Friday marked the beginning of the hajj pilgrimage for over a million Muslims, who traveled to Mecca in the sweltering summer heat and against the somber backdrop of the Gaza conflict.
Eight months into the Israel-Hamas conflict, throngs of robed worshippers will round the Kaaba, the black cubic edifice at Mecca’s Grand Mosque, many of whom will be expressing anguish.
“Our brothers are dying, and we can see it with our own eyes,” a tearful 75-year-old Zahra Benizahra from Morocco told AFP.
The majority Muslim country in the world, Indonesia, is home to Belinda Elham, who declared that she would “pray every day so that what’s happening in Palestine ends”.
Hamas’s unprecedented onslaught on southern Israel on October 7 set off the Gaza war. An AFP tally based on Israeli official data showed that 1,194 persons died in the strike, the majority of them were civilians.
251 captives were also taken by the militants. Of them, 41 are reportedly dead, but 116 are still in Gaza, according to the army.
Israel in response has carried out a military offensive in Gaza that has left at least 37,232 people dead, also mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory.
King Salman of Saudi Arabia said on Monday that 1,000 pilgrims “from the families of martyrs and the wounded from the Gaza Strip” would be hosted during this year’s hajj, increasing the total number of Palestinian pilgrims to receive this unique honor to 2,000, according the official Saudi Press Agency.
Tawfiq al-Rabiah, the minister of the Gulf monarchy in charge of religious pilgrimages, issued a warning last week stating that “no political activity” will be allowed, though it was unclear how pilgrims might show their support for the Palestinian cause.
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