How can I sit down for a Ramadan feast while my loved ones in Gaza find no respite from their imposed starvation?

‘How can I look around the Iftar table at the faces of my family and friends when Palestinian communities are being shattered by shrapnel and terror?’ Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

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.