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But the Palestinians who spoke to Al Jazeera say they are too depressed to hang up decorations or engage in festivities.

Many are just praying for a ceasefire in Gaza, where more than 31,000 people have been killed by Israel in retaliation for a deadly attack on Israeli civilians and military outposts by the Qassam Brigades and other Palestinian armed fighters on October 7.

Others fear that Israeli authorities and far-right settlers will attack Palestinians during the holy month as part of a broader campaign of collective punishment, as has happened before.

“I’m really worried about possible provocation,” said Munir Nuseibah, a Palestinian human rights lawyer who lives in East Jerusalem. “We learned from the past that the more there is a police presence and police intervention in East Jerusalem during Ramadan, the more we will see [violent] confrontations.”

History of violence

During Ramadan, tensions frequently mount around Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam. Palestinians from across the occupied West Bank yearn to pray in the mosque, yet Israeli police have traditionally obstructed access and attacked worshippers.

Israeli police detain a Palestinian worshipper at Al-Aqsa Mosque during Ramadan on April 5, 2023 [Mahmoud Illean/AP Photo]

Last year, Palestinians resorted to barricading themselves inside the mosque to prevent Israeli police from interfering with itikaf, a religious practice that entails spending whole nights in prayer and worship in mosques.

But Israeli security managed to break through, firing stun grenades and tear gas and indiscriminately beating worshippers, including women and the elderly. At least 450 Palestinian men were arrested.

“There is nothing inherently violent about Al-Aqsa and certainly nothing inherently violent about Ramadan. It’s important to recall that because some people get the idea that this is all about Islam,” said Daniel Siedmann, a lawyer and resident of Jerusalem.

Palestinians attribute most of the violence to the provocative measures taken by Israeli authorities, which occupy the city and the holy site.

Israeli police often allow hundreds of Israeli Jews – who refer to Al-Aqsa Mosque as the Temple Mount – access to the holy site, which violates the latest status-quo agreement that Israel, Jordan, Palestine and the United States affirmed in 2015.

The agreement stipulates that Al-Aqsa Mosque is a place of worship exclusively for Muslims, yet grants access to non-Muslims on specific days and hours. However, many fear that far-right Israeli ministers may try to provoke Palestinians by allowing Israelis into the mosque to taunt or clash with worshippers.

“There is caution and fear from everyone that Israeli settlers will try and provoke Palestinians. The Israeli government is against the Palestinian people,” said Rony, a 27-year-old Palestinian from occupied East Jerusalem.

A flashpoint?

Israeli police are controlled by Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right minister of national security. In February, he called for barring Palestinian residents in the West Bank from praying in the mosque during Ramadan.

Israeli officials later overrode his suggestion in an apparent attempt to maintain calm in Jerusalem, but did say they would impose some restrictions on “security grounds”.

Seidmann said Ben-Gvir could still spark chaos, even if he is commanding officers outside the compound.

“Just because Ben-Gvir is not influencing what happens at the gates of Al-Aqsa doesn’t mean that he won’t cause problems 200 or 300 metres [220 to 330 yards] away from the mosque,” he told Al Jazeera.

Any violence against Palestinian worshippers in East Jerusalem or the rest of the occupied West Bank could trigger mass unrest, warns Ibrahim Matar, a Christian Palestinian from occupied East Jerusalem.

He said Al-Aqsa is symbolic for all Palestinians and recalled how the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat walked away from the heavily criticised peace process in 2000, in part because Israel insisted on maintaining sovereignty over the mosque.

Two months later, Israel’s then-opposition leader Ariel Sharon stormed Al-Aqsa with more than 1,000 heavily armed policemen and soldiers. The move led to outrage which culminated in the second Intifada, a Palestinian uprising against Israel’s occupation, that lasted for five years.

Tens of thousands of Muslims pray near the Dome of the Rock in Al-Aqsa Mosque compound on April 17, 2023, 27 Ramadan, believed to be Laylat al-Qadr, one of the holiest nights during the month [Hazem Bader/AFP]

In the shadow of Israel’s war on Gaza, Matar believes that a similar move by the Israelis could set off another chapter of popular unrest.

“Al-Aqsa could be a flashpoint for another war,” he told Al Jazeera.

Under the shadow of war

Palestinian citizens of Israel and those in the occupied territory say the ongoing bloodshed in Gaza is hanging over everyone like a dark cloud.

