As Ramadan approaches, with its solemnity of spiritual abstention and fasting, and the anticipation of nightly feasting, I feel a stone in the pit of my belly.

Or perhaps it’s a boulder that is weighing me down with this dull, leaden dread, this unshakeable guilt and this feeling of deep inadequacy and shame.

How can I sit down at a table laden with steaming soup, bowls piled with fresh tabbouleh and fattoush, succulent meat and rice dishes, when my family and loved ones in Gaza find no respite from their imposed starvation?

Will my first bite of a date – the fruit that Muslims traditionally consume to break their sunrise-to-sunset fast – taste bitter this year, infused with the unworthiness I feel to be sating my hunger while in northern Gaza families have resorted to eating grass and bread made from ground animal fodder just to survive?

How can I look around the Iftar table at the faces of my family and friends when Palestinian communities, kinship groups on the other side of the planet but so painfully close to my heart, are being shattered by shrapnel and terror?

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