Breaking Fast in Gaza: Experiencing Ramadan with Fear

REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA — In Gaza, the time to break the fast is no longer marked by the moments of waiting for the call to prayer. For thousands of displaced families, dusk is now anticipated by the effort to light a fire without setting their tents ablaze. The aroma of food, which usually stimulates the appetite, is now mixed with thick smoke that chokes children.

This year, Ramadan has arrived not with lanterns or tranquility, but is borne on the shoulders of mothers searching for a handful of water, a piece of bread, and a stove. In the fragile emergency tents, patience has become a daily test to be endured.

As Maghrib approaches, Zakia Ahmed (35) is seen bending in front of her tent in western Gaza. She arranges three stones as an emergency stove, then tries to light a fire from pieces of wet cardboard and wood shavings. Black smoke fills the air, while her three children cough near a pot of lentils boiling without any meat.

The refugee from northern Gaza recalls Ramadan before the war as a time of family happiness. Now, every time she lights a fire, she is filled with fear. “Before, we welcomed Ramadan with lanterns and the aroma of soup. Today, I welcome it with the fear that one of my children will be burned by the fire,” she told the Palestinian news agency, Sanad, as reported by Saba, Wednesday (25/2/2026).

Around her, rows of tents are lined up closely in one of the shelters, with fires burning between each pair of tents. There is no safe distance, no safe cooking equipment, only flames rising above the narrow space, where even a small spark is enough to turn the place into hell.

Hussam al-Deeb (42), one of the residents of the refugee camp, pointed to burn marks near his tent. He recounted how the fire had spread to his neighbor’s tent a few days earlier. “A small child was burned. We cook very close to each other. There is no safety,” he said.

Ramadan, which was once a month of tranquility, has become a season of anxiety. The excessive crowding of tents, the scarcity of water, and the lack of safe cooking equipment make preparing the meal a daily ordeal.