US President Joe Biden has attempted to broker a truce in Gaza to retrieve Israeli captives still held by Hamas and calm tensions during Ramadan. But with prospects for a ceasefire looking slim, Rony believes the war will affect the situation between Palestinians and Israelis in Jerusalem.

He said many Palestinians are “dying inside” from watching scenes of the devastating war on television and social media. He also fears that Israeli officials or ministers will exploit their anger by harassing Palestinians in East Jerusalem.

“Most of us feel like we are in a house prison. [We feel] like we have to stay at home to avoid being hit or harassed [during Ramadan],” he told Al Jazeera

Matar agrees, adding that Gaza and Al-Aqsa have a symbiotic relationship. He recalled the short 11-day war between Hamas and Israel in 2021, which was triggered by Israel attacking worshippers in Al-Aqsa and evicting Palestinians from Sheikh Jarrah, a neighborhood in East Jerusalem. Similar unrest could unfold this Ramadan.

“If one part of Palestine is suffering, then every part of Palestine suffers,” Matar told Al Jazeera.

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The decision was reportedly made following pressure from far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and against the advice of security agencies who said this could cause the situation on the ground “to explode”.

Israel has already limited Muslim access to the holy site for prayers, in particular on Fridays, since 7 October. It now looks set to limit numbers during Ramadan.

Israel increases its attacks on Al-Aqsa during Ramadan, raiding the Muslim holy site as Muslims take part in night prayers.

While far right settler groups have previously called for incursions into Al-Aqsa ahead of Jewish holidays, including Passover which is due to be held at the end of April.

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While the open-air souk may be called the “vegetable market,” it is a bit of a misnomer as everything from fruits and vegetables to meats and fish and sweets are also sold there, stacked high and wide on large wooden tables with so many options available it overwhelms the eye.

Men and women go from stall to stall, asking each of them what they are charging for a kilogram of potatoes or tomatoes while teenagers wave 50,000 lira notes at sweet shops to buy desserts for the family to enjoy later that night once they have broken their fasts.

Despite the wide variety of foods available and iftar, the time when Muslims break their Ramadan fast following sunset, being only hours away, there was little actual buying being done.

The market remains one of the cheapest places for Tripoli’s residents to buy food from, but even there, prices have become unaffordable to many  Tripolitans, as the residents of Lebanon’s second largest city are referred to. The country’s economic crisis has gone into a tailspin since the start of the year, with the lira, Lebanon’s national currency, surpassing 100,000 to $1. The 100,000 lira note, the largest of Lebanon’s currency, was worth around $67 before the crisis started in October 2019.

Where many once bought kilograms of meat and vegetables that would feed a small family for a week, they now only buy small bags of vegetables and, if they can afford it, an even smaller bag of meat or chicken, but it is all too little to feed a family for just a few days.

“The situation as you can see, it’s horrible,” Mahmoud Nasrallah, 36, told NOW. “For example, you see a lady going to the souk carrying one million Lebanese Lira in her purse, given by her husband that went head over heels to earn this one million L.L, you see her buying groceries with this amount and leaving the market in tears because she just paid everything she has to get minimal stuff.”

Since the start of the crisis, Ramadan celebrations have become increasingly muted as purchasing power has depleted with the value of the lira and climbing inflation.

In a March 23 statement, the International Monetary Fund warned that Lebanon’s triple-digit inflation will continue to spiral in a never-ending cycle unless serious reforms are implemented, something that the country’s politicians have refused to do even as the crisis is well into its fourth year.

There is also little work available that pays a living wage.

Some are having to work multiple jobs just to cover basic expenses and take care of their families, others pull their children out of school so that they can add another breadwinner to the family. But with the worsening value of the lira and the rising prices, this is also becoming insufficient.

This is felt especially hard in Tripoli which, despite its stature as Lebanon’s “capital in the north,” is arguably also the country’s most neglected and impoverished city.

Even in once traditionally cheaper areas, such as the souk, buying large quantities of food is no longer an option; instead, people have to calculate how much they can buy to at least have some food in their stomachs as well as how much they can save for later in the month as prices could rise even further with the volatile lira rate seemingly rising and lowering at a whim.

In past years, if people needed something cheap to eat, they would cook potatoes, but with the price of oil reaching once unimaginable heights, even this can prove to be too much at times.

