Palestinian-led teams resume work in Gaza
World Central Kitchen has resumed operations in Gaza, serving 2 million meals over the past week. The humanitarian crisis remains dire. We will continue to get as much food into Gaza, including northern Gaza, as possible—by land, air, or sea. We have 276 trucks, with the equivalent of almost 8 million meals, ready to enter through the Rafah Crossing. Dozens of these trucks have already entered Gaza this week. To date we have distributed more than 46 million meals and we are eager and ready to deliver millions more.
We continue to grieve and mourn the loss of seven of our friends and colleagues who were killed in an IDF attack in Gaza on April 1. We have spent the past few weeks honoring the lives of Saif, Zomi, Damian, Jacob, James, John, and Jim. We are restarting our operation with the same energy, dignity, and focus on feeding people as these seven heroes brought to their work every single day. As our work in Gaza resumes, our demand for an impartial and international investigation into the April 1 attack remains.
Our Palestinian-led teams have scaled quickly since resuming operations. Cooks in our field kitchens in Rafah and Deir al-Balah are preparing tens of thousands of meals daily. To further increase capacity, we are building a third Field Kitchen in Mawasi. Our Palestinian team members have affectionately named it Damian’s Kitchen, as it is being built in the spirit of his favorite saying, “No Problems, Only Solutions.”
At the same time, our network of community kitchens is coming back online and providing thousands of meals to neighbors in need.
Food is a universal right and our work in Gaza has been the most life-saving mission in our 14-year organizational history. Thousands of Palestinians like Saif have worked beside us every day of this response, guiding us with their knowledge, experience, and passion. They are ready to feed millions more of their friends and neighbors. We will continue to work together so that Palestinians who are hungry can have a hot, nourishing meal.
