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
https://arab.news/mf5vd
‘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
Israel to decide on ceasefire as US says deal ‘close’
The United States, European Union and United Nations have pushed in recent days for a truce in the long-running hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, which escalated into full-scale war in late September.
As truce talks intensified, Lebanon’s health ministry said Israeli strikes killed at least 31 people on Monday, mostly in the south.
An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the security cabinet “will decide on Tuesday evening on the ceasefire deal.”
US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the talks were progressing but not finalized.
“We believe we’ve reached this point where we’re close,” he said, adding “we’re not there yet.”
While Israel presses its offensive on Palestinian militants Hamas in Gaza, the United States and France have led efforts to broker a ceasefire in Lebanon, where Israel is battling the Iran-backed Hezbollah on a second front.
France reported “significant progress” in ceasefire talks, and Italy, which holds the rotating presidency of the G7 group of nations, expressed “optimism” over a truce in Lebanon.
US news outlet Axios reported the draft agreement includes a 60-day transition period.
Israeli forces would withdraw, the Lebanese army would redeploy near the border, and Hezbollah would move heavy weapons north of the Litani River, said Axios.
A US-led committee would oversee implementation, with provisions allowing Israel to act against imminent threats if Lebanese forces fail to intervene, it added.
News of the security cabinet meeting came as the Israeli military said it carried out a wave of strikes on Monday, including on Beirut’s southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold that Israel has repeatedly bombed since late September when it escalated its air campaign in Lebanon.
The latest strikes hit around two dozen Hezbollah targets across Lebanon in one hour, the military said. A statement said “command centers, and intelligence control and collection centers, where Hezbollah commanders and operatives were located,” were targeted.
The strikes followed intense Hezbollah fire over the weekend, including some attacks deep into Israel.
Israeli media reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was likely to endorse the US ceasefire proposal.
Asked in New York about the possible truce agreement, Israel’s UN ambassador Danny Danon said “we are moving forward on this front,” adding the cabinet would meet to discuss it.
The war in Lebanon followed nearly a year of limited cross-border exchanges of fire initiated by Hezbollah. The Lebanese group said it was acting in support of Hamas after the Palestinian group’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which sparked the war in Gaza.
Lebanon says at least 3,768 people have been killed in the country since October 2023, most of them in the past few weeks.
On the Israeli side, the Lebanon hostilities have killed at least 82 soldiers and 47 civilians, authorities say.
The initial exchanges of fire forced tens of thousands of Israelis to flee their homes, and Israeli officials have said they are fighting so the residents can return safely.
Some northern residents expressed fears as to whether that was possible under a ceasefire.
“In my opinion, it would be a serious mistake to sign an agreement as long as Hezbollah has not been completely eliminated,” said Maryam Younnes, 29, a student from Maalot-Tarshiha.
“It would be a mistake to sign an agreement as long as Hezbollah still has weapons.”
Dorit Sison, a 51-year-old teacher displaced from Shlomi, said: “I don’t want a ceasefire, because if they do it along the lines that they’ve announced, we’ll be in the same place in five years.”
Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir warned on X that reaching a Lebanon ceasefire deal would be a “historic missed opportunity to eradicate Hezbollah.”
Ben Gvir has repeatedly threatened to bring down the government if it agrees to a truce deal with Hamas in the Gaza Strip or Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Efforts this year by mediators to secure a truce and hostage-release deal in the Gaza war have failed.
Qatar early this month said it was suspending its mediation role until the warring sides showed “seriousness.”
With an intensive Israeli military operation in besieged north Gaza continuing, remaining residents were left “scavenging among the rubble” for food, said Louise Wateridge, spokeswoman for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.
Such scavenging puts Gazans at risk of encountering unexploded and unused ordnance that can be found in many populated areas of the territory, the Danish Refugee Council said.
Israeli airstrikes intensify in Lebanon amid rumors of imminent ceasefire agreement
- Latest attacks cause further destruction in areas stretching from border region to distant areas as far north as Bekaa and beyond
- Israel escalates attacks to put pressure on Lebanese authorities whenever peace talks advance, says deputy speaker of Lebanese parliament
BEIRUT: Israeli attacks on targets in Lebanon intensified on Monday, as rumors circulated in Tel Aviv and Beirut about the possibility of a ceasefire agreement within two days.
US envoy Amos Hochstein has been leading complex negotiations between Israeli and Lebanese authorities with the aim of ending the conflict, which began on Sep. 23 with Israeli airstrikes, followed by ground incursions into border areas on Oct. 1.
