When will Eid Come Back Again?

Title: “Mama, Why Didn’t Eid Come?” – A Cry from the Rubble of Lebanon

The night before Eid should have been magical.

New clothes laid out. Sweet maamoul waiting on trays. Children whispering excitedly about the gifts they’d receive and the visits they’d make.

But this year, Eid didn’t come to us.

It was stolen—in the blink of a missile, in the breath between peace and pain.

The skies over Beirut and the South weren’t filled with moonlight and prayers. They were ablaze with fire. Israeli airstrikes rained down as families clutched each other under crumbling roofs. Buildings collapsed. Streets we once danced in became graveyards of dust and silence.

I heard a boy, maybe seven, covered in ash, ask his mother:

“Mama, did Eid forget our house?”

A little girl in a torn dress, holding a single sandal in her hand, whispered to me:

“I was going to wear pink. Do you think God still saw me in the dark?”

Their questions pierced through me deeper than any explosion ever could.

One child—curled in a corner of a shelter, rocking back and forth—looked at the flickering candlelight and said:

“I think the moon is scared to come tonight.”

How do we answer them?

How do we explain that while the world prepared for celebration, we were counting the dead? That while some families exchanged gifts, others dug graves for the ones they loved? That their innocence was shattered because the world chose silence?

The truth is, we cannot afford silence anymore.

These are not just airstrikes. They are stolen birthdays. Shattered memories. Interrupted childhoods.

And every child who asks, “Why didn’t Eid come to me?” is asking all of us.

To the world: if you are reading this, please don’t look away.

Their voices are soft, but their pain is thunder.

Share their questions. Amplify their cries. Stand with Lebanon’s children.

We must not allow another Eid to be wrapped in grief instead of joy.

Because every child deserves to wake up to light, not loss.

With all my tears and strength,

Hawraa Ghandour

Lebanon