In the hell of the Gaza Strip, the populations occupied and continuously shelled by the Israeli army do not even have the right to do their religious duty. Under the rubble, in the ruins of entire towns reduced to nothing, there is no longer a single sheep to sacrifice for an entire people.
Since October 2023, Gaza has been an area cut off from the rest of the world and under Israeli blockade. No more food passing through, no more provisions, no more products moving even undercover from one ruin to another. “The reality is that people hide all the time. It is a terrible war zone and a minefield for everyone here in the ruined neighborhoods of Gaza. People live under the ruins and no longer hope,” as this nurse says in an amateur video, posted on social networks.
When you don’t even have a piece of bread and a drop of water to drink, how can you think about celebrating! Between barricades, with entire regions decreed prohibited zones, entering IDF soldiers who patrol on foot, in bands, in armored vehicles or aboard heavily armed vehicles, the survivors of Gaza hide and try by all means to escape to Israeli bullets and shots. Both try to find more or less sheltered corners to escape the snipers’ sights. For children, the heart is not in the party. They take this holiday to pay homage to the souls of their deceased, tens of thousands of whom fell under the bullets of the Israeli occupier. For many doctors who try, despite the great danger of death hanging over their heads, to help the injured and save what can still be saved: “The survivors have no heart for anything. Here in the camps, fear reigns. Fear, hunger and despair. The worst is to see people give up and no longer have the strength to resist the crushing of the Israeli armies,” insists this man who rubs shoulders with the dead and only sees the few living ones once they are injured, adds. he says in front of the smartphone of a fellow doctor who documents their courage in the middle of the killing fields.
In this hell, without eating, without drinking, without sleeping for fear of being bombarded in one’s sleep, the feast of the sheep sacrifice is nothing more than a distant memory. The heart is in pain and contemplation over the dead, because in each family, people are missing: a father, a mother, a brother, a sister, a cousin, an aunt, an uncle: “we only have the solidarity in the face of death, says this young volunteer who carries bread from one ruin to another, filmed by a companion in misfortune.
We avoid groupings so as not to be targets of group fire, as has been the case many times. So, we survive in hiding and help each other with the little we have.” And what about food aid in all this, especially for a holiday? “If we haven’t even received a small bottle of water in four months, how can we hope to sacrifice a sheep among us and pay homage to our martyrs,” says this young Gazan who has buried almost her entire family since the beginning of the genocide in Gaza.
