Gaza marks the start of Eid with outdoor prayers in the rubble and food growing ever scarcer

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Palestinians across the war-ravaged Gaza Strip marked the start of one of Islam's most important holidays with prayers outside destroyed mosques and homes early Friday, with little hope the war with Israel will end soon.

With much of Gaza in rubble, men, women and children were forced to hold the traditional Eid al-Adha prayers in the open air and with food supplies dwindling, families were having to make do with what they could scrape together for the three-day feast.

''This is the worst feast that the Palestinian people have experienced because of the unjust war against the Palestinian people,'' said Kamel Emran after attending prayers in the southern city of Khan Younis. ''There is no food, no flour, no shelter, no mosques, no homes, no mattresses. ... The conditions are very, very harsh.''

The Islamic holiday begins on the 10th day of the Islamic lunar month of Dhul-Hijja, during the Hajj season in Saudi Arabia. For the second year, Muslims in Gaza were not able to travel to Saudi Arabia to perform the traditional pilgrimage.

In Gaza City on Friday, Sanaa Al-Ghola, a displaced woman from Shejaiyah, stood in the rubble of a badly damaged graveyard near a partially collapsed mosque. She had come to pray for her son, Mohamed al-Ghoul, who she said was killed in shelling last month after going to his grandfather's house to get flour. His father was wounded in the attack.

''We lost our home, money, and everything," she said, crying as she held her son's photo. ''There is no more Eid after you're gone, my son.''

Families at a displacement tent camp in Muwasi faced a grim first day of Eid al-Adha.

Tahrir Abu Jazar, 36, of Rafah, warmed up leftover lentils and cooked rice inside her tent, but said she had no bread to feed her five children, who sat on the bare ground nearby.

''There are no Eid celebrations now as there is no new clothes or sacrificial meat, or monetary gifts, or joy,'' she said, reminiscing over Eid days before the war when the children had meat. ''My son went out and tried to celebrate Eid and was scared of the warplane, so he came back."

Israel issues a new warning

In the southern city of Rafah, nine people were killed on their way to try and collect humanitarian aid at various distribution points, according to officials at Nasser Hospital in nearby Khan Younis, where the bodies were brought. Eight died from gunshot wounds and the ninth person from shrapnel injuries.

The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the hospital's claim but said it was looking into the report.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a newly formed group of mainly American contractors that Israel wants to use to replace humanitarian groups in Gaza that distribute aid in coordination with the U.N., told The Associated Press that reports of violence in Rafah were inaccurate and that aid distribution was completed ''peacefully and without incident.''

In northern Gaza on Friday, Israel issued a new warning to civilians saying the military was about to undertake intensive operations in an area after it said rockets were fired toward Israel from the sector.

Meanwhile, the military said four Israeli soldiers were killed Friday in southern Gaza when an explosive detonated as they searched a Hamas compound in Khan Younis, causing part of a building to collapse. Five soldiers were injured, one seriously, spokesperson Effie Defrin said.

The war broke out on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants launched a surprise attack on Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251 hostages. They are still holding 56 hostages, around a third of them believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals. Israeli forces have rescued eight living hostages from Gaza and recovered dozens of bodies.

Since then, Israel has killed more than 54,000 Palestinians in its military campaign, primarily women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its figures.

The offensive has destroyed large parts of Gaza and displaced around 90% of its population of roughly 2 million Palestinians.

UN warns of risk of famine

After blocking all food and aid from entering Gaza for more than two months, Israel began allowing a trickle of supplies to enter for the U.N. several weeks ago. But the U.N says it has been unable to distribute much of the aid because of Israeli military restrictions on movements and because roads that the military designates for its trucks to use are unsafe and vulnerable to looters.

The U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome said Thursday that Gaza's people are projected to fall into acute food insecurity by September, with nearly 500,000 people experiencing extreme food deprivation, leading to malnutrition and starvation.

''This means the risk of famine is really touching the whole of the Gaza Strip,'' Rein Paulson, director of the FAO office of emergencies and resilience, said in an interview.

Over the past two weeks, shootings have erupted nearly daily in the Gaza Strip in the vicinity of new hubs where desperate Palestinians are being directed to collect food. Witnesses say nearby Israeli troops have opened fire, and more than 80 people have been killed, according to Gaza hospital officials.

Israel has accused Hamas of stealing aid and trying to block it from reaching Palestinians, and has said soldiers fired warning shots or, in some cases, shot at individuals approaching its troops.

The GHF sent out a message on its Facebook site early Friday that it had closed all aid distribution sites until further notice and urged people to stay away for their own safety.

It later clarified that the measure was only a temporary pause due to excessive crowding and that the agency had distributed all aid available Friday.

Israel's military said that going ahead, distribution sites would be operated from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily and that outside those hours, the areas would be considered closed military zones that are strictly off limits.

US consulting firm lets go of two of its partners

A leading U.S. management-consulting firm, the Boston Consulting Group, said Friday it had let go of two of the firm's partners over what it said was their unauthorized work for the GHF's food distribution in Gaza.

In a statement, the firm said the two partners failed to adequately disclose the nature of the work on the effort. The partners, whom the statement did not identify, ''have been exited from the firm,'' the consulting group said. It said the firm's investigation of the matter was ongoing.

___

Associated Press writers Bassem Mroue in Beirut, Julia Frankel in Jerusalem, Fatma Khaled in Cairo, Paolo Santalucia in Rome, Ellen Knickmeyer in Washington and David Rising in Bangkok contributed to this story.