Like millions of Muslims across the world, Ghada Abdo, 21, used to gather with her family of six around a table packed with traditional delicacies to mark Eid al-Fitr, the end of the holy month of Ramadan.
But as the war in Gaza rages on, Ghada told Sky News there will be no “beautiful rituals” this year as she grieves the death of her parents and two brothers, allegedly killed in an Israeli strike back in January.
“My family and I would gather at the same table and eat our delicious warm food that my sweet mother would be making,” she said.
“Now we are fasting all day and eating with the sound of rockets and fear. Our life is a fear of losing those we love,” Ghada said, adding: “There is no Ramadan or Eid without my family.”
Image:
Ghada and her brother Abed are the only survivors of her family after her parents and two siblings were killed in Gaza. Pic: Ghada Abdo
Ghada, who is in her last year of university studying English language and translation, said her family home in Gaza City was hit by an Israeli bomb on 19 January, killing her mother, 38, her father, 47, and two of her brothers, aged 17 and 12.
She survived because she was in a building nearby, visiting her grandmother, while her brother, Abed, 19, was in the family home but miraculously emerged alive.
“We were six and now we are two,” the 21-year-old said.
Ghada has been displaced six times since Israel’s war on Gaza started on 7 October in retaliation for the killing of 1,200 people in southern Israel by Hamas, the militant group running Gaza. The militants also took more than 250 hostages as they stormed different kibbutz and the Supernova festival in a shock attack which became the bloodiest day in Israeli history.
At least 33,360 Palestinians have been killed and 75,993 others wounded since the war started, Gaza’s health ministry reported on Tuesday.
Read more: Israel-Hamas: Key element in path to peace still missing six months on from start of warWhy Israel’s imminent Rafah offensive has prompted international condemnation
Ghada spoke of some unshakeable memories, including a dog feeding off the body of her 17-year-old brother as the stench of death pervaded the garden he had been buried in.
“I am sorry to say that there is no Eid and there are no preparations for this Eid.
“It’s a day like any day of destruction and death in all its forms and colours. My heart is burning. This is the first Eid that passes without my mother, my father and brothers. I am so sad.”
Doctor Youssef Akkad, the director of the European Gaza Hospital near Khan Younis, a city in the south of the 2.3m-strong enclave, told Sky News this year’s Eid would be “totally different”.
Dr Akkad described how in previous years, thousands would typically gather for Eid prayers in football stadiums or similar locations.
The day would also see many preparing food, such as dry fish, for themselves as well as friends and family, as people would spend the day visiting each other to celebrate the end of fasting – which during Ramadan is observed every day from sunrise to sunset.
“Everybody is smiling, everybody is laughing everybody is enjoying this moment but unfortunately this year it’s unsafe,” Dr Akkad, 54, said.
“The situation this year is totally different because there are no more houses to meet each other.
“People are living with each other inside tents where there is a lack of everything.”
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He went on to say: “All the children, the rich and the poor, used to have new clothes and some kind of toys. Unfortunately this year they won’t be able to have new clothes because already they don’t have even old clothes.”
Children would also receive pocket money from relatives for Eid, waiting for the festival to collect enough funds to buy what they wanted.
“All these kinds of nice things which used to be done in the last few days of Ramadan and the festival of Eid have disappeared and Palestinians won’t be able to see it again,” the doctor said.
Sky News has contacted the Israel Defence Forces for comment.
