This is a different Eid for the children of Gaza – 2024-04-14 08:08:00

As Muslims around the world celebrate Eid al-Fitr, the biggest religious festival at the end of Ramadan, children in the besieged Gaza Strip are passing the time with dirty faces. They say that the joy of Eid has been taken away from them.

According to the UN children’s agency UNICEF, one percent of the people displaced in the Gaza Strip are orphaned or have no adult to care for them.

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There are no camps where children have lost one or both parents. For example, 11-year-old Lion and her 18-month-old sister Siyar. They are the only ones living in their family now.

The rest of the family took refuge in Rafah Al Ahli Hospital last October to escape the bombing. They were killed at that time.

Layan lost 35 family members that night. Among them were parents and five siblings.

‘Two missiles hit our family within half an hour of reaching the hospital. I woke up to find family members dismembered.

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Hundreds of people were killed in the attack on an overcrowded hospital in Gaza City. Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Israel blamed each other for the incident.

There is no joy in Eid for the Lions.

Currently, Layan is sheltering with her aunt and older cousin Ali in a tent in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

The child used to go with his parents to buy new clothes before Eid before everything was destroyed in the war. They make Eid biscuits, locally known as ‘Mamol’. Everyone was happy with the family.

But there will be no more family gatherings this year. ‘No one will come to see us this Eid,’ said 11-year-old Layan.

Hundreds of thousands of people lost their jobs because of the war. Despite being financially strapped, 24-year-old Ali is currently looking after Layan and her sister. She decided to buy clothes and toys for them and other cousins ​​within her means.

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Before the war, Layan’s cousins ​​lived in a building with 43 other family members in Zaytoun, near Gaza City. Now those who are alive live in a tent in southern Gaza.

Like Layan, another of his cousins, 14-year-old Mahmud, was orphaned in the war. Mahmoud lost his parents and most of his siblings in the same missile attack on Al Ahli Hospital.

He had gone outside to fetch water when the attack took place. ‘I came back and found everyone dead. I was shocked by what I saw, said Mahmud.

Before the war, Mahmoud dreamed of becoming a bodybuilding champion and was preparing to compete in an international competition in Egypt. Now his only dream is to return to his home in northern Gaza.

He says, there is no joy in this Eid. We used to light lamps on the street during Eid. But now I can hang a rope on the big tent as decoration.

The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics reports that more than 43,000 children live in Gaza without one or both parents.

Exact figures are hard to come by, but UNICEF estimates that at least 17,000 children in the Gaza Strip are unaccompanied or separated from their parents during the war.

Source: BBC Bangla
KAA/