Dozens of community kitchens in Gaza shut their doors yesterday due to a lack of supplies, closing off a lifeline used by hundreds of thousands of people in a further blow to efforts to combat growing hunger in the enclave.
The move followed hours after the US-based World Central Kitchen (WCK) charity announced that it had run out of the ingredients necessary to provide much-needed free meals and had been prevented by Israel from bringing in aid.
Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations Network (PNGO) director in Gaza Amjad Al Shawa told Reuters that most of the enclave’s 170 community kitchens had shut down after running out of stock due to Israel’s continued blockade on Gaza.
Shawa said the decision by the WCK, announced late on Wednesday, and the closure of community kitchens yesterday would cause a drop of between 400,000 to 500,000 free meals per day for the 2.3 million population.
“Everyone in Gaza today is hungry. The world must act now to save the people here,” said Shawa, speaking to Reuters by phone from Gaza.
“The remaining kitchens will be closing soon. The hunger catastrophe is beyond words. People are losing their lone source of food,” Shawa added.
Those Gazans trying to cook independently meanwhile complain that flour still available on the market is contaminated.
“The flour is full of mites and sand ... We sieve it three-four times, instead of once, so we can bake it,” said Mohammad Abu Ayesh, a displaced father of nine from northern Gaza.
Yesterday, the Gaza health ministry said Israeli military strikes across the enclave killed at least 105 people in the past 24 hours, in one of the biggest death tolls in a single day in two months. It added that more than 52,700 people have been killed by Israel since the war began on October 7, 2023.
“We don’t want to eat from it, but we feed the children, for the children. You can’t tolerate its smell, cattle and animals would not eat it, we are forced to eat it against our will, we are helpless,” he told Reuters.
Israel has faced growing international pressure to lift an aid blockade that it imposed in March after the collapse of a US-backed ceasefire that had halted fighting for two months.
Meanwhile, Hamas says it was engaged in “fierce fighting” with Israeli soldiers yesterday in the south of the Gaza Strip near Rafah.
The statement, issued on Telegram, suggests that Hamas is still active in areas where the Israeli military has expanded its control, more than 19 months after the start of Israel’s air and ground campaign in Gaza.
In a later statement, it said fighters ambushed an Israeli 12-man force inside a house in the Tanur neighbourhood in the eastern Rafah area with two anti-personnel and anti-armour rockets, killing and wounding several soldiers.
There was no immediate Israeli comment on the Hamas claim.
The group has rarely reported fighting around Rafah in recent months, with most clashes reported in the eastern area of the nearby city of Khan Younis and northern parts of the coastal territory.
Israel said earlier this month it would further extend its offensive in Gaza.
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