Global Courant
Khan Younis, Gaza – On the sidewalk outside Jamil Abu Assi’s house in the southern Gaza town of Bani Suhaila, east of Khan Younis, the 31-year-old and his cousins are busy cooking large cauldrons of food.
Abu Assi once cooked home meals based on people’s requests. But after an Israeli airstrike destroyed his kitchen during Israel’s 2014 offensive on the Gaza Strip, he switched gears.
His family still cooks, but now specifically for the purpose of helping people displaced by the Israeli attacks and siege of Gaza. It is a mission that is being tested like never before.
According to the United Nations, one million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have been internally displaced since Israel began bombing the area on October 7. The total population of the blockaded enclave is 2.3 million. Many have moved south of the Strip after repeated warnings from the Israeli army to leave the north.
Every day the family cooks 2,000 meals that will feed some of those who have arrived in Khan Younis, growing the southern city’s population from about 220,000 in 2021 to more than half a million.
“I start my morning looking for wood because we don’t have cooking gas,” he told Al Jazeera, referring to the complete blockade of fuel supplies to Gaza that Israel has enforced since October 7. But some days getting wood is risky, he said. , given the city’s proximity to the border with Israel. On Sunday, the Palestinian armed group Hamas – which rules the Gaza Strip – said it had pushed back an attempted Israeli attack on the Khan Younis area in which an Israeli soldier was killed.
“I don’t want to endanger myself,” Abu Assi said.
Yaser Abu Assi cooks rice mainly with lentils and freekeh, because meat has become scarce due to the closure of butcher shops (Yaser Qudeih/Al Jazeera)
‘We try to do our part’
Abu Assi and his cousins have divided their roles to be more efficient. One person is in charge of chopping onions, another of adding ingredients and stirring the pot, and a third of wrapping and packaging the meals.
Most meals consist of rice, lentils and freekeh, a grain prepared by roasting green grain. Meat used to be a staple but is now harder to come by as many butchers have closed their shops after being damaged by Israeli bombs and a lack of supplies.
Many Palestinians who have moved to southern Gaza have sought shelter in schools run by the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) – the UN agency for Palestinian refugees – in the belief that these are relatively safer places. Others stay in cramped conditions with host families and communities. Some left the north with only the clothes on their backs, others with small backpacks.
“The schools can hardly be called places of refuge,” he said. “They are cemeteries for the living, without the basic necessities of life. We are trying to do our part, no matter how small, to alleviate this crisis for the people.”
Israel’s devastating bombing campaign followed a surprise Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7, which killed 1,400 people. The Israeli bombardment of Gaza has since flattened entire neighborhoods and killed more than 4,600 Palestinians in 16 days, including 1,873 children and 1,023 women.
But for Abu Assi – as for the Palestinians in Gaza, Israel and the occupied West Bank – the latest aggression is just a reminder of a personal history.
At least 2,000 meals are prepared every day (Yaser Qudeih/Al Jazeera)
‘Beautiful social solidarity’
Abu Assi is a third-generation refugee originally from Jaffa, where his grandparents were displaced in 1948 during what Palestinians call the Nakba. More than 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly expelled from their land and homes, some 500 towns and villages were destroyed and thousands were killed in a process of ethnic cleansing carried out by Jewish militias and the army of the then nascent Israeli state.
“Our grandfather told us that it is very difficult to be a refugee, and that this bitterness will never be forgotten and will be passed on to every generation,” Abu Assi recalled. “The pain in our hearts will never make us forgive Israel for what it has done and continues to do to us.”
The children affected by the war this time will never be able to forget surviving without food, water or electricity, he said.
But amid the terror and trauma of rockets and siege, a community has come together. Some people have approached the Abu Assi family to see if they could also donate food to displaced Palestinians.
“There is a beautiful social solidarity in the city of Khan Younis,” Abu Assi said. “We cannot accept that hungry people cannot find food, so there is organic collaboration to ensure this initiative continues to function.”
The Abu Assi family starts the meal and cooking preparations at 7am and ends at 2pm (Yaser Qudeih/Al Jazeera)
‘Feel safe among people’
To meet the food needs of the growing displaced population that Khan Younis is sheltering, Abu Assi has increased the number of cooking burners and divided the work between two teams.
Meal preparation starts at 7am and cooking continues until 2pm.
“We cannot leave our workplaces, but we have told those who need food to come from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m.,” Abu Assi said.
“Some citizens are volunteering to distribute meals in their cars to the displaced, which is a kind gesture as many of the displaced have no means of transportation and do not know the area very well.”
Some families are even grateful for rice – often their only meal of the day.
Karama Musallam, a 40-year-old mother of five, was looking for food when she came across the Abu Assi family.
Her family, including her 80-year-old mother-in-law, fled their home in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoon at the start of the war. They stay at the UNRWA school in Bani Suhaila.
Musallam knows no one and has no family in and around Khan Younis.
“When I went looking for food, I found these young men cooking and they gave me two meals so there would be enough for my children,” she said.
“They told me I could come every day and take whatever meals were available,” she added. “That’s why I felt safe among people.”
“We are all one community.”
Palestinian volunteers help distribute meals to displaced people living in UNRWA schools in Khan Younis (Yaser Qudeih/Al Jazeera)