Since then, Israel has assassinated senior Hezbollah leaders, and the confirmed death toll from the fighting stands at about 3,800. This figure does not include Hezbollah members killed on the battlefield, the numbers of which are difficult to ascertain because of intense shelling in southern areas.
The escalating war has also resulted in the destruction of thousands of residential and commercial buildings in areas stretching from the south of the country to the southern suburbs of Beirut and northern Bekaa. Tensions continue to run high as the population lives in fear of the intense airstrikes, with ambulances and fire trucks remaining on standby in all regions.
MP Elias Bou Saab, the deputy speaker of Lebanon’s parliament, said: “We are optimistic about a ceasefire and there is hope. But nothing can be confirmed with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. What might put pressure on him is the battlefield.”
Israeli aggression intensifies whenever peace negotiations move closer to an agreement, he added, in an attempt to put pressure on Lebanese authorities.
“We insist on our position regarding the inclusion of France in the committee overseeing the ceasefire implementation,” said Bou Saab.
“We did not hear anything about Israel’s freedom of movement in Lebanon, and we still speak only about UN Resolution 1701, with no additions and with an implementation mechanism.”
Resolution 1701 was adopted by the Security Council in 2006 with the aim of resolving the conflict that year between Israel and Hezbollah. It calls for an end to hostilities, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon, the withdrawal of Hezbollah and other forces from parts of the country south of the Litani River, and the disarmament of Hezbollah and other armed groups.
News channel CNN quoted a spokesperson for the Israeli prime minister as saying talks were moving toward a ceasefire. Another regional source told the network: “The agreement is closer than ever. However, it has not been fully finalized yet.”
Israel’s ambassador to the US, Michael Herzog, said an agreement “could happen in a few days” but “there are still some sticking points that need to be resolved.”
The Israeli Broadcasting Authority quoted the country’s education minister as saying that Hochstein has the green light to proceed with an agreement. It added that a deal with Lebanon had been finalized and Netanyahu was considering “how to explain it to the public.”
Also on Monday, diplomat Dan Shapiro from the US Department of Defense held meetings with senior Israeli officials that focused on the members of a proposed committee to monitor the ceasefire, most notably the participation of France, and the details of a monitoring mechanism to be led by the US.
One report suggested Washington had agreed to provide Israel with a guarantee it would support any military action in response to threats from Lebanon and to disrupt any Hezbollah presence along the border.
According to news website Axios, the draft agreement for a ceasefire includes a 60-day transitional period during which the Israeli army would withdraw from southern Lebanon, to be replaced by the Lebanese army in areas close to the border, and Hezbollah would move its heavy weapons from the border region to areas north of the Litani Line.
Against this backdrop of peace negotiations, the continual Israeli airstrikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut intensified on Monday, following 10 strikes the previous evening. The attacks targeted Haret Hreik, Hadath, Ghobeiry, Bir Al-Abed and Sfeir.
Hundreds of buildings have been damaged or destroyed, and as Arab News visited targeted areas, residents said “there have never been any Hezbollah offices in these structures, neither now nor in the past, and the buildings are mainly for residential purposes.”
A lawyer called Imad said the apartment building in the Hadath area in which he lived collapsed when it was hit by an airstrike.
“It is unbelievable that they use Hezbollah as a pretext to destroy our homes, which we purchased through financial loans to provide shelter for our families. They intend to annihilate us all,” he said.
The Israeli army said on Monday that an airstrike that hit the Basta area of central Beirut early on Saturday had “targeted a command center affiliated with Hezbollah.”
Efforts to help the injured and recover the bodies of the dead continued at the scene of the attack until Sunday evening. The Lebanese Health Ministry said at least 29 people were killed and 67 wounded.
The Israeli army also carried out numerous airstrikes in southern Lebanon, mainly targeting the cities of Tyre and Nabatieh. Ten people were killed, including a woman and a member of the Lebanese army, and 17 injured in three airstrikes on Tyre.
Also in Tyre, an Israeli drone killed a motorcycle rider in a parking lot near the Central Bank of Lebanon. And three civilians were killed by an airstrike in the town of Ghazieh, south of Sidon.
From the southern border to the northern banks of the Litani River, no area has been spared from Israeli airstrikes, which have extended as far north as the city of Baalbek, and the town of Hermel close to the border with Syria.
