No One Spared: How Gazans Struggle to Find Food

Palestinians scramble for food at charity kitchen in Gaza City (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Palestinians scramble for food at charity kitchen in Gaza City (Asharq Al-Awsat)
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No One Spared: How Gazans Struggle to Find Food

Palestinians scramble for food at charity kitchen in Gaza City (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Palestinians scramble for food at charity kitchen in Gaza City (Asharq Al-Awsat)

As the clock strikes noon, Waheed Abu Sabeeh calls out to his seven-year-old daughter, Bisan, handing her a small pot and urging her to hurry. Just a few dozen meters from their tent, a charitable kitchen offers a lifeline: a single serving of cooked food in Gaza’s al-Shati (Beach) refugee camp.

Abu Sabeeh, 47, was displaced from his home in Beit Lahia in northern Gaza. He now lives with his wife and five children in a makeshift tent no larger than four square meters, pitched near an UNRWA school-turned-shelter in western Gaza City.

Like thousands of others driven from their homes by war and poverty, Abu Sabeeh has little to feed his family. “We survive on what the charity kitchen gives us,” he says, his voice weary. “If it weren’t for them, my children would sleep hungry.”

Each day, Bisan, who should be in a classroom, joins a long queue of women, children, and men, clutching empty containers. The charity serves up modest portions of lentils, beans, peas, or rice, around 400 grams per person, with no extras.

For nearly 90 minutes each day, sometimes even longer, seven-year-old Bisan waits in line under the sun, clutching a small pot outside a charity tent in Gaza’s al-Shati refugee camp. On other days, she heads out early, hoping to beat the crowds.

“I go get the food to help my family eat because we have nothing at home,” she says in a soft, innocent voice.

The food she brings back rarely stretches beyond one modest meal. On days when the kitchen runs out, the family makes do with bits of zaatar or hummus, sometimes without even bread.

Her father used to run a small children’s goods shop in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza. But Israeli airstrikes destroyed his store and home nearly a year ago, leaving him and his family with nothing but a tent and the daily uncertainty of survival.

“Bisan waits for hours to bring back just a few spoonfuls,” the father told Asharq Al-Awsat.

“Sometimes she comes back empty-handed. Sometimes she gets caught in fights with other children, all pushing for food.”

According to Bisan’s dad, her behavior has changed. “She’s louder now, more aggressive,” he said. “She pushes to the front. She shouts. She’s learned that if she doesn’t fight for it, she might not eat.”

In Gaza, Mothers Wait Hours for a Ladle of Lentils

Every day, 51-year-old Faten al-Masri clutches a cooking pot and joins a long line of people hoping to receive a small portion of lentils or rice from a charity kitchen in Gaza’s devastated al-Rimal neighborhood.

Originally from Beit Hanoun in the north, al-Masri and her 13-member family have been living in a tent for months, displaced by war. With no flour available, they eat whatever the kitchen provides, often without bread or any other accompaniment.

“Some days, I wait more than three hours just to get a little food,” she told Asharq Al-Awsat, her voice heavy with exhaustion. “There’s no flour, no extras. Just whatever they’re offering. That’s all we have.”

Despite her chronic diabetes and the pain of standing for long periods, al-Masri says she has no choice but to endure the wait.

“My children are busy - one fetching water, another looking for something else,” she said. “I go because I must. I’m sick, but I can’t let my family go hungry. We have nothing.”

Her words echo the desperation felt across the Gaza Strip, where hunger, displacement, and the collapse of basic services have forced even the elderly and infirm to queue for survival.

Charity kitchens across Gaza - once a critical lifeline for displaced families - are now buckling under mounting pressure, with some scaling back portions and others halting operations entirely, Asharq Al-Awsat has observed.

Once able to feed hundreds daily, several kitchens have begun rationing the limited supplies they receive. Others have shuttered altogether, unable to keep up with the soaring demand and dwindling resources.

These kitchens are operated by a mix of international organizations, UN agencies, Arab charities, and local youth-led initiatives. But aid workers warn the situation is spiraling into what they describe as “more than catastrophic,” as war, displacement, and a deepening blockade leave thousands at risk of starvation.