Meat, which can cost hundreds of thousands of lira, is not even an option for most.

“We are craving meat; it’s been ages since we had meat,” Nasrallah stated. “Even when we want to eat fries, we need to buy the potatoes and get oil to fry them, this alone costs more than 500,000 LL.”

During Ramadan, Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset, with many families in the past breaking their fasts with large meals,  dishes containing a plethora of vegetables, meats, grains and spices.

This is no longer the case, with meals now being much simpler and smaller with the most vulnerable managing what could only be charitably described as a meal.

“Ramadan is about being with the family and being closer to God. It is so nice to sit with the family after a long day of fasting at the dining table full of food that we crave, but, unfortunately, this is not the case anymore,” Nasrallah explained.

“I have seen people break their fast on a plate of fries, and dates. Nothing more. A whole family breaking their fast on this. These people are good people, they do not steal, or kill, etc. They are just good people who are praying for a better living.”

According to Nasrallah, a growing number of people are taking the slowly rotting fruits and vegetables that they find on the street in order to avoid having to spend the extra money to get fresh produce.

It is a tragedy, he exclaimed, cursing the country’s politicians for putting them in this situation and for doing nothing to help them in their time of need.

Nasrallah is unable to hold a steady job due to a physical disability, making his situation even more difficult.

Married for seven years, he and his family live in the attic of his family home as they are unable to afford any other living situation.

“I cannot even buy my daughter a bag of chips,” he said solemnly.

Coffee shops, once crowded and bustling with life after families have had their iftar meals, are also a shadow of their former selves.

The Mousa Coffee Shop in the Bab al-Raml neighborhood of Tripoli has long been a local favorite during Ramadan with the square, usually empty, filled with tables and seats where friends and families would sit for several hours together ordering coffees and tea and taking long tokes from their hookahs while talking and laughing with each other into the early hours of the following morning.

Previously, the coffee shop was packed with people, making it almost impossible to find a place to sit, but this year, a handful of tables that people once competed over remind empty.

For others, though, Ramadan has presented a brief opportunity for improving their situation and a chance to breathe a sigh of relief, no matter how brief it might be.

“Ramadan this year is better for me personally,” Wasif Habbib, a 36-year-old baker, told NOW. “Last year, I needed to hand out the food that I could not sell in the day, but this year I am selling all the food that I am making.”

Food undoubtedly plays a major role in Ramadan celebrations, with emphasis being put on family iftar meals where the gatherings traditionally see large table spreads of food.

Even with the ongoing economic crisis and the high prices, people continue to try to keep this tradition going to the best that they can.

One traditional staple is the tiny pastries that bakeries make that are covered in cheese, zaatar, small quantities of meat, or vegetables.

For Habbib, this means he is almost always able to sell his daily stock during the holy month rather than worrying whether or not it will go to waste.

Just on the outskirts of souk al-khodrat, Habib stands behind a small table where he has his selection of pastries displayed on large metal trays for people to choose from.

He is constantly moving around, grabbing a small plastic bag and putting a handful of the pastries in them as customers continue to come in a steady flow.

The economic crisis has been hard on him. He works alongside two other people and most of the money that he makes goes towards buying supplies to bake more pastries, leaving him with only around 100,000 lira at the end of the day.

Flour costs around $32, he says, while cheese can vary in price with some going for around $6 to $60, demanding a significant portion of his daily earnings.

“Before I used to put more money from my profit to cover the debt, now I’m buying wares from my profit,” Habbib stated. “I am barely receiving anything at the end. I am barely making it.”

Prior to the start of Ramadan, he almost always had dozens of pastries left over at the end of the day and he had to practically beg people to take them for free so that they would not go to waste in the trash, a dramatic shift from just a few years ago when many bakeries could barely keep up with the daily demand and when children might buy a dozen of the same types of pastries that Habbib sells before they went to school in the morning.

While business might be good now, he knows that it will not be permanent and is likely only a temporary reprieve from the daily struggles and frustration that he faced just two months before.

“After Ramadan, I do not know what to expect. I am living day by day. Maybe the dollar rate to Lebanese Lira would reach 150,00 LL. Who knows,” the baker said, shrugging at the unknown and potentially bleak future that awaits him.

Many small shop owners are sympathetic to their customer’s situations and do not want to charge exorbitant prices for the goods that they sell, but they also need to make a living so that they can feed their own families.

