Gaza food kitchens still missing essential products despite ceasefire

BBC:

Garlic simmers in huge metal pots heated over open wood fires and set up in a long line.

Cooks add canned tomatoes and peppers with handfuls of spices, stirring the sauce with giant spoons.

What is being prepared here is not just lunch, it is a lifeline.

American Near East Refugee Aid (Anera) opened this community kitchen in al-Zawayda in central Gaza after the ceasefire began six weeks ago.

The US humanitarian organisation has another kitchen in al-Mawasi in the south of the strip, which the BBC visited in early May.

Back then, two months into an Israeli blockade, preventing the entry of all food and other goods, stocks were dwindling.

Now, with more food allowed to enter, the situation has improved.

Each day, Anera feeds a hot meal to more than 20,000 people.

“We have moved from using 15 pots in the past, and now we increased to up to 120 pots in a day, targeting more than 30 internally displaced people’s camps,” says team leader Sami Matar. “We’re serving more than 4,000 families compared to just 900 families six months ago.”

Access to food has been a constant concern since the start of the war in October 2023, with Israel heavily restricting supplies allowed through Gaza’s crossings.

This has exacerbated the dire humanitarian situation. Famine was confirmed in Gaza City in August and projected to spread to other areas of the strip.

The UN continues to call for more aid to be allowed in.