'It hurts': Gaza war robs Muslim world of Ramadan joy

For Muslims worldwide, Ramadan is a time of prayer, reflection and joyful evening meals, but all Gazans wish for this year is an end to five months of war and suffering.

It is a hope shared widely across the Islamic world, where the thoughts of many are with Gaza ahead of the fasting month which starts with the sighting of the crescent moon on Sunday or Monday.

The war sparked by Hamas's October 7 attack against Israel has devastated Gaza, killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and triggered violence elsewhere in the Middle East, from Lebanon to the seas off Yemen.

Amid the ruins of southern Gaza, Nevin al-Siksek sat recently outside her makeshift tent, distracting her young daughter from the carnage around them with a plastic Ramadan lantern.

 Worshippers break their fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, in Cairo, Egypt. 

The colourful fanous lanterns are an iconic symbol of Ramadan, the ninth month of the Islamic calendar marked by dawn-to-dusk fasting and, in better times, festive evening iftar meals with family and friends.

Across Gaza this year, the lights are among the few signs signalling the coming holy month, amid dire warnings of mass starvation.

While international mediators were hoping for a truce in time for Ramadan, no breakthrough had come by Friday.

Much of the territory of 2.4 million people has become a hellscape of bombed-out neighbourhoods, emaciated children and mass graves dug in the sand.

Siksek and her family, instead of tucking into lamb and sweets at the home they had to flee in northern Gaza, will break their fast in the bare-bones tent they share with other displaced civilians.

If they can find anything to eat, that is.

"We do not have any food to prepare," Siksek said as her husband, Mohammed Yasser Rayhan, nodded in agreement.

 Muslim women visit the Mount of Olives, ahead of Ramadan, overlooking the Dome of the Rock at the Al Aqsa Mosque. 

In the past during Ramadan, which commemorates the beginning of the Quranic revelation to the Prophet Mohammed in the seventh century, "there was life, joy, spirit, decorations and a beautiful atmosphere", Rayhan said.

"Now Ramadan is coming and we have war, oppression and famine."

A prayer for our brothers

The Gaza war erupted after Hamas staged an unprecedented attack on southern Israel, according to AFP.

Israel's retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 30,800 people so far, the vast majority women and children, according to Hamas-run Gaza's health ministry.

Other parts of the Islamic world may be grappling with their own challenges, from conflicts to high inflation. But many Muslims say their thoughts are with Palestinians this year.

"Every time I pray, I always send a prayer for our brothers and sisters in the Palestinian territory," said Indonesian housewife Nurunnisa, 61, in Aceh province in the west of the country with the world's largest Muslim population.

"I can't help them with anything so I can only help them with prayer. I pray the war will be over soon. The people there are suffering so much."

Tired and drained

Muslims in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem worry about violence at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, a regular flashpoint.

 An Iraqi woman checks traditional lanterns known in Arabic as "Fanous Ramadan” at the Shorja market in central Baghdad. 

The site is Islam's third-holiest and Judaism's most sacred, known to Jews as the Temple Mount.

During Ramadan, Muslims in their tens and even hundreds of thousands pray at the compound's iconic Dome of the Rock.

But in February, Israel's hard-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir argued that Palestinian residents of the occupied West Bank "should not be allowed" entry to Jerusalem during Ramadan.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said on Tuesday that worshippers would be allowed to enter the mosque "in similar numbers" to past years.

That did little to reassure Ahlam Shaheen, 32, who works at a community centre near Al-Aqsa.

When Israeli police stormed the mosque in 2021, Shaheen saw women praying next to her get shot with rubber bullets, and she fears it could happen again.

"We're living with the war for five months now," she said. "We're really tired and drained."

In Cairo, the most festive of cities during Ramadan, a Gazan student who asked not to be named feared the holy month this year would be unbearable.

"For the first time in my life, I can't stand the idea of Ramadan," she said. "It hurts every time I see a fanous," she said about the lanterns that festoon the city's streets.

"My brothers and sisters can't even eat once a day, and we're supposed to have a fast-breaking meal like everything is normal?"

Agence France-Presse