In the east, back-and-forth operations between the Israeli army and Hezbollah continued as the former attempted to gain control over the town of Khiam. Its forces advanced, supported by Merkava tanks, from the southern outskirts under the cover of airstrikes and artillery bombardment, moving into the center of the town and toward Ebel Al-Saqi and Jdidet Marjeyoun.
The Israeli army also deployed tanks between olive groves in the town of Deir Mimas after an incursion into the town last week. It began advancing toward the Tal Nahas-Kfar Kila-Qlayaa triangle. Elsewhere, Hezbollah and Israeli forces clashed in the western sector of the Maroun Al-Ras-Ainata-Bint Jbeil triangle.
Hezbollah said it targeted Israeli army positions on the outskirts of the towns of Shamaa and Biyada. Israeli forces carried out house-demolition operations in Shamaa.
Hezbollah also continued to launch attacks against northern Israel. The group said its rockets “reached the Shraga base, north of the city of Acre, and targeted an Israeli army gathering in the settlement of Meron.”
Israeli medical services said one person was injured in Nahariya by falling fragments from a rocket.
Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry says war death toll at 44,235
- Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 777 Palestinians in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war, according to the Ramallah-based health ministry
GAZA CITY: The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Monday that at least 44,235 people have been killed in more than 13 months of war between Israel and Palestinian militants.
The toll includes 24 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which said 104,638 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.
Syria’s ‘large quantities’ of toxic arms serious concern: watchdog
- The war has killed more than half a million people, displaced millions, and ravaged the country’s infrastructure and industry
THE HAGUE: The world’s chemical watchdog said Monday that it was “seriously concerned” by large gaps in Syria’s declaration about its chemical weapons stockpile, as large quantities of potentially banned warfare agents might be involved.
Syria agreed in 2013 to join the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, shortly after an alleged chemical gas attack killed more than 1,400 people near Damascus.
“Despite more than a decade of intensive work, the Syrian Arab Republic chemical weapons dossier still cannot be closed,” the watchdog’s director-general Fernando Arias told delegates at the OPCW’s annual meeting.
The Hague-based global watchdog has previously accused President Bashar Assad’s regime of continued attacks on civilians with chemical weapons during the Middle Eastern country’s brutal civil war.
“Since 2014, the (OPCW) Secretariat has reported a total of 26 outstanding issues of which seven have been fulfilled,” in relation to chemical weapon stockpiles in Syria, Arias said.
“The substance of the remaining 19 outstanding issues is of serious concern as it involves large quantities of potentially undeclared or unverified chemical warfare agents and chemical munitions,” he told delegates.
Syria’s OPCW voting rights were suspended in 2021, an unprecedented rebuke, following poison gas attacks on civilians in 2017.
Last year the watchdog blamed Syria for a 2018 chlorine attack that killed 43 people, in a long-awaited report on a case that sparked tensions between Damascus and the West.
Damascus has denied the allegations and insisted it has handed over its stockpiles.
Syria’s civil war broke out in 2011 after the government’s repression of peaceful demonstrations escalated into a deadly conflict that pulled in foreign powers and global jihadists.
The war has killed more than half a million people, displaced millions, and ravaged the country’s infrastructure and industry.
Syria state TV says Israel struck bridges near border with Lebanon
- The defense ministry said “the Israeli enemy launched an air aggression from the direction of Lebanese territory, targeting crossing points that it had previously hit” between the two countries
DAMASUS: Syrian state television reported Israeli strikes on several bridges in the Qusayr region near the Lebanese border on Monday, with the defense ministry reporting two civilians injured in the attacks.
Israel’s military has intensified its strikes on targets in Syria since its conflict with Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon escalated into full-scale war in late September after almost a year of cross-border hostilities.
“An Israeli aggression targeted the bridges of Al-Jubaniyeh, Al-Daf, Arjoun, and the Al-Nizariyeh Gate in the Qusayr area,” state television said, with official news agency SANA reporting damage in the attacks.
The defense ministry said “the Israeli enemy launched an air aggression from the direction of Lebanese territory, targeting crossing points that it had previously hit” between the two countries.
The attacks “injured two civilians and caused material losses,” it added.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor, based in Britain, said the attacks had “killed two Syrians working with Hezbollah and injured five others,” giving a preliminary toll.
Earlier, the monitor with a network of sources in Syria had said the “Israeli strikes targeted” an official land border crossing in the Qusayr area and six bridges on the Orontes River near the border with Lebanon.
Since September, Israel has bombed land crossings between Lebanon and Syria, putting them out of service. It accuses Hezbollah of using the routes, key for people fleeing the war in Lebanon, to transfer weapons from Syria.
