“We cannot cook without fuel”: Community kitchen run by ActionAid partner forced to close as total blockade on aid entering Gaza continues

A community kitchen run by ActionAid’s partner in Gaza has been forced to stop its operations due to a shortage of cooking fuel, as the total blockade on aid entering Gaza persists into a fourth week and intense attacks by the Israeli military continue.  
 
Staff at Wefaq Association for Women and Childcare (WEFAQ) said that, despite facing huge demand from hungry families, they were forced to stop preparing hot meals for displaced people in the middle area of Gaza because they had no means to cook with. Even during the ceasefire, fuel was scarce and was not being permitted into Gaza at the volumes agreed upon. Now, amid the blockade, at least ten kitchens across Gaza have been forced to shut due to depleted fuel supplies as well as the danger from attacks, according to UNOCHA. 

Buthaina Subeh, director of Wefaq Association for Women and Childcare (WEFAQ), ActionAid’s partner in Gaza, said: “We have returned to a more difficult situation than before...Nothing has entered Gaza, neither food supplies, gas, nor flour: nothing at all. Many organisations have stopped working because there is basically no gas or firewood [to use] as fuel for cooking. 
 
“Since we cannot cook in our kitchen without fuel, we decided to make what we had left into food parcels. We made 500 food parcels which we distributed...[It is better] than people being left without anything, because of how much need there is... even though we know that people cannot cook... people do not have gas or firewood, and they are basically not in a place where they are able to cook... but this is all we can do. There are calls from women and families who are now suffering from hunger; children screaming from hunger because there is no food.” 
 
She said food prices had soared, with the cost of a vegetable basket tripling to around $150, and that food was increasingly becoming unavailable altogether as stocks stored in warehouses begin to run out. Due to the widespread destruction of agricultural land only a small amount of produce is currently being grown in Gaza, but with desperate shortages of fuel, it cannot be transported to those who need it. 
 
“Goods are about to run out, and if there are goods available [merchants] sell them at very high prices which we are unable to afford,” Buthaina said. “We are trying as much as possible to meet the needs of these people with what we have. Even if things are expensive and scarce, we will continue to respond with what is available in order to help as many people as possible.” 
 
Since the Israeli military resumed its intensive bombing of Gaza last Tuesday, almost 800 people – many of them women and children – have been killed, taking the total death toll from October 2023 up to at least 50,208, while more than 142,000 people have been displaced, fleeing yet again with nothing. Aid workers trying to respond to the soaring humanitarian needs do so in incredibly dangerous conditions: eight aid workers have been killed in just over a week, according to UNOCHA. 
 
Buthaina said: “The situation is extremely bad. We stopped work for two days because I could not ask the employees, the women, to leave their children and go to work with this fear. 
 
“People can barely move in the streets and displacement has resumed. The people left without anything. They did not take any [belongings], so we returned to the beginning of the war. People are sitting in the open - meaning no tents, no tarpaulins, no blankets, no clothes, no food, nothing.” 
 
ActionAid is warning that, with food supplies in Gaza rapidly running out, people will soon start to starve unless the Israeli authorities allow aid into Gaza immediately. The horrific attacks which are killing dozens of Palestinians every day must stop, permanently; the international community must urgently do everything in its power to get the ceasefire back on track and pressure the Israeli authorities to end its weaponisation of aid. 
 
Riham Jafari, advocacy and communications coordinator at ActionAid Palestine, said: “Gaza is experiencing an unprecedented catastrophe, and the situation is rapidly deteriorating by the day. Our panicked staff and partners are doing everything they can to provide people with the food, shelter and support they desperately need, often risking their own safety to do so, but the demand is overwhelming and supplies are increasingly unavailable or unaffordable. They warn that providing any kind of humanitarian response at all might become totally impossible in weeks or even days. 
 
“The world cannot stand by while the Israeli authorities disregard their obligations under international humanitarian law to provide humanitarian assistance in such a flagrant manner, or while the military kills dozens of Palestinians each day, bombing them without warning while they are in their tents or asleep in their beds. This horror has to end, now.”