GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: For Muslims worldwide, Ramadan is a time of prayer, reflection and joyful evening meals, but all Gazans wish for this year is an end to five months of war and suffering.
It is a hope shared widely across the Islamic world, where the thoughts of many are with Gaza ahead of the fasting month which starts with the sighting of the crescent moon on Sunday or Monday.
The war sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack against Israel has devastated Gaza, killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and triggered violence elsewhere in the Middle East, from Lebanon to the seas off Yemen.
Amid the ruins of southern Gaza, Nevin Al-Siksek sat recently outside her makeshift tent, distracting her young daughter from the carnage around them with a plastic Ramadan lantern.
The colorful fanous lanterns are an iconic symbol of Ramadan, the ninth month of the Islamic calendar marked by dawn-to-dusk fasting and, in better times, festive evening iftar meals with family and friends.
Across Gaza this year, the lights are among the few signs signalling the coming holy month, amid dire warnings of mass starvation.
While international mediators were hoping for a truce in time for Ramadan, no breakthrough had come by Friday.
Much of the territory of 2.4 million people has become a hellscape of bombed-out neighborhoods, emaciated children and mass graves dug in the sand.
Siksek and her family, instead of tucking into lamb and sweets at the home they had to flee in northern Gaza, will break their fast in the bare-bones tent they share with other displaced civilians.
If they can find anything to eat, that is.
“We do not have any food to prepare,” Siksek said as her husband, Mohammed Yasser Rayhan, nodded in agreement.
In the past during Ramadan, which commemorates the beginning of the Qur'anic revelation to the Prophet Muhammad in the seventh century, “there was life, joy, spirit, decorations and a beautiful atmosphere,” Rayhan said.
“Now Ramadan is coming and we have war, oppression and famine.”
The Gaza war erupted after Hamas staged an unprecedented attack on southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of around 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 30,800 people so far, the vast majority women and children, according to Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry.
Other parts of the Islamic world may be grappling with their own challenges, from conflicts to high inflation. But many Muslims say their thoughts are with Palestinians this year.
“Every time I pray, I always send a prayer for our brothers and sisters in the Palestinian territory,” said Indonesian housewife Nurunnisa, 61, in Aceh province in the west of the country with the world’s largest Muslim population.
“I can’t help them with anything so I can only help them with prayer. I pray the war will be over soon. The people there are suffering so much.”
The reports of looming famine in Gaza, where desperate residents have taken to eating slaughtered horses and even leaves, also weigh heavily on Jordanian father-of-five Saif Hindawi, he said as he shopped for rice and oil in Amman.
“Imagine in Jordan, there are high prices, but there is still the ability to buy what is available,” said the 44-year-old.
In Gaza, he said, “they have used animal fodder to make bread.”
The war has had a severe impact on southern Lebanon, where Iran-backed Hezbollah militants have exchanged near-daily strikes with Israel and tens of thousands have been displaced on both sides of the border.
Retired teacher Maryam Awada, now living in a school-turned-shelter in the city of Tyre, said she would be unable to fast this Ramadan because of the stress.
“God will not force me to fast here in this hall we’re living in,” she said.
In Yemen, Iran-backed Houthi rebels began firing missiles at vessels linked to Israel in November.
The Houthis’ campaign has won them fans abroad, but within Yemen it has worsened a humanitarian crisis brought on by a nearly decade-long civil war.
In the port city of Hodeida, an area targeted by anti-Houthi US strikes, restaurant manager Ali Mohammad said he was bracing for a lean month.
“When the air strikes began, business suddenly collapsed,” he said. “If the situation continues... our only option will be to close down.”
In Somalia’s capital, trader Abdirahim Ali said he worried the Red Sea crisis would drive up prices, something that “affects people during Ramadan” especially.
Muslims in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem worry about violence at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, a regular flashpoint.
The site is Islam’s third-holiest and Judaism’s most sacred, known to Jews as the Temple Mount.
During Ramadan, Muslims in their tens and even hundreds of thousands pray at the compound’s iconic Dome of the Rock.
But in February, Israel’s hard-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir argued that Palestinian residents of the occupied West Bank “should not be allowed” entry to Jerusalem during Ramadan.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Tuesday that worshippers would be allowed to enter the mosque “in similar numbers” to past years.
