'We used to adorn our street, now all is bleak'

As the holy month of Ramadan begins, food shortages and the fear ofattack continue to afflict Rafah’s displaced families

- ASEEL MOUSA

Seventy days after they were forced to leave their house in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, Hanaa al-Masry, her husband and their six children were last weekend preparing for Ramadan in their new home: a dilapidated tent. Here, there will be no decorations, no joyous family meals and no reading of the Qur'an in the garden.

The Muslim holy month - a time for friends and family as well as religious contemplation, prayer and fasting started on Monday and will be like none that anyone in Gaza can remember.

The Masry family fled Khan Younis after receiving leaflets from the Israeli military telling them to relocate for their own safety. They made their way to the city of Rafah on the border with Egypt and now live in a crowded makeshift camp, sleeping and eating amida jumble of salvaged possessions.

"My daughters used to carefully save their money to buy decorations and every year I would chose a new Ramadan lantern," Hanaa al-Masry, 37, said. "It is very depressing, very difficult."

This year, there will be no lanterns. Masry will prepare neither suhoor, the meal taken before the start of the ritual day-long fast, nor iftar at its end.