Ramadan markets are reduced to the crowd of a gloomy customer. Heavy silence was replaced by a vibrant chatter. No phenymen shine in the windows, and the wires of lights that covered the alleys that blink above the children playing on the streets became dark.
“Ramadan shone,” said Mahmoud Sukkar, father four on the West Bank. “Now it’s just darkness.”
The Holy Moon has long been marked in Palestinian cities with traditions deeply rooted in fasting, community and spiritual piety. The families gathered in the evening around the tables filled with traditional disfter-speed meals. Neighbors distributed food and other offers, and the nights were illuminated by the crescent -shaped lights.
But this year is different.
In the cities of the western coast of Jenina and Tulkarma, especially the prevalent refugee camps in the Israeli territory, the streets that once shone and echoed with laughter of children are wrapped in sadness. An Israeli military operation This began in January 40,000 Palestinians to escape from their homes, invited by historians the biggest movement of civilians On the west coast from the Arab-Israeli War of 1967.
For the first time in the decades of Israeli forces sent tanks in Jenin and established a military place in Tulkarm. Almost 50 people have been killed since the invasion began, according to Palestinian officials. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said the surgery aimed at eradicating “terrorism”.
Before the Israel’s operation began, the Palestinian administration conducted Extensive security operation In Jenin, who became a shelter for armed fighters supporting Iran from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
A year ago, more officials told the New York Times that Iran managed a secret smuggling of routes to the delivery of weapons to the Palestinians on the west coast.
While nearly 3000 Palestinians returned home from the beginning of the Israeli military operation, most remained displaced.
Mr. Sukkar, 40, and his wife Na’il, 34, fled with Jenin with his children and his mother on the third day of Israeli surgery. They left only the clothes they wore – without heirs, without samples, none of the decorations they used in memory of Ramadan.
Their shift was fragmented by the family, and Mr. Sukkar and their 9-year-old son moved to the friend’s home, and his wife, mother-in-law and three younger children who remained with relatives. But as Ramadan approached, they tried to reunite.
“We couldn’t stay separated,” Mr Sukkar said. “Ramadan means that we have to be together. And we don’t want to remain burden to others.”
Mr. Sukkar worked in Israel before the war with Hamas broke out in Gaza in October 2023, but has been mostly unemployed since then. Without a stable income, the family eventually found housing without rent in dormitories at the Arab American University of Jenin, the initiative funded by the Government. They moved in one day before Ramadan, easier to have their own space.
But the fighting for displacement lasts.
“We left nothing,” Mr. Sukkar said. “Now, we don’t know where we belong.”
Palestinians in Jenin for a long time not only for security, but also for the sights, sounds and tastes that make Ramadan a time of joy and thinking. With tens of thousands displaced, many families cannot break quickly in their homes.
In the central market in Jenin City, street sellers stand with racks spicy greenery and plastic gallons of lemonade and ticket juice. But instead of seeing excited customers rushing to prepare for iftar, they face people who move quietly, their faces are difficult to exhaustion and care, moving the sidewalks, not full of booths.
In previous years, families would walk together after they quickly broke, visited relatives or bought a knafeh, sweet made of dough and white cheese. Now the streets remain mostly empty.
Musahati, a traditional night caller who walked through the fourth, beat the drum to wake up people for Suhoor – a meal before becoming – no longer performs his rounds. Generations would stop with thresholds to collect small donations in exchange for his Ramadan blessings.
“They won’t knock on our doors this year,” Mrs. Sukkar said. “We have no door to knock.”
In Tulkarm, Ramadan is overshadowed by a sense of uncertainty, the inhabitants say. The presence of the Israeli army not only brings fear, but also interferes with the rhythm of everyday life.
Intisar Nafe ‘, an activist displaced from a tulkarm camp, said she was proud of cooking for her community. Her small kitchen was a refuge, and the meals are a gesture of worry. Its iftar would be filled with a male, fragrant chicken dish or maftoul, a hand -valid couscous.
“Nothing is like Ramadan this year,” she said in a telephone conversation. “I used to cook for others, helped in Ramadan cuisine. Now I’m waiting for someone to feed me.”
Mrs. Nafe ‘was displaced with her sister and niece when her home was destroyed in military surgery, she said. She first moved into the mosque with them as the rest of her family scattered. She, her sister and niece later rented a small apartment in Tulkarem.
“Ramadan talks about family,” she said. “It’s about breaking bread, sharing meals, visiting each other. Without that, what’s left?”
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She misses watching Arab and Turkish soaps with Ramadan and traditions around the Ramadan meals.
“My mother, who is now 88, has learned that dishes from my grandmother, who survived Nakba,” she said, referring to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians during the founding of Israel in 1948. “Our kitchen was a sequel to the homes we lost.”
Ramadan meal structure – quickly quickly with water and dates, followed by soup, salad and main course – now there is a privilege that a little displaced Palestinians can afford. For many in Jena, iftar is a boxing meal supplied by volunteers. Every night, around 5 hours, people are rushing outside to receive donations. Meals often get cold.
“We are doing what we can feel at home,” Mrs. Sukkar said. “I pour water into plastic cups. I exposed what we have. But not the same.”
The nostalgic smile flew on her face. “My iftar table in Ramadan was once the most beautiful thing,” she continued. “Maybe our house at the camp was small and full, but over time, neighbors became family. It was our little paradise, our safety.”
Many displaced families are not sure when, or if they will ever return home. Israel did not give any signs to end his work soon.
“Ramadan should be a time of renovation,” Mrs. Nafe said, ‘”but in Tulkarma the month of waiting – waiting for news, waiting for a sign that life can be returned to what it used to be.”
