Gaza – Madleen Khalla – SafaIn the corners of homes and displacement centers in Gaza City, children sit watching their peers go out with their fathers to congratulate their relatives on the holiday, while their eyes remain fixed on the doors, as if they are waiting for a return that has been delayed for too long.For them, the holiday is no longer what it used to be, but has become an occasion that reopens the wound of loss every year, after they lost their fathers during the Israeli war of extermination on the Gaza Strip.This year, the holiday came burdened with absence, passing over the hearts of orphans like a heavy guest, reminding them of those who used to fill life with warmth, and then departed.painful memoriesCitizen Samia Abu Hamidan, a mother of five, told Safa News Agency: “I tried hard to make Eid a normal day for my children, but they look at other children with their fathers and start saying, ‘If my father were here, what would he do?’”Abu Humaidan adds, “My sons used to perform the Eid prayer in congregation at the mosque in the early hours of Eid morning, then exchange greetings with us, after which they would go to family and friends, then return and find the girls waiting for them to play with the toys that filled the neighborhood.”She continues, “The holiday has lost its rituals and atmosphere today. There is no longer room for joy, and its hours have become memories that burn the hearts of my children. Their conversation turns into a recurring question: Will my father not return to make us happy on the holiday as he used to?”She adds, “On their last Eid with their father, they went out together and he brought them things and spent the whole day playing with them and fulfilling their needs, so that my children did not forget these days and they started talking about them to their peers and telling them that their Eid with their father was unlike anything else.”She explains that her children’s psychological state has not improved since they lost their father, and that Eid day is a wound that opens up painful memories for them.The suffering of Gaza’s orphans is not limited to its children, because the majority of those who live around them are orphans, says Abu Hamidan, “Wherever you look you find widows of martyrs and people who have lost a brother, mother or father… the wound is in every home.”According to the Government Media Office in the Gaza Strip, more than 56,000 orphaned children have lost one or both parents since the start of the occupation’s genocidal war on October 7, 2023.
The pain of lossThe situation does not seem any better for the children of the martyr Ahmed Al-Hissi, as they began their Eid day by visiting their father’s grave to remember their moments with him.The mother says: “Ahmed used to take his two children after the Eid prayer and start visiting relatives and family. On the way back, he would buy them some necessities and take them to the amusement park, and they would not return before the Maghrib prayer.”She adds to the Safa news agency, “The occupation has robbed the children of Gaza of the rituals and joy of Eid, and deprived them of their fathers, so that their greatest wish has become for them to return during certain seasons when they feel their need for them.”She continues, “I tried so hard to fulfill all their requests and needs on Eid, but I was helpless when they asked, ‘Why isn’t Daddy with us? Does he want to take us on a trip like every Eid?’ At that moment, I couldn’t do anything but hug them and cry bitterly.”She adds, “Seeing children and their parents missing him creates a sense of inadequacy in them, which is reflected in their psyche, so you find my children fighting with their peers over the simplest things.” Gaza orphans, Eid al-Fitr, Eid in Gaza, war of extermination
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