That did little to reassure Ahlam Shaheen, 32, who works at a community center near Al-Aqsa.
When Israeli police stormed the mosque in 2021, Shaheen saw women praying next to her get shot with rubber bullets, and she fears it could happen again.
“We’re living with the war for five months now,” she said. “We’re really tired and drained.”
In Cairo, the most festive of cities during Ramadan, a Gazan student who asked not to be named feared the holy month this year would be unbearable.
“For the first time in my life, I can’t stand the idea of Ramadan,” she said. “It hurts every time I see a fanous,” she said about the lanterns that festoon the city’s streets.
“My brothers and sisters can’t even eat once a day, and we’re supposed to have a fast-breaking meal like everything is normal?“
‘It hurts’: Gaza war robs Muslim world of Ramadan joy
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‘It hurts’: Gaza war robs Muslim world of Ramadan joy
- Amid the ruins of southern Gaza, Nevin Al-Siksek sat recently outside her makeshift tent, distracting her young daughter from the carnage around them with a plastic Ramadan lantern
- Across Gaza this year, the lights are among the few signs signalling the coming holy month, amid dire warnings of mass starvation
Italian foreign minister to meet Syria's new rulers in Damascus
- Antonio Tajani said he would push Syria’s transitional government to pursue an “inclusive political process”
ROME: Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said Wednesday he would travel to Syria Friday where he plans to announce an initial development aid package for the country ravaged by years of war.
Tajani’s trip follows those by his French and German counterparts, who visited the Syrian capital last week to meet Syria’s new rulers after they toppled Bashar Assad's regime in a lightning offensive last month.
“It is essential to preserve territorial integrity and prevent (Syria’s) territory from being exploited by terrorist organizations and hostile actors,” Tajani told parliament.
Western powers have been cautiously hoping for greater stability in Syria, a decade after the war triggered a major refugee crisis that shook up European politics.
Tajani did not provide any details about what he called a “first package of aid for cooperation and development.”
Tajani said he would push Syria’s transitional government to pursue an “inclusive political process” that “recognizes and enhances the role of Christians as citizens with full rights.”
Ahead of his trip, Tajani is set Thursday to meet with the foreign ministers of France, Germany, Britain and the United States over the Syria situation, with the drafting of a new constitution and Syria’s economic recovery on the agenda.
The EU’s foreign affairs chief, Kaja Kallas, was expected in Rome for the meeting.
Thousands of Alawites mourn 3 killed by foreign Islamists: monitor, witness
- “Thousands of mourners gathered at the funeral of three Alawite farmers from the same family,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights
- The civilians were killed on Wednesday in the village of Ain Sharqia
DAMASCUS: Thousands of Syrians from ousted President Bashar Assad’s Alawite community mourned on Thursday three civilians killed by foreign Islamist allies of the country’s new authorities, a war monitor and an attendee said.
Since Assad’s ouster, violence against Alawites, long associated with his clan, has soared, with the monitor recording at least 148 killings.
“Thousands of mourners gathered at the funeral of three Alawite farmers from the same family, including one child, killed by foreign Islamist fighters allied to Syria’s new authorities,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor.
The civilians were killed on Wednesday in the village of Ain Sharqia, in the Alawite heartland of Latakia province, the Observatory said.
“Down with the factions,” some of those in attendance chanted in reference to armed groups, according to footage shared by the monitor.
Mourner Ali told AFP that people had called for those responsible for the killings to be punished and for foreign fighters to leave so that local policemen affiliated with the new authorities could take their place.
“We can’t have people die every day,” he said, asking to be identified only by his first name to discuss sensitive matters.
“We want security and safety to prevail; we support the transitional authorities. We do not want any more killings after today.”
Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Observatory, told AFP the mourners also demanded that Syria’s new rulers free thousands of detained soldiers and conscripts.
The Alawite community was over-represented in the country’s now-defunct armed forces.
On Tuesday, three Alawite clerics were also killed by unknown gunmen on the road from Tartus to Damascus, the monitor said.
Another cleric and his wife were found dead in the Hama countryside Thursday after they were abducted a day earlier.
Last month, angry protests broke out in Syria over a video showing an attack on an Alawite shrine, with the Observatory reporting one demonstrator killed in Homs city.
