complications for cooking operations, in addition to the lack and absence of food at times. She says: “There is no way to preserve food, there is no electricity, nor any equipment. We We prepare food over the fire. There is a greater burden on the women in Ramadan because the cooking will be over the fire inside the tents… I mean, after the woman sits down, she also prepares the food by preparing bread, meaning she needs approximately 6 hours a day to be able to make food for her children.”

Mona – who lives with her father, her mother, her brother, his wife, and their three children – continues while talking about the conditions of families in the south of the Gaza Strip and the conditions of the rest of the families in the north, and says: “How can we talk about Ramadan preparations when the people of the north do not have flour, nor do they have any landmarks, nor do they have vegetables or Fruits and nothing, which is everything they cut off, their only concern is fasting before Ramadan comes.”

In comparison with previous years, Mona summarizes that what is different about this year from the previous one is that “no one remained in their house,” and she says that the homes of families in the Rafah and central areas have become crowded, “each house has 40 to 50 people, and the food is very little and not enough.” Food is distributed to everyone so that they can eat. The reality is bitter before Ramadan. So how about Ramadan?