The Municipality of Sebastia receives a number of Gazan workers after they were displaced from their workplaces inside Israel (Al Jazeera)

Nablus -

Until yesterday evening, moments before the sighting of the Ramadan crescent was confirmed, Samed Al-Ahmad (a pseudonym for security reasons) was trying time after time to contact his family in Gaza to check on them and their conditions.

After many attempts, he was able to reach his brother Youssef and talk to him, and I wish he had not done so. What he was warning about happened, and the “difficult feeling” of losing contact, as Samid described it, was overcome by an even more difficult and painful feeling, which is helplessness in the face of his family’s need and distance from them.

Samed (28 years old) is one of thousands of Gazans who came before the war to work inside Israel. The war prevented them from returning to Gaza, and they were stranded in the West Bank, separated from their families and lacking work. They are experiencing the month of Ramadan for the first time, away from their families, whose situation is no less bad. Because of what you are facing in Gaza.

The place where the Samed family lived, to which they were displaced, in Rafah (Al Jazeera)

Bombing the house and dreaming

We went back with Samid for a moment to Ramadan last year, and told us how he and his family moved to live in their new house that they bought in the Al-Shujaiya neighborhood in the northern Gaza Strip after 21 years of rented housing, and how he decorated it with Ramadan decorations, and took his daughter to shop for Ramadan needs, as well as the “Ghazawi gathering” that was not... It is described as a gathering of family and relatives.

The scene is no longer painful for Samed alone, who is forcibly absent from that atmosphere. Rather, everything became tragic after the occupation bombed the house and displaced his family, which was displaced to Rafah with 12 people, sleeping on the ground and looking at the sky, and being content with the available food and drink.

When Samid intended to work within the Green Line, like about 20,000 Gazans who wanted to improve their families’ economic situation and lift them out of extreme poverty, he did not know that this would be his situation.

And that war might be easier than being exposed to a scam, in addition to the difficult economic situation that he personally faces in light of his rented residence in the city of Nablus and his lack of hope for any work to support himself and his family, especially his two children and wife.

Samid did not spare any effort or money except to spend it on his family, and he incurred the outrageous rise in prices. He bought for his family more than 20 bags of flour (weighing 25 kilograms) with an average calculation of about $90 per bag, and 4 cans of household gas (weighing 12 kilograms each) at a price of 110. Dollars per package, and many, many other needs.

Bitter contact

After many attempts, Samed succeeded in contacting his eldest brother, Youssef (19 years old), in Rafah, to update us on the latest details of his family’s preparation for Ramadan, and we found him complaining about the high cost and unavailability of food.

Ramadan this year has “no joy, color, or smell,” says Youssef, who only had 30 shekels ($8) in his pocket and did not know what he would buy with it for Ramadan, while his family needed more than 30 dollars a day to satisfy their hunger with only the cheapest food.

Of the approximately 19,200 Gazans working inside Israel, there were only 10,000 of them during the war, and Israel launched a massive arrest campaign against them that affected more than 4,600 workers, and returned approximately half of them to Gaza, while releasing the others to the West Bank, where they spread to various shelter centers.

Samed called Mahmoud Jundia (32 years old), his older brother, to ask him about his condition and his family’s preparations for the month of Ramadan. He chose not to contact his mother for fear that the wound of absence and the tragedy of being away from them would be felt, in addition to their displacement to 5 parts between Shujaiya in the north of Gaza and Deir al-Balah in the south.

Solidarity event with Gaza in Nablus in the West Bank (Al Jazeera)

Difficult questions

Difficult questions and a difficult and sad feeling that Mahmoud experienced in the first hours of announcing the month of Ramadan and his going to perform Tarawih prayers, and he recalled his situation with his brothers and cousins ​​in Ramadan last year and bringing them together.

As soon as Mahmoud called his wife, she started crying bitterly, and he was not in a good condition, and due to the horror of the situation, he did not ask her, “What are you going to prepare for breakfast?”

He did not answer her question: What are you going to break your fast with?

Fearing that she would crave his food, despite its simplicity, his brother nevertheless told him that their situation in northern Gaza was deplorable, and that after an effort he found half a kilogram of lentils at a price of 60 shekels ($16).

This increased Mahmoud's suffering and oppression, as he is not only far from his family, but he is unable to carry out their duty, as he has become responsible for more than 30 people from his family, especially since he is living in difficult circumstances with dozens of other of his Gazan companions in one of the shelter centers in the city of Jenin in the northern West Bank.

“I am alone and they are homeless”

While the Samid and Jundia families learned that Ramadan was coming, the children of worker Ismail Abu Muhammad called him after dinner to confirm whether the sighting of the crescent moon had been confirmed and that they would live the first day of Ramadan far from it, their suhoor with thyme without oil and some canned goods coming from foreign aid if available.

Ismail says that not only does he miss the family and their gathering, but also that the war has prevented him from having his four children and his wife. He says, “I am alone, I have no companionship, no work, and no money, and they are homeless in Rafah.”

The three young men, Samed, Mahmoud, and Ismail, only care about the condition of their families and the distance from them. They, like other hundreds of Gazan workers in the West Bank, forgot about their difficult situation and the occupation’s persecution of them.

You find that they do not stop calling their families day and night to check on them, to the point that one of them no longer memorizes the numbers of not only his family, but even the neighbors and those around them in the residence, and that one of them memorizes at least 100 numbers and calls 20 to reach his family.

Source: Al Jazeera