With the dollar rate constantly fluctuating every day, Habbib says that business owners are struggling just like everyone else.

Prices differ from store to store, with Habbib charging around 80,000 lira for his pastries while other shops may charge well over 100,000. But no matter what they charge, it is still never enough to cover all of their expenses, as whatever prices they set in the morning are quickly made redundant by the shifting in the lira’s value.

“We are just working to eat and drink. Not more,” he said. “If we need any medical help or care, it will not be possible to afford. We will die.”

Ramadan still has over two weeks remaining, and with the economic crisis in full swing , Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan, is widely expected to be just as quiet as the month that preceded it, with families having little other choice but to celebrate over smaller, humbler meals as they reminisce about the celebrations that they once enjoyed.

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UN Secretary-General António Guterres arrives in Niamey, Niger, on a 
three-nation tour of West Africa., by UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

© FAO/Giulio Napolitano
Women in Niger prepare fields for the rainy season as part of an 
anti-desertification initiative.

© UNICEF/Frank Dejongh
The UN needs to match the hopes of young Nigeriens.

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The study, published on Thursday in the peer-reviewed Journal of Global Health, said there was no evidence to suggest that British Muslims who observed the holy month were more likely to die from a coronavirus infection.

During Ramadan, which lasts about four weeks, Muslims across the world abstain from eating food and do not drink anything from dawn until sunset.

There are more than three million Muslims in the UK, about five percent of the population, and most have South Asian origins.

Many Muslim communities have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic, along with other minority groups.

“Our findings suggest that the practices associated with Ramadan did not have detrimental effects on COVID-19 deaths,” the report said.

“There has been much commentary suggesting that the behaviours and cultural practices of minority communities explain their increased exposure to the pandemic,” it added, alluding to suggestions by some UK commentators last year that there could be a “spike” in infections during Ramadan.

“These claims are not evidence based. Rather, they are unhelpful distractions from inequalities in the social determinants of health, particularly inequalities in living and working conditions, that have been key drivers of health inequalities for all socially disadvantaged groups prior to as well as during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Fasting did not have a ‘detrimental effect’

The report was based on a comparative analysis of COVID-19 mortality rates during last year’s Ramadan, which began on April 23, shortly after the first wave of the pandemic peaked in the UK.

Usual festivities and communal prayers at mosques were canceled during the month, in line with a nationwide lockdown.

Researchers analysed death rates in more than a dozen local authority areas in England where the Muslim population was at least 20 percent.

They found that deaths fell steadily in these areas during the Ramadan period.

Furthermore, this trend continued post-Ramadan, the report said, “suggesting that there was no lagged detrimental effect of fasting in the Muslim areas”.

Salman Waqar, who co-authored the study, told Al Jazeera the findings suggest Ramadan did not have “detrimental effects” on COVID-19 outcomes, and contradicted comments from some politicians and other commentators that “certain communities, in particular, Muslims” were responsible for rises in cases last year.

The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), the UK’s largest Muslim umbrella body, meanwhile said the report disproved negative assumptions – largely perpetuated by the far right – that Muslims would break lockdown rules in Ramadan and cause a spike in infections.

Such perceptions were “steeped in prejudice”, designed to scapegoat Muslim communities, and distract from the “wider structural health inequalities” that they and other marginalised groups face, Omar Begg, MCB spokesman, told Al Jazeera.

Hope for a Ramadan ‘free from assumptions’

The report on Thursday came less than two weeks before this year’s Ramadan is scheduled to begin on April 13.

“We hope this Ramadan will be free from … assumptions, and that pragmatic actions are taken at a policy level to address the causes of the inequalities the pandemic has spotlighted,” Begg said.

Many of the world’s 1.8 billion Muslims fast during Ramadan. Some, such as those who are unable to because of health reasons, or children, are exempt.

Waqar called on British Muslims to “take every precaution” during this year’s holy month, despite an easing of England’s lockdown and a drop-off in infection rates, bolstered by a rapid mass vaccination campaign.

“This is especially [important] considering the disproportionate impact that Muslim communities have endured in terms of COVID cases and deaths, but also in vaccine uptake,” Waqar said, referencing a sense of vaccine hesitancy among some Muslims and other minorities in the UK.

At the time of publishing, the UK’s Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) had not responded to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.

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