Syrian authorities said the footage was “old” and that “unknown groups” were behind the attack, saying republishing the video served to “stir up strife.”
The alliance spearheaded by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), which seized Damascus and ousted Assad on December 8 after a lightning offensive, has sought to reassure minority communities in the Sunni Muslim majority country.
Assad had long presented himself as a protector of minority groups.
Lebanon’s new president promises to rebuild what ‘Israel has destroyed’
- The Mediterranean country has been without a president since the term of Michel Aoun ended in October 2022
BEIRUT: Newly elected Lebanese president Joseph Aoun has promised to rebuild what the Israeli occupation has destroyed, in a speech before parliament after taking his oath of office.
The Lebanese state will be able to remove Israeli occupation and the effects of its aggression, Aoun said, after hurdling the second round of voting in parliament to become the country’s new president.
“I promise to reconstruct what Israel destroyed in the south and Beirut’s southern suburbs,’ he said.
The newly elected president also touched on the Palestinian issue, saying he rejects the settlement of Palestinian people and guaranteed their right to return.
He also pledged to work towards the best of relations with Arab countries, and cooperate with Syria to control the borders from both sides.
The Mediterranean country has been without a president since the term of Michel Aoun – not related – ended in October 2022, with tensions between the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement and its opponents scuppering a dozen previous votes.
During parliament’s first session on Thursday morning, 71 out of 128 lawmakers voted in favor of the army commander, short of the required 86, in the first round of the vote.
Thirty-seven members of parliament voted blank, including 30 lawmakers from the pro-Hezbollah bloc, according to a source close to it.
Twenty ballots were declared null and void.
Aoun received 99 votes during the second round, more than the minimum votes required for him to be voted into office.
But international pressure has mounted for a successful outcome with just 17 days remaining in a ceasefire to deploy Lebanese troops alongside UN peacekeepers in south Lebanon after a Hezbollah-Israel war last autumn.
Speaker Nabih Berri then suspended the session until 2:00 p.m. sparking outrage from some lawmakers who demanded an immediate second vote.
The president’s powers have been reduced since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war. But filling the position is key to overseeing consultations toward naming a new prime minister to lead a government capable of carrying out reforms demanded by international creditors.
Lebanon’s divided political elite usually agrees on a consensus candidate before any successful parliamentary vote is held.
Aoun, who will turn 61 on Friday, appears to have the backing of the United States and key regional player Saudi Arabia.
US, Saudi and French envoys have visited Beirut to increase pressure in the run-up to the vote.
Pope Francis on Thursday expressed hope that Lebanon could “possess the necessary institutional stability... to address the grave economic and social situation.”
Several lawmakers have objected to what they see as foreign interference in the vote.
In protest, some rendered their ballot void by voting for “sovereignty and the constitution,” a reference to the fact that Aoun’s election would also require a constitutional amendment.
Under Lebanon’s constitution, any presidential candidate must have not held high office for at least two years. Aoun is still head of the army, after extending his mandate past his planned retirement.
Critics have accused Hezbollah and allies of scuppering previous votes.
But a full-fledged war between Israel and Hezbollah last autumn dealt heavy blows to the Shiite militant group, including the death of its longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah in an air strike.
In neighboring Syria, Hezbollah has lost a major ally after militants toppled President Bashar Assad last month.
Under multi-confessional Lebanon’s power-sharing system, the president must be a Maronite Christian. Aoun is Lebanon’s fifth army commander to become president, and the fourth in a row.
Military chiefs too are, by convention, Maronites.
The new president faces daunting challenges, with the truce to oversee on the Israeli border and bomb-damaged neighborhoods in the south, the east and the capital to rebuild.
Since 2019, Lebanon has been gripped by the worst financial crisis in its history.
The Hezbollah-Israel war has cost Lebanon more than $5 billion in economic losses, with structural damage amounting to billions more, according to the World Bank.
UN migration agency appeals for $73 million in aid for Syria
- UN’s International Organization for Migration more than doubling an appeal launched last month for Syria
- The Geneva-based agency said it was working to reestablish its presence inside Syria
GENEVA: The UN migration agency on Thursday expanded an aid appeal for Syria to over $73 million, as the country transitions after years of civil war and decades of dictatorship.
