Reflecting on sadness meals and my bleak Ramadan in Gaza

Last Ramadan, I had a life. I would wake up to eat suhoor in my house, and knew when to pray fajr because I could hear the call to prayer from the local mosque.

In the morning, I would walk down the street to go to my university, Al Azhar. It was a beautiful street in Gaza called Al Rasheed Street, you could see the Ramadan lights and lanterns. You could hear the traditional music and recitation of the holy Quran.

After I left classes, I'd go with my father to the market and buy food and juice and ingredients for cooking. After that, I'd go home and work with my mother to prepare iftar. We would visit my uncle after making a big meal and eat together. Or we'd take a small dish and share it with our neighbours and friends.

After that we tidied up and prayed maghrib. We'd make katayef and eat kunafa and drink coffee and juice and kids would play in the streets. Then we would go to tarawih.

More than 1,000 people inside the mosque, praying and asking God for help. After that we would go visit aunts or uncles, cousins and friends. And then we'd go home and study and read Quran and watch a program on TV and call our relatives.

This year, Palestinians, especially Gazans are observing Ramadan in a sombre mood. In the streets they say, "we don't feel like it's Ramadan."

The first thing is we know it's iftar or suhoor time because the Israelis start bombing. It makes us really angry. They occupy us, kill us, starve us, and now they want to kill our religious habits. Last year, I did my suhoor and iftar based on the adhan, and now it's based on the sound of bombs.

Now we just eat small dates and small pieces of bread to start the fast. We end the fast in the same way. It's a sadness meal. It's not our tradition, it's not our feeling. We try to pray, and after fajr we sleep.

There's no work, there's no university. We can go to the queue for bread. There are more than 3,000 people in the queue. It takes a long time. We can go at fajr time and then get food at maghrib time. But it's just bread or peas or something like that, small pasta. After that we do iftar.

Now people are in tents. My father tries to pray in jamaat and do tarawih. He and my uncles go to a small patch of land, and they pray together so they feel like they're in the mosque again. Then they try to make a group and talk together afterwards. And then we sleep.

Traditional dishes at suhoor, we miss that. I miss the nuts and something delicious my mom makes, like kharroub (carob) juice. We miss everything.

I want to smell the traditional food, the spices. When we are eating in Ramadan, we are eating the smells of food. My mother inside the kitchen, my father outside, all the family works together to make a nice meal.

Now, even if you have a chance to live, you don't have a chance to buy anything. Everything has a high cost. One kilogram of sugar is $100. If you want to eat katayef, now you don't have the money to buy the sugar or the flour to make it.

One onion in northern Gaza costs more than $10. If you want to make a small basic salad, it costs more than $17. People break iftar with grass. They cook the grass and then they eat it. If they feel thirsty, they go to the sea for polluted water.

When they give food from the sky, four people were killed, because the food fell on their heads and they died. The funny thing is the parcels are inside the sea, and Israel has put equipment that targets the sea.

Now the equipment and the food are inside the sea, so how can we go to get the food? It's a third way to kill us. We're killed because of the Israeli occupation, we're killed because of starvation, and now we're killed because of the food in the sea.

Open the Rafah border crossing and give the food. You can give the food to each person in the tent.

People try to be near to God and they used to visit each other. They would always share sweets and play with each other and have a happy, big meal in the street. Now there are no neighbours, no hugs, no children, no homes. There are no smiles.

What is Ramadan for the people whose family members have died and they are the only survivor. They are grieving. How does it feel now? How can we fast and pray?

We try to connect with our relatives. But there is no electricity in Gaza, so we can't watch TV, we can't connect to the outside world. We go to higher points in the area to try to get a signal in Gaza.

My cousin was killed because he went to the tip of northern Gaza, and the Israelis targeted him. His family was outside of Gaza so he was trying to tell them he was fine.

This is what it means to lose our feelings in Ramadan.