Gaza Soup Kitchen (GSK) is a Palestinian NGO that was set up in early 2024 by brothers Hani and Mahmoud Almadhoun, to provide hot meals and clean water to the people of Gaza. The venture has been a lifeline for many thousands enduring extreme food insecurity and famine.
What started as a simple Go Fund Me personal campaign, with one kitchen in Beit Lahia feeding 150 families daily, quickly expanded as hunger grew among the population. Multiple kitchens now serve communities across the Strip, providing up to 3000 individual meals every day, depending on supplies, safety and access to ingredients.
Gaza Soup Kitchen speaks to the Canary
Abe Ajrami is one of five board members of the organisation. He helps with coordinating GSK’s fundraising and decision making on aspects such as safety and location of GSKs operations. Although Ajrami lives in the US, he has family in Northern Gaza, who have been forcibly displaced and are currently living in tents.
Ajrami told the Canary:
We have established ourselves as an honest charity that does good work in Gaza, and people feel that. None of us are paid, even for any of our travel expenses, and we don’t charge the organisation a single penny. People fundraise for us, and individuals and businesses also give us donations.
And Ajrami is clear that if Israel were to ever allow an adequate food supply into Gaza, there would be no need for GSK:
If there was enough affordable food in Gaza, we would not exist. We hope to get to that point, where we are not needed. Gazans are people who were doing OK for themselves, who have dignity, and now they are standing in line to use a bathroom, and standing in line to get water and to have a simple meal. It is sad but, judging by our food parcel registration, it tells you how much there is a need for us.
Unfortunately, there is much, much more to be done:
We are pretty much a drop in the ocean, despite all the things we do.
There are currently 10 soup kitchens operating in the South and Central area of the Strip. Depending on the amount of supplies allowed across the border, each kitchen can cost as much as $1000 a day to run, while the type of food entering Gaza dictates the type of meals cooked by GSK chefs.
Huge demand for GSK
Ajrami says:
Gazan people are very creative. Lentil soup has been the hero. It has always been affordable, and is a great source of protein, and doesn’t go bad. So we can buy huge quantities and store it. Lentils are mixed with lots of things, when we can find them. The chefs work with what they have, to create a variety of meals.
Although GSK stopped their operations in the North over a month ago, due to forced evacuations and safety issues, it has still managed to send food parcels to Gaza City. There, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have remained, with food and water very scarce.
According to Ajrami, within minutes of the online registration opening for food parcels, the number of applicants far exceeds the number of parcels available:
We now have a big focus on providing these food parcels to families. The demand is huge, but we do our best to make sure people can get what they need, especially if they are weak or sick.
‘We try to help everyone in Gaza, any way we can’
20 year old Khalid Qadas is one of the more than 60 humanitarian volunteers working with GSK on the ground in Gaza, and is their photographer and spokesperson.
He told the Canary:
Although we are happy that we’ve finished the war- the shelling, the guns, the blood, the death, because we are so tired, Palestinians have lost their children, their homes, their money, their work, and their lives have stopped for the past two years. People have lost everything. They also don’t have enough food. So now the people really need our work, and we try to help everyone in Gaza, any way we can.
Qadas tells me that over 1000 food parcels are made every day for families in need. GSK also cooks and serves food daily for 300-500 families at each of its 10 food points. Medical teams and patients in Gaza’s hospitals are not forgotten, with hot meals delivered by the teams, as well as food parcels- which sometimes even manage to provide baby milk, nappies, fruit, food, and clothes for children. These items are often impossible to find for the population of Gaza but, if available, are usually just too expensive to purchase. GSK tries to buy local, so source their supplies from local farmers wherever possible, and from local markets.
But the organisation does not only provide food for Palestinians. It also buys clean desalinated water, as water is now contaminated and good quality drinking water is extremely rare. Their 10 water tankers then go out to different areas each day, so people are able to fill up their water containers. There is even a medical point which sees high numbers of patients, despite many challenges and lack of supplies. It offers urgent care, consultations, mental health support, and prescriptions to people who would otherwise not be able to access medical attention.
Besieged volunteers
Months after arriving in Gaza, Qadas’ home was bombed, and his father had a stroke. He now lives with the rest of his family in a tent. Although Qadas’ parents are both from Gaza, he was born in the UAE, and had never visited the enclave until three months before the start of this genocide, when he travelled to the Strip to start a medical degree, at Al Aqsa University. This means that unlike other 20 year olds in Gaza, Qadas has been lucky enough not to have experienced any of the six others conflicts with Israel since 2005.
He told me:
This is the first war I have experienced in Gaza. I am volunteering at GSK for eight months now, and still studying online, although I have changed to a nursing degree so I could finish quicker. I arrived here three months before the war, with my sister, and my mother and father. We bought a house in the North of Gaza but it was bombed on the fourth day of the war. We then lived in my grandather’s house but he also ended up losing his home, so now we are in a tent in the South. Two months into the war, my father also had a stroke. We have lost everything.
Qadas’ has volunteered with GSK for the past eight months, and says his work as photographer, moving from site to site and talking with everyone, has taught him so much about Gaza, its people, and about life in general, and he is grateful for this experience.
Hope for a better tomorrow
Qadas also told me:
We are like a family at GSK. I work from 5am until 8pm sometimes, but I love it. To be honest, before this work, I knew nothing about Gaza or its people, but my work as a volunteer with GSK has been so good for me and I’ve learnt so much and now understand much more.
He explains:
All the time, I say I am so sad, I need to go to another country, but Gaza’s people have positive energy. They are still smiling and say tomorrow will be better. I don’t know how they are like this. And you know, from nothing they do everything. for example, we don’t have a shower so he makes a shower. We don’t have a lighter, he makes a lighter. How, I don’t know! People in Gaza say that everything that happens in your life is from God, that God knows what is best for you. I am learning so much from them.
As the ceasefire officially takes effect, a fragile sense of relief has spread across Gaza. But the guarantee of aid is filled with uncertainty. Netanyahu has how announced that only 300 trucks of supplies will be allowed into Gaza, half the number previously agreed upon, because Hamas has, as yet been unable to find all bodies of Israeli prisoners still in Gaza.
Road to recovery
Despite the setbacks, Gaza Soup Kitchen (GSK) continues with its tireless work, and will, no doubt, be returning to the North to continue its operations, as conditions allow. The reduced flow of supplies stretches the charity’s resources thin, but volunteers like Qadas remain determined to provide hot meals, water, and essential parcels to thousands of families still struggling to survive.
The road to recovery will be long for those in Gaza. Homes must be rebuilt, loved ones mourned, and dignity restored. Yet, in the face of hardship, the resilience of Gaza’s population endures, and is sustained by the small but vital support of organizations like GSK and the hope of a better tomorrow.
The road to recovery for Gaza’s people will be long. They face the challenge of rebuilding their homes, grieving lost family members, and also reclaiming their dignity. Yet the resilience of Gaza’s population endures, and is sustained by the small but vital support of organizations like GSK, and the hope of a better tomorrow.
Please help Gaza Soup Kitchen with its vital work by donating here.
Featured image via the Canary
By Charlie Jaay
This post was originally published on Canary.