A blood-stained Eid in Gaza will be remembered

‘No Eid while Gaza has no Eid’ was chanted in a protest this week in Paterson, New Jersey, a place called Little Palestine as it houses one of the largest communities of Palestinians outside the Middle East.

Muslims across the globe are ready to celebrate Eid, an important Islamic festival. Eid-ul-Fitr means ‘festival of breaking the fast’ as it marks the end of month-long dawn-to-dusk fasting during Ramadan.

However, it won’t be a feast day for Palestinians, but only a dark shadow of death as they face an uncontrollable beast in the form of Israel.

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All men are equal, but some are more equal than others….We are sons of light, they are sons of darkness….The horror! The horror!… In six months of bloodshed in the Gaza Strip, the world witnessed what its end will look like.

Hopes were dupes and Ramzan couldn’t become a reason for a pause in Israeli assault in Gaza as well as in the West Bank. Palestinians were deprived of Ramzan rituals and tradions. They gathered not for some family feast or communal prayers, but to seek food aid as the enclave faces famine before Eid.

Israel even reduced the largest and oldest mosque, Great Omari Mosque in Gaza, to rubble – a crime against the cultural heritage and maybe part of a campaign of total annihilation.

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The situation in war-torn Gaza is “beyond catastrophic” and “humanity has been all but abandoned”. This is how the the aid agencies decried the devastating toll wreaked by six months of Gaza war. They are forced to forgo Eid festivals as hunger and darkness will only reign at the beseigned Palestinian enclave.

Democracy is in crisis so is humanity as nothing could stop Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu from destruction of the North Gaza. Thousands protested, a social media storm, condemnation from countries, and resolution of the Security Council – all have gone in vain as Netanyahu says a date has been set for an offensive in the city of Rafah, probably after Eid.

Death toll in Gaza has crossed 33,000 Palestinians, including many children who were to witness their first Eid this year. Those who are alive would remember nothing but destruction.

More than 1.5 million displaced Gazans are sheltering in Rafah located at the territory’s far south, and Israel plans to initiate a full-scale assault in Rafah in its attempt to eradicate Hamas and rescue the hostages taken by Hamas in October 7 attacks.

Israel’s biggest ally, the United States, has already said that a ground operation into Rafah would be a mistake. The US demands to see a credible plan to protect civilians in Rafah after Israel caused a humanitarian crisis in the rest of the enclave.

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Many believe that if Israel invades Rafah, it will become a death zone as people there would have no place to go but to face the bombs and bullets of the Israeli army.

Meanwhile, the risk for a regional war still looms after an Israeli air strike on Iran’s consulate in Damascus killed 16, including two of Iran’s high-level commanders.

Iranian Revolutionary Guards chief General Hossein Salami warned that Israel “cannot escape the consequences” of the strike, which levelled the five-storey consular annex of the Iranian embassy.

Amid all this, having homes destroyed, losing family members, and no food to eat, Eid prayers will still echo through some streets of Gaza – a testament to the indomitable spirit of Palestinians.

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