The United Nations’ International Organization for Migration said it was more than doubling an appeal launched last month for Syria, from $30 million to $73.2 million, with the aim of assisting 1.1 million people across Syria over the next six months.
“IOM is committed to helping the people of Syria at this historical moment as the nation recovers from nearly 14 years of conflict,” IOM chief Amy Pope said in a statement.
“IOM will bring our deep experience in humanitarian assistance and recovery to help vulnerable communities across the country as we work with all partners to help build a better future for Syria.”
The Geneva-based agency said it was working to reestablish its presence inside Syria, after exiting Damascus in 2020, building on its experience working there in the preceding two decades, as well as on its cross-border activities in the past decade to bring aid to northwest Syria.
It said it aimed “to provide immediate assistance to the most at-risk and vulnerable communities, including displaced and returning groups, across Syria.”
The requested funds, it added, would be used to provide essential relief items and cash, shelter, protection assistance, water, sanitation, hygiene and health services.
They would also go to providing recovery support to people on the move, including those displaced, or preparing to relocate.
The dramatic political upheaval in Syria after the sudden ousting last month of strongman Bashar Assad after decades of dictatorship has spurred large movements of people.
Half of Syria’s population were forced from their homes during nearly 14 years of civil war, with millions fleeing the country and millions more displaced internally.
The UN refugee agency has said it expects around one million people to return to the country in the first half of this year.
And by the end of 2024, the UN humanitarian agency had already recorded the returns of nearly 500,000 people who had been internally displaced inside Syria, IOM pointed out.
US, Arab mediators make some progress in Gaza peace talks, no deal yet, sources say
- Israeli strikes continue amid ongoing peace talks
- Hamas demands end to war for hostage release
CAIRO: US and Arab mediators have made some progress in their efforts to reach a ceasefire accord between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, but not enough to seal a deal, Palestinian sources close to the talks said on Thursday.
As talks continued in Qatar, the Israeli military carried out strikes across the enclave, killing at least 17 people, Palestinian medics said.
Qatar, the US and Egypt are making a major push to reach a deal to halt fighting in the 15-month conflict and free remaining hostages held by Islamist group Hamas before President Joe Biden leaves office.
President-elect Donald Trump has warned there will be “hell to pay,” if the hostages are not released by his inauguration on Jan. 20.
On Thursday, a Palestinian official close to the mediation effort said the absence of a deal so far did not mean the talks were going nowhere and said this was the most serious attempt so far to reach an accord.
“There are extensive negotiations, mediators and negotiators are talking about every word and every detail. There is a breakthrough when it comes narrowing old existing gaps but there is no deal yet,” he told Reuters, without giving further details.
On Tuesday, Israeli Foreign Ministry Director General Eden Bar-Tal said Israel was fully committed to reaching an agreement to return its hostages from Gaza but faces obstruction from Hamas.
The two sides have been an at impasse for a year over two key issues. Hamas has said it will only free its remaining hostages if Israel agrees to end the war and withdraw all its troops from Gaza. Israel says it will not end the war until Hamas is dismantled and all hostages are free.
Severe humanitarian crisis
On Thursday, the death toll from Israel’s military strikes included eight Palestinians killed in a house in Jabalia, the largest of Gaza’s eight historic refugee camps, where Israeli forces have operated for more than three months. Nine others, including a father and his three children, died in two separate airstrikes on two houses in central Gaza Strip, health officials said.
There was no Israeli military comment on the two incidents.
More than 46,000 people have been killed in the Gaza war, according to Palestinian health officials. Much of the enclave has been laid waste and most of the territory’s 2.1 million people have been displaced multiple times and face acute shortages of food and medicine, humanitarian agencies say.
Israel denies hindering humanitarian relief to Gaza and says it has facilitated the distribution of hundreds of truckloads of food, water, medical supplies and shelter equipment to warehouses and shelters over the past week.
Israel launched its assault on Gaza after Hamas fighters stormed southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and capturing more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. On Wednesday, the Israeli military said troops had recovered the body of Israeli Bedouin hostage Youssef Al-Ziyadna, along with evidence that was still being examined suggesting his son Hamza, taken on the same day, may also be dead.
“We will continue to make every effort to return all of our hostages, the living and the deceased,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement.
