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Makeshift Bakery Turns Out Scarce Bread in Gaza City

Makeshift bread ovens like this one in the central Gaza Strip have proliferated across the territory as Israel's punishing air and ground offensive has forced bakeries to close - AFP
Makeshift bread ovens like this one in the central Gaza Strip have proliferated across the territory as Israel's punishing air and ground offensive has forced bakeries to close - AFP
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Makeshift Bakery Turns Out Scarce Bread in Gaza City

Makeshift bread ovens like this one in the central Gaza Strip have proliferated across the territory as Israel's punishing air and ground offensive has forced bakeries to close - AFP
Makeshift bread ovens like this one in the central Gaza Strip have proliferated across the territory as Israel's punishing air and ground offensive has forced bakeries to close - AFP

With a metal box for an oven, planks of wood for fuel and a folded strip of cardboard for a makeshift potholder, a baker on a Gaza City street turned out tray after steaming tray of flat bread on Saturday.

A staple food before the war, bread has become rarer and rarer in the Gaza Strip, with bakeries shut across the heavily bombed north and flour in short supply after mills and storage warehouses were damaged in fighting between Israel and Hamas.

To Abu Abdullah Muhaysa, the volunteer who came up with the idea to bake bread for remaining residents of the devastated city, the improvised kitchen is a "response to the catastrophic situation in the Gaza Strip".

"We crafted this by hand with iron sheets to provide bread for people and their children, to help them survive and fulfil their needs after all basic necessities were cut off," he told AFP.

Patrons are asked to pay just a token amount to cover the cost of gathering firewood.

"Our efforts and manpower are solely dedicated to the sake of God and our community," Muhaysa said.

Since Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel sparked an Israeli pledge to crush the Palestinian militant group, a humanitarian disaster has been unfolding in Gaza.

The World Food Program has warned that the population faces a "high risk of famine", and only a trickle of aid has made it into the territory.

Earlier this month, one of Gaza's last grain warehouses was hit by Israeli strikes, and at least two of its five flour mills have been damaged.

Azmi Abu Assira was among those who turned out for bread in Gaza City on Saturday, the second day of renewed Israeli bombardment after a week-long truce fell apart.

"We were compelled to come here as there are no bakeries available," he said, adding that the price of a 20-kilogramme (44-pound) bag of flour had shot up to between 300 and 400 shekels (between $80 and $100).

"The people are suffering, as you can see," he added, calling for "a ceasefire to relieve us from the hardship".

Muhaysa, for his part, urged the international community "not to apply double standards, but to grant Palestinians their right to a normal life".

"We seek attention for our cause so that Palestinian children can smile like children everywhere else in the world," he said.

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On Lebanon Border, Israel and Hezbollah’s Deadly Game of Patience

Smoke is seen as an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is intercepted following its launch from Lebanon, amid cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, at Kibbutz Eilon in northern Israel, July 23, 2024. (Reuters)
Smoke is seen as an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is intercepted following its launch from Lebanon, amid cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, at Kibbutz Eilon in northern Israel, July 23, 2024. (Reuters)
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On Lebanon Border, Israel and Hezbollah’s Deadly Game of Patience

Smoke is seen as an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is intercepted following its launch from Lebanon, amid cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, at Kibbutz Eilon in northern Israel, July 23, 2024. (Reuters)
Smoke is seen as an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is intercepted following its launch from Lebanon, amid cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, at Kibbutz Eilon in northern Israel, July 23, 2024. (Reuters)

In deserted villages and communities near the southern Lebanon border, Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters have watched each other for months, shifting and adapting in a battle for the upper hand while they wait to see if a full scale war will come.

Ever since the start of the Gaza war last October, the two sides have exchanged daily barrages of rockets, artillery, missile fire and air strikes in a standoff that has just stopped short of full-scale war.

Tens of thousands have been evacuated from both sides of the border, and hopes that children may be able to return for the start of the new school year in September appear to have been dashed following an announcement by Israeli Education Minister Yoav Kisch on Tuesday that conditions would not allow it.

"The war is almost the same for the past nine months," Lieutenant Colonel Dotan, an Israeli officer, who could only be identified by his first name. "We have good days of hitting Hezbollah and bad days where they hit us. It's almost the same, all year, all the nine months."

As the summer approaches its peak, the smoke trails of drones and rockets in the sky have become a daily sight, with missiles regularly setting off brush fires in the thickly wooded hills along the border.

Israeli strikes have killed nearly 350 Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon and more than 100 civilians, including medics, children and journalists, while 10 Israeli civilians, a foreign agricultural worker and 20 Israeli soldiers have been killed.

Even so, as the cross border firing has continued, Israeli forces have been training for a possible offensive in Lebanon which would dramatically increase the risk of a wider regional war, potentially involving Iran and the United States.

That risk was underlined at the weekend when the Yemen-based Houthis, a militia which like Hezbollah is backed by Iran, sent a drone to Tel Aviv where it caused a blast that killed a man and prompted Israel to launch a retaliatory raid the next day.

Standing in his home kibbutz of Eilon, where only about 150 farmers and security guards remain from a normal population of 1,100, Lt. Colonet Dotan said the two sides have been testing each other for months, in a constantly evolving tactical battle.

"This war taught us patience," said Dotan. "In the Middle East, you need patience."

He said Israeli troops had seen an increasing use of Iranian drones, of a type frequently seen in Ukraine, as well as Russian-made Kornet anti tank missiles which were increasingly targeting houses as Israeli tank forces adapted their own tactics in response.

"Hezbollah is a fast-learning organization and they understood that UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) are the next big thing and so they went and bought and got trained in UAVs," he said.

Israel had responded by adapting its Iron Dome air defense system and focusing its own operations on weakening Hezbollah's organizational structure by attacking its experienced commanders, such as Ali Jaafar Maatuk, a field commander in the elite Radwan forces unit who was killed last week.

"So that's another weak point we found. We target them and we look for them on a daily basis," he said.

Even so, as the months have passed, the wait has not been easy for Israeli troops brought up in a doctrine of maneuver and rapid offensive operations.

"When you're on defense, you can't defeat the enemy. We understand that, we have no expectations," he said, "So we have to wait. It's a patience game."