Palestinians gather for Eid al-Adha prayers beside the ruins of a mosque destroyed by Israeli bombardment, in Deir al-Balah, Gaza on Friday. AP
With much of Gaza in rubble, men and children were forced to hold the traditional Eid al-Adha prayers in the open air and with food supplies dwindling, families were having to make do with what they could scrape together for the three-day feast.
“This is the worst feast that the Palestinian people have experienced because of the unjust war against the Palestinian people,” said Kamel Emran after attending prayers in the southern city of Khan Younis.
“There is no food, no flour, no shelter, no mosques, no homes, no mattresses ... The conditions are very, very harsh.”
The holiday begins on the 10th day of the Islamic lunar month of Dhul-Hijja, during the Hajj season in Saudi Arabia.
For the second year, Muslims in Gaza were not able to travel to Saudi Arabia to perform the traditional pilgrimage.
Since the Israeli genocidal war in Gaza started on October 2023, the occupation army has killed more than 54,600 Palestinians, most of them women and children, with over 125,500 others injured, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
The Israeli brutal war has destroyed large parts of Gaza and displaced around 90% of its population of roughly 2 million Palestinians.
After blocking all food and aid from entering Gaza for more than two months, Israel began allowing a trickle of supplies to enter for the UN several weeks ago.
But the UN says it has been unable to distribute much of the aid because of Israeli army restrictions on movements and because roads that the military designates for its trucks to use are unsafe and vulnerable to looters.
The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome said Thursday that Gaza's people are projected to fall into acute food insecurity by September, with nearly 500,000 people experiencing extreme food deprivation, leading to malnutrition and starvation.
“This means the risk of famine is really touching the whole of the Gaza Strip,” Rein Paulson, director of the FAO office of emergencies and resilience, said in an interview.
The UN says that the number of Gaza children facing acute malnutrition has soared since February, with more than 2,700 now suffering from it.
Over the past two weeks, shootings have erupted nearly daily in the Gaza Strip in the vicinity of new hubs where desperate Palestinians are being directed to collect food.
Witnesses say nearby Israeli troops have opened fire, killing more than 80 people.
The US so-called Humanitarian Foundation, a newly formed group of mainly American contractors that Israel wants to use to replace humanitarian groups in Gaza that distribute aid in coordination with the UN, said Friday that all its distribution centers were closed for the day due to the ongoing Israeli violence.
It urged people to stay away for their own safety, and said it would make an announcement later as to when they would resume distributing humanitarian aid.
* This story was edited by Ahram Online.
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