GAZA, (PIC)
The prayer garment in the Gaza Strip is no longer merely an item of clothing women wear while performing their prayers. Amid the continuing genocide, it has become part of everyday life and a constant companion that rarely leaves their shoulders.
Across Gaza’s neighborhoods, displacement centers and tent camps, the scene is hard to miss. Women sit for long hours in prayer garments. Others prepare food or arrange sleeping areas while wearing the same clothing. Some carry their children or stand in lines for water and aid dressed in it.
This shift is not linked solely to religious practice. It has been imposed by the conditions of the Israeli assault and the constant fear of bombardment or sudden displacement.
Readiness to evacuate
“We now sleep in our prayer garments and wake up in them,” said Um Mohammed, a displaced woman from northern Gaza. “At any moment, we may be ordered to evacuate or nearby bombardment may begin. There is no longer any time to prepare or change clothes.”
Speaking to the PIC correspondent while arranging blankets inside her tent, she added, “Before the war, I wore the prayer garment only when I prayed. Today, I feel that it has become part of me. It gives me a sense of being properly covered if we are suddenly forced to leave.”
At a shelter center in Al-Mawasi, Khan Yunis, women sit side by side on modest mattresses. Their colors and appearances resemble one another, as though prayer garments have become a uniform imposed by the war on everyone.
“The war has changed every detail of our lives,” said Um Ahmed, a mother of five. “There is no longer the privacy we once had. We live among hundreds of people, and the prayer garment has become the easiest way to feel some degree of comfort and privacy.”
The phenomenon is not limited to shelters and tents. Even inside homes that remain standing, many women keep their prayer garments close at all times in anticipation of an emergency. Changes imposed by the war
Social researcher Maram Al-Azayza said the spread of the practice reflects the scale of the psychological and social changes the genocide has imposed on women.
“The prayer garment is no longer simply a piece of clothing,” she explained. “It has become a means of adapting to the fear and uncertainty women experience every day. It is a response to a reality that forces people to remain prepared to leave at any moment.”
In Gaza, where the sound of aircraft has become intertwined with the details of daily life, many women have come to associate the prayer garment with psychological security.
Amid fear of bombardment, repeated displacement and the loss of privacy, they have found in it something resembling a protective covering that accompanies them through their long journey of steadfastness.
Um Mohammed perhaps summed up the entire scene in a short sentence as she looked at her children sitting inside the tent.
“We no longer know when we will return to our normal lives,” she said. “But we have become accustomed to being ready for anything, even while wearing our prayer garments all day.”