Every year since his marriage in 1992, Mohammed Abu Saqr woke before sunrise on the first day of Eid Al Adha, gathered his family and headed to a farm to choose a sacrificial animal. After the slaughter, the meat would be divided carefully and distributed among relatives, neighbours and friends.
For Mr Abu Saqr, 53, the ritual was not only religious – it was social, emotional and deeply tied to the meaning of family.
“I cannot remember a single year when I missed it,” he told The National. “It was a commitment and a tradition we all loved.”
But Eid Al Adha this year will be the third in a row in which his family and countless others across Gaza will be unable to offer a sacrifice.
The livestock once found on Gaza’s farms and in markets have nearly disappeared after two years of war in which the Israeli military destroyed much of the coastal enclave and left most of its two million inhabitants homeless and living in tents.
Before the war, a sheep cost around 1,300 shekels ($350). Today, the price can exceed 15,000 shekels, according to livestock breeder Mohammed Abu Zayed. For larger sacrificial animals, prices have risen even higher.
Once one of Gaza’s most joyful religious celebrations, Eid Al Adha has become another painful reminder of how the war has transformed daily life in the coastal strip.
Despite a ceasefire that began in October, little has changed. Israel still occupies more than half of Gaza's territory, continues to carry out attacks, and prevents the free entry of food, including livestock, and other essentials.
“The joy of Eid Al Adha is in the sacrifice itself,” said Ayman Abu Al Qumsan, a 35-year-old father of three from the Al Nasr neighbourhood in Gaza city. “Without it, there is no real Eid.”
Before the war, Mr Abu Al Qumsan’s children loved going with him to farms to see the sheep and watch the preparations for the sacrifice. Now they keep asking when they will celebrate as they did before the war.
“They ask me, ‘Dad, aren’t we going to sacrifice this year like before? When will the war end?'” he said. “We have been stripped of the rituals and traditions we were raised with.”
Even if meat becomes available, storing it is a challenge. Electricity to run refrigerators is erratic, and fuel for generators is in short supply and expensive.
“If someone sacrifices an animal and distributes meat, people are forced to use it the same day,” Mr Abu Al Qumsan said. “There is no way to preserve it for even one additional day.”
Israel has prevented the entry of cattle and sheep into Gaza since the beginning of the war, according to Ismail Al Thawabta, spokesman for Gaza’s Government Media Office.
“The essential element connected to the religious ritual, the sacrificial animals themselves, is almost entirely absent from the markets,” he said. While a few home-grown animals are available, their number does not come close to meeting residents' needs, he said.
Mohammed Abu Odeh, spokesman for Gaza’s Ministry of Agriculture, said more than 500 cattle, sheep and poultry farms were destroyed during the war. He said animal deaths reached unprecedented levels because of shortages of feed, water and veterinary medicine, alongside disease outbreaks and the destruction of shelters.
Before the war, Gaza imported between 10,000 and 12,000 head of cattle annually, rising to 17,000 in 2023. The territory also received between 30,000 and 40,000 sheep every year.
For livestock breeders like Mr Abu Zayed, the collapse has been devastating. “The occupation destroyed the entire agricultural and livestock sector,” he told The National. “Most people working in it were economically devastated.”
Eid Al Adha was once the busiest and most profitable season for livestock traders. Markets would fill with families inspecting sheep while children played between the pens. Now those same markets stand nearly empty.
“What used to be a season of income became a burden,” Mr Abu Zayed said. “Whenever we remember how Eid was before the war, it becomes a source of sorrow.”
The rituals surrounding Eid made it a time of generosity and social connection. Meat from sacrificial animals was shared among neighbours, families visited each other and children associated the holiday with excitement and abundance. Today, that atmosphere has been replaced by displacement camps and destroyed neighbourhoods.
Mr Abu Saqr now lives in a tent near the ruins of his home in Sheikh Radwan. Like many Gazans, he speaks less about missing meat than about missing what the sacrifice ritual represented: dignity, continuity and the feeling of being able to provide for family and community.
“Our lives used to be joyful,” he said. “Today, they have lost their meaning.”
