Third WCK Field Kitchen forced to pause work in Gaza
Fighting in central Gaza has intensified further this month. The critical security situation has forced World Central Kitchen to pause operations at another Field Kitchen and several more of our community kitchens. To date, our teams have served more than 64 million meals to Palestinians in need. However, military activity in areas surrounding our facilities is impacting our capability to meet the urgent needs of continuously displaced families.
We are taking every precaution to ensure the safety of our team members. The hundreds of Palestinians who make our work possible are facing the same horrors as the people they support each day.
Over the weekend, our Deir al-Balah Field Kitchen, where teams prepare tens of thousands of meals daily, was forced to reduce its capacity. All work there paused on August 19. This is the third, large-scale kitchen where we’ve been forced to halt operations. In May, we had to close our Rafah Field Kitchen, and in July, our Khan Younis Field Kitchen paused operations. All three kitchens were affected by intense fighting and mandatory evacuation orders.
Fighting in Deir al-Balah also forced us to evacuate a cold storage facility where we keep frozen vegetables. Our team is assessing how much of the desperately needed food was lost after the facility had to be evacuated.
The impacts of the deteriorating security situation also extend to our vast network of Community Kitchens. This week alone, conditions necessitated a pause for eight WCK-supported Community Kitchens. These kitchens are spread across dozens of areas and offer a lifeline to families sheltering nearby.
The fighting puts our team members at increased risk and limits our ability to move supplies from our warehouses to our kitchens. The cooks at our Al-Mawasi Kitchen, our only Field Kitchen operating as of today, are working tirelessly to increase capacity to meet some of the needs of communities that relied on the kitchens forced to pause work. We are also making every effort to reopen our Khan Younis Kitchen.
Our team on the ground in Gaza and support teams across the region are doing everything possible to safely and effectively distribute as many meals as possible. “Food is a universal right and our work in Gaza has been the most life-saving mission in our 14-year organizational history,” said WCK CEO Erin Gore.
