Palestinians mark bloody Eid al-Adha as Israeli army continues attacks on Gaza's civilians

Palestinians in the Gaza Strip mark a bloody Eid al-Adha as the Israeli army continues to strike civilians in the war-torn coastal enclave.

Around 71 Palestinians were killed in the past 48 hours, most of the dead are women and children, as Israeli warplanes targeted several residential homes, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza.

On the first day of the Eid, the Israeli army attacked two residential houses in al-Bureij refugee camp in the central of Gaza, killing at least nine. The two houses belong to the al-Khatib and al-Najar families. 

Mohammed al-Khatib, the brother of the house's owner, told The New Arab, "My nephews were supposed to celebrate Eid al-Adha with their friends in the street (…) but the Israeli army insisted on killing the joy inside the children and killing them too."

"This is the Eid that Israel wants us to experience[…] It wants to remind us that it will continue to kill us until it ends the Palestinian presence in Gaza," the 46-year-old father of three said, displaying the blood-stained shirt of a child. 

"But we will not allow Israel to kill the life inside us or kill our hope that we will liberate our land from the Israeli occupation, no matter how long it takes," he added. 

Not far away from al-Khatib, Ibrahim Al-Najjar stood, weeping for hours after losing many family members due to an Israeli bombing.

"They [the Israelis] killed the joy and life in our hearts […] The Israeli army is criminal; it does not have mercy on any of us and kills us all without exception," he said. "How can I live without my family, my siblings, and my mother? Where will I go? Why did they not kill me with them?"

Despite the bloodshed unleashed by Israel, Palestinians remain defiant and insisted on performing the Eid prayer in the public streets amid the ruins of mosques, with sounds of prayer resounding throughout the besieged coastal enclave.

Ibrahim Abdel Aal, who led hundreds of citizens in the Eid prayer on the ruins of Omar bin al-Khattab Mosque in Gaza City, told TNA, "No matter how many massacres the Israeli army commits against civilians, no matter how many mosques it destroys and how many landmarks it annihilates in the city, we insist on living, and we want to prove to the world that we are a people who love life."

As soon as Abdel Aal finished praying, he took his three children to visit his displaced sisters in the UNRWA schools in the city. "I visit my sisters to console them and to tell them that we will survive this war and one day we will get our lives back," he said. 

Usually, during this holiday, children were to wear new clothes, exchange greetings, and play with their friends, while women decorate their homes and make sweets. But with war, this has all vanished. 

Nour Al-Ra'i, a displaced Palestinian woman in Deir al-Balah, cannot buy new clothes, or even barely food, for her children this Eid. 

"All signs of joy have disappeared from us during this holiday. We do not have clothes, money, food, water, or a home to shelter us," the 35-year-old mother of four children, told TNA. "What sin did my children and the children of the Gaza Strip commit to live such a bloody and tragic holiday? How long will we continue to suffer from the war? We want the war to end and to get our lives back as soon as possible."

The Israeli army has been launching a large-scale war on the Gaza Strip after a Hamas-led attack on the Israeli military bases and civilian settlements within and around the Gaza envelope on 7 October killed 1,195 Israelis and captured more than 250. 

Since then, the Israeli army has continued its attacks on Gaza, killing about 37,347 and wounding 85,372 since the start of Israel's war, the Ministry of Health says.