Seventy days after they were forced to leave their house in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, Hanaa al-Masry, her husband and their six children were last weekend preparing for Ramadan in their new home: a dilapidated tent. Here, there will be no decorations, no joyous family meals and no reading of the Qur'an in the garden.
The Muslim holy month - a time for friends and family as well as religious contemplation, prayer and fasting started on Monday and will be like none that anyone in Gaza can remember.
The Masry family fled Khan Younis after receiving leaflets from the Israeli military telling them to relocate for their own safety. They made their way to the city of Rafah on the border with Egypt and now live in a crowded makeshift camp, sleeping and eating amida jumble of salvaged possessions.
"My daughters used to carefully save their money to buy decorations and every year I would chose a new Ramadan lantern," Hanaa al-Masry, 37, said. "It is very depressing, very difficult."
This year, there will be no lanterns. Masry will prepare neither suhoor, the meal taken before the start of the ritual day-long fast, nor iftar at its end.
This story is from the March 15, 2024 edition of The Guardian Weekly.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the March 15, 2024 edition of The Guardian Weekly.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Resistance is futile
Why does Franz Kafka's world of nightmare bureaucracy and modernist alienation remain a cultural touchstone, a century after his death?
A state of mind The truth about neurodiversity
Growing understanding of ADHD and autism has led to an increase in diagnosis. We look at the science helping to improve people’s lives
MONEY MONEY MONEY
It's Taylor Swift's world, everyone else just lives in it. But can the outsized success of one ubiquitous megastar trickle down to the little people in the music business?
'Forever war' Risk grows as militants return to Gaza's north
Israel could inherit an insurgency, warns the US, after Hamas regains strength in areas it was forced to flee
Democracy Comes Under Scrutiny Amid Battle To Buy Basics
After 25 years, Nigeria's role as the region's police officer is in jeopardy, with its people losing faith in a squeezed economy
Civil War And Bloodshed? Conviction Infuriates Trump's Base
The posts are ominous. “Pick a side, or YOU are next,” wrote conservative talk show host Dan Bongino on the Truth Social media platform in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s 34 felony convictions.
A stranger for ever A family's struggles after the second world war are intimately captured across continents and generations
Here are some of the events that are not described in Claire Messud's ambitious novel about the lives of three generations of a Franco-Algerian family: the Algerian war of independence, as a result of which the Cassar family lose their home and national identity; the two years the family's most promising scion spends as a student in Paris, during which he endures something (racist bullying? Mental collapse?) that blights his adult life; his sister's broken-hearted suicide attempt; the courtship of a couple who have been held up throughout the novel as exemplars of married love and yet whose relationship - as we discover in the final pages - was shockingly transgressive.
Concrete comfort
China's 'lying flat' generation is drawn to seek spiritual solace among the brutalist blocks of the exclusive Aranya resort by innovative architecture and the power of social media
MY SECRET GERMAN GRANDAD
Women who 'fraternised' with German prisoners of war horrified British society. Could one of these illicit liaisons explain a mystery at the heart of Leo Hickman's family tree?
Sheinbaum signals hope, but can she pursue her own agenda?
A month ago in Chiapas, a Mexican state caught in a bloody battle between criminal groups, a car carrying the front runner to be the country's next president was stopped by a group of masked men.