ISTANBUL (Bernama) — Hari Raya Aidilfitri has morphed into sadness and suffering in Palestine, especially in the Gaza Strip, because of the Israeli occupation, a Palestinian group said Tuesday.
”The Israeli occupation has turned the occasion of Aidilfitri in Palestine, particularly in the Gaza Strip, into a time marked by sorrow and anguish,” Anadolu Agency reported the Higher Presidential Committee for Church Affairs in Palestine said in a statement.
It highlighted that the customary joy, happiness and tranquility associated with Aidilfitri have been stripped from Palestinians due to the Israeli occupation, rendering their lives a living hell.
”Throughout its prolonged campaigns of terror in Palestine, the Israeli occupation has deliberately repressed and disrupted both Muslim and Christian religious holidays,” it said.
It noted that the occupation ”has denied Muslim worshippers access to Al-Aqsa Mosque for prayer and prevented Palestinian Christians from reaching Jerusalem to celebrate Easter.”
Israel has waged a deadly military offensive on the Gaza Strip since Oct 7, killing more than 33,300 Palestinians and injuring nearly 76,000 others amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities.
The Israeli war, now in day 186, has pushed 85 per cent of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60 per cent of the enclave’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.
Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which in January issued an interim ruling that ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.
