DEPICTING the unimaginable horrors endured by Gaza and its people on Eidul Fitr in the letter ‘The gloom in Gaza’ (April 9), I had dared to express a sliver of optimism that the next Eid might dawn with books, not bombs; with swings, not snipers. But that fleeting hope was nothing but an unwarranted dream, far removed from the grim and grotesque reality unfolding before us.

As Muslims all around the world are celebrating Eidul Azha, the situation is more precarious, more deadly and more brutal, especially for the children in Gaza. More and more of them are being hunted down by bloodthirsty savages whose cruelty knows no bounds.

In Gaza, there is no celebration, only mourning. Every family is scarred by death. Children who played in the rubble on Eidul Fitr are now buried beneath it. Food, water and medicine have vanished. Gaza, a symbol of endurance, has been reduced to a theatre of mass suffering.

The entire population of 2.3 million remains trapped under perpetual evacuation orders that represent engineered displacement designed to erase the natives.

The entire world is aghast at the images of children dying from starvation. The media has been muzzled, but the truth still finds its way through. The scenes this Eid are gut-wrenching. Fragments of bodies in white shrouds litter the besieged territories, becoming the horrific hallmark of this sacred festival.

The Muslim leaders, it seems, have offered the Palestinian cause as a sacrifice this Eid. They have continued to choose silence even as every single source of humanitarian relief is being systematically denied to the Palestinians. This is criminal silence.

For how long will the most terrorised, besieged and brutalised people on Earth continue to receive coffins and shrouds in place of Eid greetings? How many more fragments of loved ones must be collected from the rubble before the world decides it is time to wake up?

The powerful governments within the so-called civilised, developed world must ask themselves which side of history they want to be on. Are they standing with the enablers of medieval savagery, with perpetrators of crimes that mirror or even surpass the horrors of past holocausts? Or will they finally stand with the victims?

In Gaza, Eid has arrived with the stench of gunpowder, raw sewage, biting mosquitoes, looming diseases, and debilitating hunger. Unfortunately, precision bombs, life-sucking drones, and ruthless ground operations continue to target Gaza Strip’s starving children. This is their Eid.

Qamer Soomro
Shikarpur

Published in Dawn, June 7th, 2025