Gaza observes Ramadan in fear over aid block and end of ceasefire: ‘We no longer have the strength to stop them from cutting off our food’

In the Muslim world, Ramadan, which began last Saturday, is a month of community celebration, prayer and charity, when the streets are decorated and, in the evenings after the fast is broken, filled with people and food stalls. For Gazan Hossam Nasser, however, these are days of “great anxiety” due to the increasing drumbeats of war by the government of Benjamin Netanyahu and its decision on Sunday to indefinitely cut off humanitarian aid, to force Hamas to accept changes and violations of the ceasefire they agreed to in January. “Unfortunately, we depend on that aid. On the little that we get, like flour, rice and lentils. I live with my children, my brother and his family in a tent. And I say it frankly: life be damned, if this is what life is like,” he laments through WhatsApp messages (Israel has prevented access to the press since the beginning of the war). On Sunday night, the first night of Israel’s collective punishment, Gazans rushed to stock up on supplies. Basic products such as flour have doubled in price.

Like so many Gazans, Nasser, 35, has ended up in a tent after more than a year of wandering around. First, he says, he survived (buried under rubble) the bombing of his family building. He describes it as one of three times when “God’s protection” saved his family from “being torn to pieces.”

He then crammed his wife and children into an apartment rented by another relative near the capital. That was until the end of January, when the Israeli army allowed (under the ceasefire agreement) hundreds of thousands of people displaced from the north to the south of Gaza to return to their homes. Among them were the owners of the house. “They asked us to vacate it,” explains Nasser, who describes his life today as follows: “On the street, without a roof, without heat, without work, without meat, because of the siege and poverty.”

Now, he fears the “humiliation” of a prolonged cut in humanitarian aid and having to search for food and drink every day, feeling “without power or strength” after 16 months of Israeli invasion. “Furthermore, if the war returns again, it will be a war of survival or extinction,” he warns.

The UN children’s agency, UNICEF, on Monday sounded the alarm about the “speed” with which the Israeli decision could have “devastating consequences for children and families in Gaza who are struggling to survive.” UNICEF explained in a statement that during the six weeks of the first phase of the truce (which ended on Saturday without continuity, due to Netanyahu’s refusal to negotiate the second phase) it was able to introduce up to a thousand trucks with water, medicines and vaccines, among other things. This is three times as many as in the previous six weeks, but the situation for children in Gaza remains “dire,” even during the ceasefire. This was evidenced last week by the death of seven newborns from hypothermia, according to health services.

This is also a Ramadan with ominous drones in the background, like those that fly over the Maruf family as they break their fast on the rubble of their home in Jabalia, in northern Gaza. “I cannot bring my children food, nor clothes to cover themselves, […] but here we are, in the month of Ramadan, having iftar [the meal with which the Ramadan fast is broken] among the rubble, living among the rubble,” says the father of the family.

A video broadcast by local media shows the family eating on the ground and chopping wood to prepare a bonfire. They place the pot on two bricks and a perforated iron bar. With 200,000 inhabitants before the war, Jabalia is the town most devastated by a mixture of bombings, raids, controlled explosions and clashes between soldiers and militiamen, which reached a climax with a tough siege between October and the beginning of the truce in December.

Some, like the Marufs, stayed in one of the most dangerous areas during the war, “despite the destruction and the losses.” Others, like Salah al-Hajj Hassan, have taken advantage of the truce to return to Jabalia and set up their tent on the rubble. Or to re-establish themselves in what remains of their houses, sometimes without windows or even a facade to protect them from the cold of the last few weeks. “We are dying and we do not want war, nor displacement alerts, nor hunger for our children,” Salah told Reuters on Monday. “Where will our food come from?” he asked.

The mood in Gaza, where almost the entire population is Muslim, seemed different on Saturday, as it welcomed the Muslim holy month with communal events. In Rafah, thousands of Palestinians shared iftar at a long table stretching for hundreds of meters. On either side, a grey row of ruined buildings illustrated a level of destruction unprecedented since World War II. In Jabalia, dozens of plastic chairs were gathered together for the occasion, which in peacetime is usually enjoyed at home, with meals cooked throughout the day and special sweets.

At that point there were still a few hours left before the first phase of the ceasefire was due to end, and before Netanyahu announced the blocking of humanitarian aid, and so the Muslim cleric Mufid Al Hasanat expressed his joy in front of the cameras for a Ramadan without the constant bombings and hardships of the previous one.

“Last Ramadan we did not experience such days, nor this spirituality, because we were living under the bombs, destruction and death,” said Al Hasanat. “But this time, God willing, we will experience different days, in which the heart will be filled with joy, because we received it without bloodshed or death.” The 2024 Ramadan began after five months of war, with more than 30,000 dead, the UN warning about the risk of famine in the north and dozens of Gazans losing their lives crushed or drowned as they tried to reach the first aid shipments that countries such as the U.S., Jordan or the United Kingdom dropped from the air.

Since Sunday, the images from the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing are reminiscent of those early days, when Israel decided to use hunger as a weapon of war, and looting and logistical problems made distribution difficult. Hundreds of trucks are waiting in line in Egypt for authorization to enter.

The bombings have been much more targeted during the ceasefire, but have still killed more than 100 people in six weeks, according to the Hamas government’s health ministry in Gaza. Since Sunday, Israel has slightly increased the number of air raids. Neighbors to the east and south speak of more long-range and tank fire from the buffer zone where troops remain.

The fear that this may be just the beginning is fuelled by the statements made by Israeli leaders in recent days. Bezalel Smotrich, one of the most powerful ministers and part of the handful that Netanyahu consulted before announcing the aid blockade, called for “opening the gates of hell,” echoing the expression used by U.S. President Donald Trump. The deputy speaker of parliament, Nisim Vaturi, advocated in a television interview that the new bombs sent by Trump be used to resume attacks with more force than in the previous 16 months, in which the Israeli army fought, he said, “with its hands tied behind its back.”

The latest call, on Monday, comes from Itamar Ben Gvir, the far-right leader who resigned two months ago (in protest against the ceasefire in Gaza) from his post in charge of police and prisons and who promises to return to Netanyahu’s coalition if Trump’s ethnic cleansing initiative is implemented. He wants Netanyahu to go further and order the “bombing of warehouses” in Gaza that store humanitarian aid and also to completely cut off water and electricity. “We must starve the Hamas terrorists before returning to the fight, so that we can easily crush them afterwards,” he said.

The director general of planning, water and sanitation at Gaza City Municipality, Maher Ashur Salem, told Al Jazeera that the enclave has about 25% of its pre-war water supply. Eighty percent of this comes from the Israeli company Mekorot (which then bills the Palestinian National Authority), so a cut in supply would have dire consequences. He added that the Israeli military has already destroyed 75% of alternatives, such as wells.

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