For third year in a row, Israel blocks Hajj pilgrimage for Gaza Muslims
Key takeaways
- As millions of Muslims gather in Mecca, Palestinians in Gaza face a third year of heartbreak as Israel has shut the border.
- xwhatsapp-strokecopylinkgoogle Add Al Jazeera on Googleinfo Hanan al-Hams, 65, sits in a makeshift tent pitched over the ruins of her home in northern Gaza.
- “I lost my son, my home was destroyed, and now I am deprived of the journey I waited decades for,” al-Hams, 65, told Al Jazeera, sitting inside a makeshift tent pitched over the ruins of her home in northern Gaza.
Why this matters: an international story with cross-border implications worth tracking.
As millions of Muslims gather in Mecca, Palestinians in Gaza face a third year of heartbreak as Israel has shut the border.
xwhatsapp-strokecopylinkgoogle Add Al Jazeera on Googleinfo Hanan al-Hams, 65, sits in a makeshift tent pitched over the ruins of her home in northern Gaza. She was selected to perform Hajj in 2024 before the Israeli war shattered her lifelong dream [Al Jazeera]By Al Jazeera Staff Published On 24 May 202624 May 2026Hanan al-Hams was among the 3,000 Palestinians from Gaza scheduled to travel for the annual pilgrimage to Mecca in 2024. But her lifelong dream to perform Hajj, one of the five pillars of Islam, was shattered by Israel’s war on Gaza, launched on October 7, 2024.
“I lost my son, my home was destroyed, and now I am deprived of the journey I waited decades for,” al-Hams, 65, told Al Jazeera, sitting inside a makeshift tent pitched over the ruins of her home in northern Gaza.