"Ramadan Hard Without Them"

IslamOnline.net & News Agencies

August 23, 2009

GAZA CITY — Almaza Samuni used to anxiously await the holy fasting month of Ramadan; her favorite time of the year. But this year Ramadan is different.

"I'm sad because my mother is not around to make the meals for breaking the fast," the orphaned child told Agence France Presse (AFP) on Sunday, August 23.

Samuni, 13, used to spend Ramadan afternoons cooking with her mother and her six siblings, all of them were killed in the Israeli onslaught against Gaza last December.

In the evenings, the family used to gather around a table and break their fast together in a joyous atmosphere.

Today, Samuni lives in a tent pitched on the ruins of their house in a rubble-strewn wasteland on the outskirts of Gaza City.

Every day of Ramadan, which began in Gaza on Saturday, she will break her fast alone with her father, whose Israeli wounds have not healed yet.

"Ramadan is hard without them," Samuni gloomily said.

Her father, Ibrahim, says Ramadan opens the wound and reminds him and his daughter of what they have lost.

"My wife, my children, my siblings and my uncles were all killed," he recalls in tears.

More than 1,400 Gazans, including 437 children and hundreds of other unarmed civilians, were killed and 5,450 wounded in three weeks of air, sea and land attacks.

"There are no more happy days."

Empty Chairs

Not far from the Samunis makeshift tent, lives Dalal Abu Aisha, whose Ramadan is no less gloomy.

The 14-year-old girl was the sole survivor when an Israeli tank shell struck her home during the 22-day offensive.

She breaks the Ramadan fast on a table of empty chairs that were once occupied by her parents and three siblings.

"Now that Ramadan is here it reminds Dalal of the early-morning meals, the breaking of the fast with her family and the presents she used to receive from her father," Umm Adel, an aunt who is helping to raise Dalal, told AFP.

The shy teenager does not speak about what happened to her family, but the scars run deep.

"She always seems distracted."

Her uncle Rashad laments that Dalal is not alone in the misery of missing her loved ones.

"Dalal's life is hard, just like all the children of the martyrs."

He says this year’s Ramadan is the saddest in years.

"The war has added so much to our grief; it's more than we can bear."