While it ought to be a month of reflection and celebration, for Palestinians Ramadan simply highlights their hardships, writes Saleh Al-Naami The face of Abdul-Razeq, 39, exuded joy when he learnt that the person knocking at his door was an employee of Al-Salah charity association, which offers financial and material assistance to poor families and orphans in the Gaza Strip. The employee did not disappoint him; he gave him a voucher with which he could receive food packages for his family, consisting of 11 individuals, throughout the holy month of Ramadan from the association's headquarters near his home in Birkat Wiz in central Gaza. Abdul-Razeq and the members of his family fully depend on food packages distributed by charity associations. Abdul-Razeq, who works as a janitor in the Gaza municipality, has not received his salary for eight months due to the municipality's deficit, just like dozens of his colleagues. For tens of thousands of poor in Gaza, the month of Ramadan is associated with aid provided by Islamic charity associations. Ali Nassar is Al-Salah association's responsible official for the central region of Gaza. He told Al-Ahram Weekly that his association has collated the names of needy families and begun to distribute food packages to them. The association planned to increase the number of communal fast-breakings it holds in mosques and public places over previous years due to Gaza's declining economic circumstances. Still, conditions for the poor in Gaza during Ramadan this year are better than those of the poor in the West Bank where Salam Fayyad's government has ordered closed a number of charity associations arguing they are connected to Hamas. Lowered purchasing power of Palestinians is one of the most visible signs of economic decline during Ramadan this year. Nehad, owner of a large supermarket in Al-Maghazi Refugee Camp in central Gaza, has little else to do but converse with one of the few customers in his store. Unlike in previous years, the store is not teeming with customers rushing to buy foodstuffs usually consumed during Ramadan. Al-Zawiya market in Gaza City may draw the numbers, but only a very few are purchasing anything -- about two in 10, according to Ibrahim Sherif, one shop owner. Shops highly frequented are those that sell frozen meat and fish whose prices are much lower than that of fresh meat and fish. Other popular stores are those specialised in selling smuggled foodstuffs, which are much cheaper than imported or locally produced goods. A kilogramme of smuggled dates, for example, is a third the price of imported dates. Decreased purchasing power in Gaza is due to high rates of unemployment and poverty, in addition to the large increase in prices as a result of the US-Israeli orchestrated siege. According to a report issued last Thursday by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, prices in the Strip last month reached record highs: an overall increase of 4.19 per cent due to the 5.79 per cent rise in the price of foodstuffs. According to the agency's statistics, 57 per cent of Palestinian families have a monthly income that places them under the national poverty line, with 44 per cent income below the international poverty line. The wretched circumstances in which most Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip live has not affected existing tension between the Fatah and Hamas movements this month. Fatah issued a universal call for its supporters to not pray in mosques controlled by Hamas during Ramadan. For its part, Hamas has exploited the onset of Ramadan to strengthen its position in Gaza. Ismail Haniyeh, head of the dismissed government, daily leads worshippers in the evening tarawih prayers in a number of mosques in Gaza Strip cities. Yet Palestinians are not only suffering from poverty and tension between Fatah and Hamas, but also from the ongoing aggression of the Israeli occupation, especially for residents of border areas between Gaza and Israel. One factor that distinguishes Ramadan in the rest of the Islamic world is visits among families and between friends, yet for these Gazans continuous raids conducted by the occupation army make it impossible for families to move at night. They are also prevented from performing the tarawih prayers, those most associated with Ramadan. A group of young men in the area next to the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel went to perform the tarawih prayers in a mosque in the suburbs of Deir Al-Balah city in central Gaza on the first day of Ramadan. When they returned to their home area, occupation army soldiers arrested them and they remain in detention. In the West Bank, military checkpoints continue to make life for many thousands of Palestinians an unbearable hell. Ramez Salloum, 45, is a taxi driver working on the Ramallah-Nablus line. He told the Weekly that in many instances he is forced to break the fast at military checkpoints. He is certain that occupation soldiers purposely force people to wait at checkpoints for longer during Ramadan. The occupation army also exploits Ramadan to hunt down wanted Palestinian resistance fighters. Israeli intelligence assumes that wanted individuals in hiding attempt to contact their families during Ramadan, so it intensifies its monitoring activities so as to arrest or assassinate them. One example is Youssef Al-Assi, 23, an activist in Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, in Nablus, and wanted by the occupation. Several months after leaving his home, Al-Assi missed his mother and decided to share the pre-dawn Ramadan meal with her. Last Sunday, he headed to his family's home but before he reached it occupation soldiers ambushed him. They shot him dead 10 metres from the front door.
