Muslims in most parts of the world began celebrating on Sunday the Eid al-Adha festival in the shadow of the devastating war in the Gaza Strip.
The major four-day holiday, which falls in the month of the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, is based on Islam's lunar calendar.
In a sermon marking Eid, a preacher at Islam's holiest mosque in Mecca voiced support for Palestinians.
"This Eid does not make us forget our helpless brothers and our bereft loved ones in Palestine," Sheikh Abdel-Rahman al-Sudais, a senior Saudi religious official and cleric, told worshippers at the Grand Mosque in Mecca. Saudi Arabia is Islam's birthplace.
"Oh God, save al-Aqsa Mosque from aggression and the occupying Zionists' injustice," al-Sudais added in a televised sermon, referring to Islam's third holiest mosque in Jerusalem.
The Noble Sanctuary or al-Haram al-Sharif in Arabic, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, contains the holy Islamic sites of al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock shrine.
Al-Sudais' rhetoric comes as the United States, a traditional ally of Saudi Arabia, is pushing for a normalization deal between Riyadh and Israel.
Israel has been bombarding Gaza for months, since Hamas militants launched unprecedented attacks on Israel in October last year that included massacres of civilians.
Footage from Gaza showed Muslim worshippers performing the Eid prayers amid the rubble of their destroyed houses.
On the first day of Eid al-Adha, or the Feast of Sacrifice, believers gather early in the morning for prayers in mosques.
During the Eid, Muslims also honour the willingness of the prophet Ibrahim (Abraham) to sacrifice his son to prove his faith to God.
Sheep are commonly chosen as the sacrificial animal, part of which is given to the poor.