{"id":249619,"date":"2025-03-01T15:53:05","date_gmt":"2025-03-01T15:53:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/01\/gazans-mark-a-somber-ramadan-amid-the-rubble\/"},"modified":"2025-03-01T15:53:06","modified_gmt":"2025-03-01T15:53:06","slug":"gazans-mark-a-somber-ramadan-amid-the-rubble","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/01\/gazans-mark-a-somber-ramadan-amid-the-rubble\/","title":{"rendered":"Gazans Mark a Somber Ramadan Amid the Rubble"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/03\/01\/multimedia\/01gaza-ramadan-mvcl\/01gaza-ramadan-mvcl-facebookJumbo.jpg?ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Gazans Mark a Somber Ramadan Amid the Rubble\" title=\"Gazans Mark a Somber Ramadan Amid the Rubble\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Before the war, Ramadan was one of the most joyful festivals in Gaza. The month of dawn-to-dusk fasting drew crowds into the mosques, and streets were festooned with colorful lanterns typical of the season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But an enormous gap stretches between the happy holiday memories of a seemingly irrecoverable past and the desolation and grief left by the 15-month war in Gaza. The daytime fasting began on Saturday, but many Palestinians in the territory see little to celebrate.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Maisa Arafa, 29, who said that her brother had been killed during the war, has been living in a tent with other relatives as they clear away rubble from their devastated home in northern Gaza in hopes of moving into one room that is still intact.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cMore than anything, I wish my brother could come back. That would be the only thing to make Ramadan feel like it used to,\u201d Ms. Arafa said as she shopped in downtown Gaza City. \u201cThis is not the Ramadan we knew, or even the life we knew.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Since the Israel-Hamas cease-fire went into effect in mid-January, hundreds of truckloads per day of food and other supplies have been entering the enclave, offering a degree of relief from the intense hunger many felt during the war.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Abdelhalim Awad, who oversees a bakery and supermarket in central Gaza, said that prices had dropped since the worst days of the war, when a 55-pound sack of flour could cost hundreds of dollars.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cGoods are now available,\u201d Mr. Awad said as he watched holiday shoppers come and go, buying what they could for communal meals to break the fast at night. \u201cBut people are still only able to buy what they really need.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The war began after the Hamas-led assault on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killed about 1,200 people and saw some 250 others taken back to Gaza as hostages. The subsequent Israeli military campaign laid waste to large swaths of the Gaza Strip.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Many are still displaced or have returned to their homes only to find them ruined by the fighting.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The Israeli campaign killed more than 48,000 Palestinians, including thousands of children, according to local health officials who do not distinguish between civilians and combatants. The Israeli military said it had \u201celiminated\u201d nearly 20,000 Hamas operatives, without providing detailed evidence to back up that claim.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Muhanned Hamad, an accountant from Gaza City, which is in the north of the enclave, stood in front of a toy vendor\u2019s stall in what was once a major downtown market. He said he was looking for a holiday lantern to give to his neighbors, a mother and son who had lost their immediate family during the war.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThis Ramadan is nothing like the ones before,\u201d said Mr. Hamed, 39. \u201cThe war has drained it of meaning.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He added, \u201cEven with the cease-fire, nothing here feels worthy of celebration.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/03\/01\/world\/middleeast\/ramadan-gaza-war.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Before the war, Ramadan was one of the most joyful festivals in Gaza. The month of dawn-to-dusk fasting drew crowds into the mosques, and streets were festooned with colorful lanterns typical of the season. But an enormous gap stretches between the happy holiday memories of a seemingly irrecoverable past and the desolation and grief left [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":249620,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/03\/01\/multimedia\/01gaza-ramadan-mvcl\/01gaza-ramadan-mvcl-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[137233,7335,1507,32652,3451,5552,38,73,163679,12213,1789,67716],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249619"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249619"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249619\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":249621,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249619\/revisions\/249621"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}