Ramadan decorations for sale in the Al-Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City. Photo: Moatasem Al-Bitar

Despite what Israel has done to Gaza City, and despite the fact that we are without homes, unable to return to the life we once knew, we will celebrate Ramadan because it is a gift from Allah after the horror, after the death, and after the blood that covered the whole area.

Before the war, each Ramadan, we would go to Al-Zawiya Market, where we would buy Ramadan decorations such as strings of lights and paper lanterns to decorate our house. Then we would go to buy food for Suhoor and Iftar. At the top of the shopping list were dates, cheese, dairy, and carob. During Ramadan, all the streets of the city glowed with lights, and every house you passed had placed lanterns in the windows. The houses were filled with the scent of oud and incense.

Before the war, we used to gather together with our extended family to break our fast at one large table, which had all kinds of delicious food and juices. Ramadan was a month of invitations, when everyone would gather. Before Iftar, the girls and I would set the table, taking great care to place the cups, spoons, and plates in the correct way.

At the same time, mosques were preparing for great days in which souls could be healed. After the evening prayer, Tarawih prayers would bring together all the neighbors, men and women, young and old.

After the prayers, family visits would begin, from house to house, from one joy to another. We would drink coffee, eat sweets and qatayef, exchange gifts and prayers, and take pictures. All of this was before the war, at a time when we lived in houses and there were no tents in the city.

Ramadan was lovely in all its details. I will never forget the joy of Suhoor amidst the golden lights when we had a home. We used to stay up together until we read the Qur’an, prayed, followed our lessons, and studied for our exams that coincided with the month of Ramadan. Then my sisters and I would go to the kitchen and prepare a simple Suhoor meal. We would put light cheeses, jam, and eggs on serving platters and milk and juice in pitchers. We would prepare hot tea, believing it would help us endure the thirst of the next day.

When we were young, we used to wait for the Musaharati, the traditional Ramadan drummer who walked through the streets drumming and chanting. He was the same Musaharati who came every year. When we recognized his voice echoing through the street as he approached our house, we would all go down to join him and drum with him to wake up the neighbors together. But when we were older, we no longer went down to the street. We just asked him to call to the uncles and cousins to save them.

When the war came, there were no more Musaharati in Gaza, and we did not know where ours had gone. We have not heard his voice for three years. I wonder if our Musaharati knows what destruction has befallen our neighborhood, and that the apartment building he used to stand in front of has vanished. We do not know where he is now. But perhaps he too is searching for a street that no longer exists.

The loss was not limited to him. We did not see any mosque that was not hit by bombing and destruction; every mosque had been damaged. We did not see the light of the minarets and forgot what they looked like. Ramadan used to come early, carrying its own familiar atmosphere, but it disappeared during the war, and was replaced by the smell of gunpowder and ash.

A display of the meagre, expensively priced goods available for sale this Ramadan season in Gaza City. Photo: Ahmed Dremly

I had a Qur’an, which I read from for many years. Each time I wrote my wishes and prayers on a blank page of the Qur’an, my wishes came true, but this Ramadan, I will not write in my book because it is under the rubble of our home. Our whole family now shares one Qur’an, because new ones are no longer available as the occupation prevents paper and ink from entering Gaza.

Everything has changed now. Even the corniche along the shore that used to be filled with families and lights during Ramadan for Iftar at sunset no longer exists.

This year, even though they say there is a ceasefire and the war is rarely covered in the news, the bombing continues and the occupation army controls most parts of the ruined city. People are longing to return to their homes even though they know they are gone, and we will spend this year’s Ramadan in sadness remembering how beautiful it was before the war.