Happy Eid, from Gaza with love

Boy with Eid candies, Gaza 2012 Photographer Sarah el-khoudary
In Gaza, people celebrate. Yes, Gaza celebrates. Piles of all kinds of candy are spread everywhere on sidewalks in markets. Different kinds of fresh fruit, toys, snacks, Eid cookies. In Gaza, like so many other places in the world, kids are eager to wear their new clothes at the very early hours of the first day of Eid. They wake up early in the morning of Eid to get dressed and to pray along with the rest of the neighborhood, after spending the last week preparing with their Moms, going through shopping lists, and going with them to the market to buy their precious outfits, cleaning the house and caring for little spots while cleaning the staircase, helping bake the incredibly irresistible cookies.

In Palestine, those same children miss their dads who are either locked behind bars, behind crossings and borders, or locked under gravestones. In Gaza, you feel a bit excited about tomorrow. Then electricity goes off. You remember you didn’t iron your clothes, but you haven’t decided what you’re going to wear anyway, so you don’t bother getting mad about it. In Gaza, you see pictures of weekly demonstrations in villages in the West Bank, and you wonder how THEIR Eid is going to be after all that gas they inhaled and after one more day of being silenced by an army, after one more Friday of challenge, arrests, resistance, Sumood. Friends of yours wish a Happy Eid for everyone. Then wish the next Eid would be in a free Palestine.

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