STORY: ::This Gazan woman hopes to bring joy to her children
by making colorful Ramadan lanterns out of aid cartons
::Khan Younis, Gaza
::Rihan Sharab, Crafter
“Lanterns are a joy for children. I mean, as soon as Ramadan approaches: ‘we want decorations, we want lanterns’. The thing they think about most is lanterns. So, in the situation we’re living in, we try to relieve them of the pressures they’ve been through. I mean, we left our home, our home is gone. We’ve lived in a tent during many difficult days and the weather has been wintery, so we try as much as possible to relieve our children of the pressures they experienced. We try to make them live, that is, despite the difficulties, we try to make them live the normal life that they were accustomed to in the past years.”
::February 27, 2025
Sharab, a 38-year-old resident of Khan Younis in Gaza, creates the lanterns in a makeshift tent next to the ruins of their family home. The lack of raw materials and electricity makes the task challenging, and she is only able to work when the sun is up.
She is also selling them, at affordable prices as demand is limited, with Palestinians in Gaza struggling to even get basic necessities.
Sharab expressed her hopes for the end of the war on Gaza, saying, “We are not asking for anything more than the life we were living.”
Fighting in Gaza has been halted since January 19 under a ceasefire arranged with U.S. support and Qatari and Egyptian mediators. But uncertainty looms over the enclave, as the first phase of the truce has expired and Hamas and Israel, which has blocked the entry of aid trucks into Gaza, remain far apart on broader issues including the postwar governance of Gaza and the future of Hamas itself.
