Ramadan in Gaza this year is like no other. Ramadan is a time during which we celebrate life, reflect and come together with our families and loved ones. But this is the third Ramadan since the start of the war, and the painful reality of what we have endured over the last two and a half years is slowly sinking in. The tables are incomplete this year, not only because of what is missing from the plates, but because of who is missing from the chairs.
I met a family breaking their fast inside a tent pitched between the ruins of a mosque. The tent stood where rows of worshippers once stood shoulder to shoulder in prayer. They told me that before the war, this mosque had been among the most well-known and crowded, especially during Ramadan. The courtyard used to shimmer with lights, the nights alive with prayers and faith, now it is reduced to rubble.
What was once a sanctuary has become a refuge.
Between the rubble displaced families have built fragile shelters, it is like they are trying to stitch their lives back together.
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A mother of seven told me she felt genuine happiness because she was able to serve her children chicken for Iftar. She chose a single evening of dignity over days of rationed survival. Her joy was simple yet immense. To watch her children, eat something they craved was, for her, a victory against deprivation.
A doctor with three children confided that although he is financially stable, he fears bringing another child into a place so devastated.
“How can I plan for a new life,” he asked, “when everything around us is broken?”
Another father of one girl told me that he cannot even think about having more children.
“We live without electricity. We live with the fear of famine returning. We live with the fear that the war could resume at any moment.”
For many, the future is not something to dream about but something to survive.
As for me, since the start of Ramadan I attended several iftars with family and friends. I tried to be present and I tried to smile, but I could not silence the comparison to what it was like before the war.
The places do not resemble Gaza anymore. The roads are scarred, transportation is a daily struggle, and every gathering carries an invisible absence of a loved one lost.
On the first day of Ramadan, as I began preparing our iftar, I broke down. I missed my home, which had once been full of space and light and is now completely destroyed.
I used to love hosting large gatherings, setting long tables, welcoming relatives and friends. I loved the rhythm of cooking for many, the warmth of shared meals.
As I stood in the kitchen this year, I found myself cooking the dishes my husband loved most. I adjusted the spices the way he preferred. I prepared the food as if he were about to walk in and sit at his place. More than two years after losing him, I still cannot accept that his chair remains empty. The table feels unfinished without him, no matter how carefully I arrange it.
This ache is not mine alone, it belongs to thousands across Gaza. I have heard so many say that this Ramadan feels sorrowful, unfamiliar, stripped of its old spirit and incomplete.
When I ask people, “how is Ramadan this year?” I notice the tears in their eyes as they talk about who they are missing the most.
A friend told me about her orphaned daughter who insists on placing an empty plate on the iftar table every iftar. Her mother softly explains, “Your father sees us from the sky. He will not return.” But the child refuses. “I cannot eat,” she says, “without my father’s plate on the table.”
In that small act, she resists absence and refuses to let memory of her father fade.
My only daughter, who has spent more than half of her life in the shadow of war, stopped in astonishment when she saw a Ramadan lantern glowing in the street. The brightness startled her. She stared at it as if it were something extraordinary, something almost unreal. Then she asked me to take photos of her beside it. For a brief moment, the light reflected in her eyes, and I saw something fragile yet beautiful. Not just surprise, not just curiosity, but a flicker of joy trying to survive.
This is Ramadan in Gaza this year. Wounded, altered, and heavy with longing. Yet even among the rubble, between grief and memory, people still gather. They still set the table, they still light lanterns and somehow, despite everything, they still fast, pray and hope.
