The faith of Gaza’s people… a message of faith that is hard to forget The story of Gaza is written in lines of patience, its title: a great people

Amid the destruction surrounding them from every side, Palestinians in Khan Younis stood shoulder to shoulder near the displacement tents, performing the Friday prayer on the ruins of Al-Albani Mosque, which was destroyed by airstrikes — a scene in which a few prayer movements summed up what words failed to describe of pain and steadfastness.

The place was not a mosque with standing walls, but an open space beneath the sky, filled with hearts still holding on to God as the last fortress the war has not been able to destroy.

Stories of loss and unbreakable patience

Under tents that protect neither from the cold of winter nor the heat of summer, worshippers carried their stories of loss on their shoulders and stood in a single row, as if pain itself had become their imam in prayer. Here, faith is not measured by the height of minarets, but by people’s ability to prostrate on the rubble and by their insistence that the sound of supplication remains louder than the roar of aircraft.

In Khan Younis, Friday prayer was not merely a ritual, but a silent message saying that patience is still alive in hearts, and that willpower has not been broken despite the rising numbers of the dead day after day. Every bow was a promise to remain, and every prostration was a declaration that the Palestinian spirit is stronger than fear and tougher than attempts of uprooting.

Clinging to faith

Families cling to their faith the way children cling to their mothers’ hands during long nights of bombardment. Between one tent and another, a hidden strength is born, giving them the ability to go on with life and to stand up again after every blow, as if prayer had turned into a force of survival that repairs what the war has broken inside.

In the midst of this harsh scene, Palestinians write — on the ruins of Al-Albani Mosque — a new lesson in patience and determination: that faith does not need walls to live, nor a roof to protect it, but hearts that know the road to salvation begins with prostration, and that remaining is an act of resistance no less honorable than any other form of steadfastness.