Every home is missing someone, every person is carrying grief. We went not to celebrate but to sit with the bereaved

Eid al-Fitr is meant to bring release. It comes at the end of Ramadan, after a month of fasting and prayer, and in Gaza it has always carried its own kind of joy. The day begins with prayer. Men and boys gather in clean clothes, neighbours congratulate one another, friends embrace, and supplications rise with the first light. Families return home for breakfast, then begin the long round of visits to sisters, daughters, aunts, uncles and neighbours. Children wait for eidiya, the money given to younger relatives. Coffee is poured, sweets are shared and doors remain open.

This year, the rituals remained. The feeling had gone.

Under the shadow of war in the Middle East, Muslim worshippers around the world unite to celebrate the breaking of the fast

Palestinians say the move is part of a wider Israeli strategy to leverage security tensions to tighten restrictions

For the first time since 1967, al-Aqsa mosque – Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site – was closed at the end of Ramadan on Friday, with tensions rising among Palestinians as Israeli authorities keep the complex shut, forcing worshippers to hold Eid prayers as close as they could to the sealed site.

On Friday morning, hundreds of worshippers were forced to pray outside the Old City, as Israeli police barricaded the entrances to the site.