"We brought you decorations and a small lantern, Maisoon tells her nine-year-old son, Hasan, smiling with an exhaustion tinged with joy at her ability to buy him a Ramadan lantern. My means are limited, but what matters is that the children feel happy, Maisoon tells Al Jazeera, expressing cautious optimism about the month's arrival. I wanted these decorations to be a way out of the atmosphere of grief and sadness that has accompanied us over the past two years during the war."
"Every day they are safe is a day worth gratitude and joy, she says with pride mixed with fear, referring to the terror that has accompanied her throughout the war at the thought of losing them. Like other Palestinians in Gaza, what distinguishes this Ramadan is the relative calm that has come with the current ceasefire, compared with the previous two years, when Israel's genocidal war on Gaza, which has killed more than 70,000 Palestinians, was at its peak."
Maisoon al-Barbarawi celebrates Ramadan in a tent in the Bureij refugee area in central Gaza, hanging simple decorations and colourful drawings on fabric walls. She bought a small lantern for her nine-year-old son despite limited means and prioritizes the children’s happiness as a source of joy. The decorations are intended as an escape from two years of grief and sadness during the war. She is 52 and a mother of two, and each safe day with her children brings gratitude. The current period has relative calm under a ceasefire compared with the intense fighting and mass casualties of the previous two years, though shelling still occurs. Maisoon helps prepare bread and arrange dates and water for distribution before the call to prayer.
Read at www.aljazeera.com
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