Palestinian school girls walk past a destroyed building following an Israeli missile strike in the Rafah Refugee Camp.

GAZA CITY — As the fasting month of Ramadan draws to an end and people look ahead to the `Eid Al-Fitr holiday that follows, there is little thought of feasting in the occupied Palestinian territories, except to look back fondly to `Eids gone past.

In Gaza City's Firas market the stalls are laden with gift items and toys, fireworks and new clothes, cooking utensils and fish, as people crowd around, looking, touching and walking on.

Amid the din of shopkeepers hawking their wares over loudspeakers, Abdulkarim says "people are coming, but they're not buying ... They don't have any money."

"I only get paid 1,500 shekels (360 dollars, 280 euros) and I have a family of 10," says this member of the Palestinian presidential guard who has come to the market with his two children.

"This year, there will be no presents."

Abdulkarim is one of the 170,000 civil servants in the Palestinian territories who have not been properly paid after the West punished the Palestinians for their democratic choice of Hamas in the last parliamentary elections.

The United States and European Union cut off vital financial aid to the Palestinians.

The crisis, which spreads across the economy, is compounded by Israel's freezing of millions of dollars a month in customs revenues it collects on behalf of the Palestinians.

It is not just a shortage of cash that promises to put a damper on one of the two major holidays in the Muslim calendar.

The territories are also plagued by a wave of deadly internecine fighting, pitting Hamas partisans against those of the former ruling party Fatah.

At the same time, scores of people have been killed in a four-month campaign seen by the Palestinians as a bid to topple their government.

No Joy

Eid marks the end of Ramadan, a month in which the devout take no food or drink from dawn to dusk.

After special prayers to mark the day, festivities and merriment traditionally start with visits to the homes of friends and relatives.

Traditionally, everyone wears new clothes for `Eid, and the children look forward to gifts and the traditional `ediya (cash).

But it won't be a joyful Eid for Umm Iyad, 37, whose husband is out of work and who has a family of 10.

"The feast costs a lot, and I don't have enough money," she says. "I feel sad when my children come to me every day and ask me to buy some new clothes. But the money I have is just enough to feed them."

Her seven-year-old daughter Aida is philosophical about it.

"I would like to have new clothes like other children, but I think that I will wear for the feast the clothes some neighbours gave to my mother."

Umm Iyad tries to put a brave face on it.

"The only thing we can do is rely on God and hope things will be better tomorrow. But I'm not very optimistic for the future."

At a nearby stall of colorful toys, Hassam Kalussa, 35, picks out a plastic car for two shekels, that he will give to one of his children.

"I have to buy toys for the children," he says. "In past years, I would give them something like 100 shekels worth of gifts. This year it won't be even 40," says the employee of a telecoms firm.

"We hope that each year Eid will be a better one. But today, the joy has gone. This might be the most difficult holiday we've had in many years."