In June 2023, I tweeted this photo with the caption:
“This Eid, I’m longing for mine and my mother’s favorite traditional Eid dish. It’s called Qaurma (قاورما): lamb meat cooked with generous amounts of lamb fat and salt. Before refrigerators existed, people preserved meat this way".
At that time, I had no idea that only four months later, my mother would go three consecutive years without tasting this meal -and we are still counting.
After such a long period of starvation and food shortages in Gaza, especially with the absence of meat in all of its forms, my mother lost her appetite for it. Although imported frozen meat has recently reappeared in the markets, she refuses to eat it because she doesn't trust its source.
Yesterday, I called her and she told me she was busy baking pies over a wood fire for fatteh. Then she said sadly:
“I’m baking pies for a meal I won’t even eat".
I asked her in shock:
“You mean no one around you is sacrificing this Eid?”
She laughed bitterly and replied:
“From where? One sheep costs around $6000 now. People can’t afford that".
This morning, I called again to say Eid Mubarak. She was cooking lunch over the wood fire because they have no cooking gas for a while now -just like most families in Gaza.
Since yesterday, I'm just crying.
