GAZA CITY: For the second consecutive year, traditional Eidul Fitr celebrations marking the end of Ramazan were absent in Gaza on Sunday, as residents of the Palestinian territory awoke to the roar of Israeli bombardment that killed at least 20 Palestinians.

“Eid, which was once a day of family reunions and visits, has now become a day of farewells and funerals,” said Nahla Abu Matar, a 28-year-old mother.

Like hundreds of thousands of Gaza residents, she has been displaced from her home in northern Gaza and is now living in the southern area of Khan Yunis.

“The mosques where we once prayed have been reduced to heaps of rubble, and the places where we used to gather are now strewn with ruins and bodies,” she said.

Three young girls, wearing Eid clothes, among eight killed by Israeli strikes

Five children among eight killed

Gaza’s rescue teams told AFP that eight people, including five children, were killed in a pre-dawn Israeli air strike in Khan Yunis on Sunday.

“Instead of waking up to the sound of takbirs (Eid prayers), we woke up to the roar of air strikes and explosions,” Abu Matar said.

At dawn, many Gazans gathered across different parts of the territory to offer traditional morning Eid prayers.

Some unrolled their prayer mats in the streets amid the rubble, while others prayed inside mosques — including the once-majestic Omari Mosque, whose walls have now collapsed under the bombardments.

Many prayed beside makeshift tents sheltering tens of thousands of displaced Gazans, living in dire humanitarian conditions.

At the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, several residents visited the graves of loved ones killed in the war.

As they prayed, the sounds of artillery fire and the buzz of military drones filled the air.

Al Jazeera cited health authorities as saying Israeli military attacks in Gaza killed 20 people, including five children, since Sunday morning. Three young girls killed in an air raid on al-Mawasi are seen in a verified footage bloodied and apparently wearing new clothes on the occasion of Eidul Fitr, the report added.

How much longer?

Ezzedine Mousa, a resident of Gaza City, described an overwhelming sense of fear gripping the region.

“People are afraid to visit one another because a rocket could strike at any moment, claiming their lives,” he said.

“Our children’s eyes reflect their fear, but we do our best to keep them happy with whatever little we have.”

Israel resumed its military campaign across Gaza on March 18, rattling a fragile weeks-long truce.

Since then, more than 900 people have been killed across Gaza, according to the health ministry of the Hamas-run territory. Since October 2023, Israel in a blistering military campaign in Gaza killed at least 50,277 people, the majority of them women and children.

Red Crescent members killed

The Palestine Red Crescent Society on Sunday confirmed 11 more bodies have been found in Gaza’s Rafah city, including six identified as its members and four as civil defence agency personnel, Al Jazeera reported.

The ambulance service said three of its medics and one civil defence responder ‘remain missing’.

Medics and witnesses reported that Israeli air strikes continued in Khan Yunis and some other parts of Gaza throughout the day.

An air strike in Rafah wounded two children, according to medics.

“The world rejoices in Eid while our sons and daughters lie in morgues. How much longer will this tragedy continue?” said Mohamed al-Qadi, who lost his sister and nephew in Sunday’s pre-dawn Israeli strike on Khan Yunis.

Eid of sadness

“It’s the Eid of sadness,” said Adel al-Shaer in the central town of Deir el-Balah in Gaza, Al Jazeera reported.

Al-Shaer said he lost 20 members of his extended family in Israeli strikes since the offensive on Gaza began, including four young nephews just a few days ago.

“We lost our loved ones, our children, our lives, and our futures. We lost our students, our schools, and our institutions. We lost everything,” he added, breaking into tears.

Published in Dawn, March 31st, 2025