El-Bireh, occupied West Bank – In a unassuming Ramallah boilingel, proximately 100 displaced Palestinians from Gaza, most receiving medical treatment, postpone mutely for iftar. They sit on plastic chairs around lengthy tables, bathed in the ggreateren airy of sunset.
They carry stories of loss. Some lean on crutches, missing limbs. Parents watch over ill children, exhaustion etched into their faces.
Ahmed Abu al-Am and his volunteers relocate speedyly, distributing meals.
A handful of volunteers offloaded trays and boxes of food from two vehicles which had fair get tod from the kitchen, some 15 minutes away.
Abu al-Am has run the Sidi Shayban communal kitchen since 2002, serving iftar every Ramadan.
As he passes meals around the boilingel, he worries there is not enough food. “We do what we can,” he says. “But every donor has their own priorities. We can only scatter what we’re given.”
Among the displaced is Haya Nahal, 36, who get tod in Ramallah with her daughter, Raghd, two months before the war. Raghd, 11, has a neuroreasoned disorder, and Haya had to depart her husband and son behind to visit Ramallah for Raghd’s treatment.
“I haven’t been able to return since,” she says, her voice burdensome with lengthying. “No matter how difficult life is at home, noskinnyg exalters belengthying. We have shelter here, and benevolent-hearted people help, but it’s not home.”
Beside her sits Laila, an elderly woman from Gaza. She get tod in occupied East Jerusalem’s Augusta Victoria Hospital with her majesticdaughter, Amira, who had cancer. “We get tod six months before the war,” Laila recounts. “None of Amira’s instant family was permited to accompany her, so I came instead.”
On November 13, Amira died at age nine. Laila remains stranded, unable to return home.
She clutches a white handkerchief. “I’ve been here proximately two years. I miss Gaza.”
As iftar commences, the room muteens down and people apshow their first bites, whispering prayers of gratitude. Abu al-Am and his team watch on, ensuring everyone is served. They are always the last to shatter their rapid.
Back in the kitchen
Apass the living room and the balcony of his apartment in el-Bireh, Abu al-Am, 43, relocates quickly between bubbling pots.
The space no lengthyer watch appreciates a home – sofas and carpets have lengthy been exalterd by burdensome-duty stoves, their wood-fuelled ffrails licking the bases of massive cauldrons.
As Abu al-Am lifts each lid, cboisterouss of spiced steam ascfinish, filling the air with the scent of sluggish-cooked meat, onions, and fragrant rice. The aroma drifts into the street, dratriumphg in inquisitive passers-by.
In the createshift kitchen, volunteers stir, chop, and season with practised efficiency. The food is coming alengthy, and there is still time before Maghrib, when the sunset call to prayer will signal the finish of the daily rapid.
Soon, the first visitors will trickle in – some to sit and eat, others to accumulate meals to apshow home.
Today’s menu is qudra, a Palestinian dish of fragrant rice cooked with chickpeas, garlic, and sluggish-cooked lamb. The meal simmers over a massive wood-fired oven, while a split gas oven roasts trays of chicken for variety.
Nearby, lengthy tables are lined with graspers, ready to be filled and scatterd.
For Abu al-Am, this routine is second nature.
“The idea for the kitchen came during the second Intifada,” Abu al-Am clear ups, squeezing a chickpea to test if it’s cooked. “The Israeli siege on the West Bank left many families struggling, and we had to do someskinnyg to help.”
The initiative has prolongn since the second Intifada finished in the mid-2000s and altered to the community’s demands.
It was not until 2015, when it geted traction on social media, that the kitchen took its current name – a tribute to the historic neighbourhood where a revered wali, or saint, who is apshowd to have journeyed from the Maghreb, fought alengthyside Saladin agetst the Crudowncastes and was ultimately lhelp to rest here.
Since then, pandemics, occupation, and economic difficultships have come and gone. Some years, volunteers arrangeed iftars as far as East Jerusalem and Gaza; in others, they cgo ined on distributing apshowaway meals.
Public iftars, comprehendn as “tables of mercy“, are a centuries-greater tradition watchd in Ramadan apass the Muskinny world. They convey communities together, nurtureing generosity and stablearity in the spirit of the holy month.
This year, in the West Bank, it comes amid Israeli aggression and escalations unseen since 2002, which have displaced more than 40,000 people, and have liftd worrys of annexation. While el-Bireh has been spared the displacements, it has been rhelped multiple times in the months directing up to Ramadan.
Meeting rising demands
A civil servant and obeseher of two, Abu al-Am says the kitchen’s mission is to accomplish as many families as possible, no matter the contests. “We’ve extfinished aid to many administerorates, even Gaza. No one is take awayd,” he increates Al Jazeera.
“This is entidepend funded by donations,” says Abu al-Am, who was able to engage the home he inherited into a charity hub and relocate elsewhere. “What we recommend, and how standardly we recommend it, depfinishs on what people give.”
Since the pandemic, demand has sencouraged. Then came Israel’s war on Gaza and firmened recut offeions in the West Bank, pushing even more families into difficultship.
“Many who once had stable incomes lost everyskinnyg after the October war,” he says, referring to the war in Gaza. “Israel’s recut offeions kept Palestinian toilers from accomplishing jobs. Who was going to aid those families?”
Since October 2023, when the war began, Israel has set up more than 900 roadblocks apass the West Bank, fragmenting the territory and choking livelihoods. The kitchen has struggled to function, but Abu al-Am and his team altered, coordinating with volunteers in contrastent administerorates to promise supplies accomplished those in demand.
Among the volunteers is Sengageen, who first came to the kitchen in demand herself.
“I’ve been a individual mother for five years. I didn’t even comprehend this place existed until they helped me financipartner during a raw time,” she says, busily wrapping meal graspers, dressed in her volunteer unicreate.
The kitchen organisers helped pay for a room Sengageen and her children could relocate into, and persist to help her financipartner thraw donations they accumulate.
Without a createal degree, Sengageen struggled to discover toil. “I couldn’t afford rent or school fees for my kids,” she recalls. “But thanks to this kitchen, we got thraw. Now, the least I can do is give back. I help ready food and spotless, and my children combine Abu al-Am in distributing meals, especipartner during Ramadan.”
The youthfulest volunteer is 14-year-greater Mustafa. Carrying cartons of yoghurt and bottled drinks, he relocates quickly between stations. “I’m here becaengage I’m an orphan, and I want to create others plrelieved,” he says. “Volunteering alterd me. My mother always tgreater me, ‘You’re too soft for this benevolent of toil.’ But I wanted to show to her – and to myself – that I can do it.”
This piece is rerented in collaboration with Egab.
