GAZA STRIP: In tents in the stifling heat and in bombed-out mosques, Gazans marked on Sunday the start of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, devoid of the usual cheer as Israeli aggression continued in Gaza.
“There is no joy. We have been robbed of it,” said Malakiya Salman, a 57-year-old displaced woman, now living in a tent in Khan Yunis city in the southern Gaza Strip.
Gazans, like Muslims the world over, would usually slaughter sheep for the holiday – whose Arabic name means “feast of the sacrifice” – and share the meat with the needy.
Parents would also gift children new clothes and money in celebration.
But this year, after more than eight months of a devastating Israeli campaign that has flattened much of Gaza, displaced most of the besieged territory’s 2.4 million people and sparked repeated warnings of famine, the Eid is a day of misery for many.
“I hope the world will put pressure to end the war on us, because we are truly dying, and our children are broken,” said Salman.
Her family was displaced from the far-southern city of Rafah, a recent focus of Israeli aggression.
The military on Sunday morning announced a “tactical pause of military activity” around a Rafah-area route to facilitate the delivery of desperately needed humanitarian aid to Gazans.
AFP correspondents said there were no reports of strikes or shelling since dawn, though the Israeli military stressed there was “no cessation of hostilities in the southern Gaza Strip”.
Hajj pilgrims ‘stone the devil’ as Muslims mark Eid al-Adha
The brief respite in fighting allowed worshippers a rare moment of calm on the holiday, which honours the prophet Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son before God offered a sheep instead.
‘Strange’ silence
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