'All I think about is Gaza': War weighs heavy on haj pilgrims
AWAY from home in Gaza, Palestinian pilgrim Mohammed Shehade said the rare chance he was given to perform haj is overshadowed by fears for his family trapped in the war-battered territory.
The 38-year-old engineer had been granted a permit to leave as he sought life-saving cancer treatment in Egypt, but Israeli authorities barred his family from accompanying him.
He said his departure from the Gaza Strip in February presented him with "the opportunity of a lifetime" to apply for the annual Muslim pilgrimage, which begins on Wednesday.
But even as he visited the holy sites in the Saudi city of Mecca, his heart was heavy with thoughts of his wife and four children stuck in Gaza under relentless bombardment.
"This is life's greatest suffering, to be far away from your family," Shehade told AFP on a roadside leading to Mecca's Grand Mosque.
He is among hundreds of Gazans set to perform Islam's holiest rites alongside more than a million worshippers from across the globe.
As pilgrims robed in white filed by, Shehade said he had been praying day and night for the Gaza war to end and to be reunited with his family.
"You could be in the best place in the world but if you are away from your family, you will never be happy," he said.
Israel has relentlessly attacked Gaza since resistance group Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on October 7, 2023, stopping the blistering military offensive only during two short-lived truces.
Leaving Gaza has become practically impossible for most inhabitants, but some like Shehade have been evacuated on medical grounds.
"Here I am preparing to perform haj but there are things I can't speak about. If I do I will cry," he said as tears began to form in his eyes.
Shehade left Gaza during a truce, but Israel has since renewed its intense bombing campaign and blocked aid deliveries, with the United Nations warning of widespread famine.
"When I left I was caught between two fires," Shehade said of the choice to travel for an essential surgery and leave his family behind.
The Gaza health ministry said on Sunday that at least 4,149 people have been killed in the territory since Israel resumed its offensive on March 18, taking the war's overall deaths toll to 54,418, mostly civilians.
Hamas's 2023 attack that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, also mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
US President Donald Trump said Friday that a new ceasefire deal was "very close", but the negotiations have appeared to hit another dead end.
Disillusioned after over a year and a half of failed talks, Shehade said he has "grown scared of being optimistic and becoming disappointed once more."
About 1,350 Gazans mostly residing in Egypt, in addition to another 500 who have been invited as guests of the Saudi king, are set to perform haj this year, Palestinian officials said.
One Gazan pilgrim, Rajaee Rajeh al-Kahlout, 48, fled the Palestinian territory for Egypt with his four children and his wife seven months after war erupted.
His home was destroyed and his import-export business shattered.
While haj is normally a source of joy, Kahlout said it was impossible for him to think of celebrations.
"All my family, my sisters and brothers, are still in Gaza... Every waking moment, we fear for our family," he told AFP, calling on pilgrims to pray for the war to end and loved ones to be reunited once more.
"I wish I could have come here during better times, without war, death and destruction."
The haj, one of the five pillars of Islam, must be completed by all Muslims with the means at least once.
Official permits are allocated to countries through a quota system and distributed to individuals via a lottery.
In the lobby of the Al-Nuzha Plus hotel in Mecca, where Gazan pilgrims are staying, a widow in her 60s told AFP she had not seen her 10 children since she was evacuated for medical reasons last year.
She said she was praying for "the children of Palestine" suffering from starvation and conflict.
"All I think about is Gaza, my whole life is there: my children, my home... I want to return."
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