JABALIYA REFUGEE CAMP, Gaza Strip: "Ramadan is a holy month but this year it'll be a black month," says Ahmed Hassan Makdad, queuing at the UN food distribution center in Gaza's biggest refugee camp. Around him, dozens of fellow Palestinians squeeze against the grilled ticket windows at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the UN body responsible for the welfare of Palestinian refugees, to collect rations of flour, oil, rice and sugar.

For Palestinians, the holy month of Ramadan that started this weekend is likely to be the most austere since the 1993 signing of the Oslo peace accords with Israel.

Chances of celebrating in style are remote.

Observant Muslims are expected to refrain from eating, drinking and having sexual relations from dawn to dusk during Ramadan, but traditionally break the fast at sundown with a special meal gathering together friends and family.

"Lamb? What do you expect me to buy a lamb with?" counters Ahmed when asked about the menu on offer at home for the holy month.

No longer will Ahmed be on the treadmill of visits to family and friends.

Over the last six months, the Gaza Strip has sunk into its most severe crisis in 13 years, and such visits have become far too expensive.

"Tradition states that we give out presents, cakes or meat," says the 57-year-old father of eight. "Instead of 10 visits this year, I'll only make one."

The Gaza economy is close to zero, given Israeli closures and Western aid boycotts, exacerbated by a massive military offensive that has killed more than 200 Palestinians since late June following the capture of an Israeli soldier, Corporal Gilad Shalit.

Tens of thousands of civil servants have not been paid in full since late February, affecting the livelihoods of around one million Palestinians - a quarter of those living in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

Since March, UNWRA has added 100,000 people to lists of those who receive food aid in the Gaza Strip.

Some 830,000 people, 60 percent of the population, now receive UN aid.

The UN's World Food Program provides additional assistance to 280,000 people out of Gaza's total population of 1.4 million people packed into the crowded, impoverished Mediterranean coastal territory.

Source: www.dailystar.com

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