After the Death of Its Founder, Gaza Soup Kitchen Moves Forward

On November 30, chef Almadhoun was killed by an Israeli drone attack while he was on his way to deliver produce to Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza.

Five days later on December 5, Amnesty International concluded that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. “These acts include killings, causing serious bodily or mental harm and deliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction,” said Agnès Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International. “Month after month, Israel has treated Palestinians in Gaza as a subhuman group unworthy of human rights and dignity, demonstrating its intent to physically destroy them.” In its report, the organization repeatedly brought up the war crime of starvation, by “wilfully impeding relief supplies” and intentionally destroying agricultural land and infrastructure. Among many requests, including an immediate ceasefire, Amnesty International called on Israel to cease “the use of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare.”

“There was no crossfire. There was nothing. It’s just a coward with a sophisticated weapon who wanted to kill a father of seven,” Mahmoud Almadhoun’s brother, Hani, told Eater. So far, the Israeli military has not provided a statement on his death.

Over the past several months, Gaza Soup Kitchen has grown into an operation of 45 people stationed across the three locations, but at the beginning it was just Mahmoud. After his home and mobile device store were destroyed by bombs, his attention turned to food, which from the beginning was difficult and expensive to come by. At the time, there was already acute food insecurity in the Gaza strip, and the U.N. Security Council said massive increases in food aid were needed to avoid famine.

Mahmoud had the idea, says Hani Almadhoun, to buy up surplus from local farmers. “He bought overgrown zucchinis. There was a military campaign for two months, so people did not pick them, and they kept growing. So he bought these overgrown zucchinis, chopped them up, and added some tomato paste and seasoning. That was the first meal,” says Almadhoun.

From there, he continued to keep his eye out for supplies, using social media to raise money to buy up potatoes and flour before they became too expensive, and foraging with his family for leafy greens like purslane and mallow to add to soups. The focus, says Almadhoun, was not just on food, but on making things people actually wanted to eat. “Most of the time, these food soup kitchens will make something like lentil soup or things that people are sick of,” says Almadhoun, with “lentil soup” meaning a bunch of lentils boiled in unseasoned water. Instead, Gaza Soup Kitchen made dishes like Palestinian maftoul, or ersatz shawarma out of canned beef and tomato paste.

Now, Gaza Soup Kitchen rotates through four staple meals — seasoned rice, pasta, maftoul, and lentil soup — and adds on wherever it can. For instance, at the outpost at the Beach Camp for refugees, Hani and Mahmoud’s sister, Faten, makes pastries and mini pizzas. Hani Almadhoun credits the variety of goods to the team of women working at that kitchen: “They’re a lot more sophisticated than a bunch of guys just putting some pasta together.”

Following the news of Mahmoud’s death, there was an outpouring of support across social media, where he had gained a following for his work — Gaza Soup Kitchen has 26,000 followers on Instagram, where they regularly post videos of chefs preparing massive batches of food, and children eating and playing around the kitchens. Almadhoun was heartened, but he suspects Mahmoud was targeted precisely because of the aid work he was doing, and the international attention he received for it. “Mahmoud, and people like him, were doing God’s work. And that was good enough to put a target on his back,” Almadhoun told CNN. “He was punished because he was helping people fight the famine,” echoing Amnesty International’s conclusions that Israel is using famine as a tool of war.

Gaza is facing its second winter under this most recent bombardment, and Almadhoun says it has become even harder to obtain and afford basic supplies. Onions, garlic, and salt are all hard to come by, and a gallon of cooking oil “is like 30 bucks, but you could get the same gallon in the U.S. for $4 at an Aldi,” he says. These are necessary to make the flavorful, dignified meals Gaza Soup Kitchen wants to serve its communities, 60 percent of which are children. “It used to cost us $1,500 [for the supplies we needed], now it goes beyond $5,000 because the same ingredients have gotten so expensive,” he says. Outside organizations like World Central Kitchen and the U.N.’s World Food Program are still operating in Gaza, but according to a September report from the Norwegian Refugee Council, Israel is blocking 83 percent of food deliveries entering Gaza, with food piling up at the border. The U.S. has threatened sanctions on Israel if aid was not increased, but so far our government hasn’t followed through on those promises.

But there is no option to quit. Almadhoun notes that after an IDF strike killed seven World Central Kitchen workers in April, and after another WCK worker was also killed on November 30, the organization temporarily retreated from the area, citing understandable safety concerns for its staff. But “if we don’t cook, we don’t eat,” says Almadhoun. After all, there is no retreating from where you live. “That’s the beauty and the resilience of soup kitchens that come from the community, versus the one that has people on the payroll.” But even the most community-focused mutual aid efforts require resources, which many in Gaza just don’t have. Gaza Soup Kitchen continues to rely on donations over Venmo and GoFundMe from over 80 countries, though a majority of donations come from the U.S., and supplies bought from farmers or through limited humanitarian aid.

Even if a ceasefire were to be declared tomorrow, Gaza Soup Kitchen would need to continue operating to serve Gaza’s massively displaced population. Almadhoun mourns his brother, and worries for his siblings in Gaza. But “what gives me some comfort is that my brother did a great thing,” he says. At a memorial service at the Quaker Friends Meeting Space in Washington, D.C. on Friday, December 6, over 200 people gathered to remember Mahmoud Almadhoun. Afterwards, they dined on a meal of Palestinian food.

Additional photo illustration credits: photos by Ola Qadas