Ali Matar, who helps run a charity kitchen in western Gaza, an area now crammed with displaced families from the north, says the food crisis is reaching a breaking point.

“There’s a clear shortage of canned goods, rice, lentils, and other staples,” Matar told Asharq Al-Awsat. “Suppliers are running out, and that’s severely affecting our ability to cook and distribute meals. Hunger is tightening its grip on Gaza.”

The soaring cost of what little food remains, such as beans, peas, and rice, is making it increasingly difficult for donors to sustain operations. Matar said the strain is pushing some humanitarian groups to shut down their kitchens entirely, as their storage shelves lie empty.

“Some of the Arab-funded and charitable organizations are now pooling resources just to keep cooking,” he said. “But if this crisis isn’t addressed soon, the consequences will be catastrophic. We could see dozens dying of hunger every week.”

Under mounting international pressure to halt its military campaign in Gaza and allow aid in, Israel recently said it would permit the entry of “essential” humanitarian supplies.

Aid groups, however, say the announcement comes too late with assistance blocked since March 2 and needs growing exponentially.



Early US Intelligence Report Suggests US Strikes Only Set Back Iran’s Nuclear Program by Months

A woman walks past a residential building that was hit in an Israeli strike covered with a big Iranian flag, in Tehran on June 25, 2025. (AFP)
A woman walks past a residential building that was hit in an Israeli strike covered with a big Iranian flag, in Tehran on June 25, 2025. (AFP)
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Early US Intelligence Report Suggests US Strikes Only Set Back Iran’s Nuclear Program by Months

A woman walks past a residential building that was hit in an Israeli strike covered with a big Iranian flag, in Tehran on June 25, 2025. (AFP)
A woman walks past a residential building that was hit in an Israeli strike covered with a big Iranian flag, in Tehran on June 25, 2025. (AFP)

A US intelligence report suggests that Iran’s nuclear program has been set back only a few months after US strikes and was not “completely and fully obliterated” as President Donald Trump has said, according to two people familiar with the early assessment.

The report issued by the Defense Intelligence Agency on Monday contradicts statements from Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the status of Iran's nuclear facilities. According to the people, the report found that while the Sunday strikes at the Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan nuclear sites did significant damage, the facilities were not totally destroyed. The people were not authorized to address the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The White House rejected the DIA assessment, calling it “flat-out wrong.” On Wednesday, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said in a post on X that “New intelligence confirms” what Trump has stated: “Iran’s nuclear facilities have been destroyed. If the Iranians chose to rebuild, they would have to rebuild all three facilities (Natanz, Fordo, Esfahan) entirely, which would likely take years to do.”

Gabbard’s office declined to respond to questions about the details of the new intelligence, or whether it would be declassified and released publicly.

The office of the director of national intelligence coordinates the work of the nation’s 18 intelligence agencies, including the DIA, which is the intelligence arm of the Defense Department, responsible for producing intelligence on foreign militaries and the capabilities of adversaries.

The DIA did not respond to requests for comment.

The US has held out hope of restarting negotiations with Iran to convince it to give up its nuclear program entirely, but some experts fear that the US strikes and the potential of Iran retaining some of its capabilities could push Tehran toward developing a functioning weapon.

The assessment also suggests that at least some of Iran’s highly enriched uranium, necessary for creating a nuclear weapon, was moved out of multiple sites before the US strikes and survived, and it found that Iran’s centrifuges, which are required to further enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels, are largely intact, according to the people.

At the deeply buried Fordo uranium enrichment plant, where US B-2 stealth bombers dropped several 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs, the entrance collapsed and infrastructure was damaged, but the underground infrastructure was not destroyed, the assessment found. The people said that intelligence officials had warned of such an outcome in previous assessments ahead of the strike on Fordo.

The White House pushes back Trump defended his characterization of the strike's impact.

“It was obliteration, and you’ll see that,” Trump told reporters while attending the NATO summit in the Netherlands. He said the intelligence was “very inconclusive” and described media outlets as “scum” for reporting on it.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who was also at the NATO summit, said there would be an investigation into how the intelligence assessment leaked and dismissed it as “preliminary” and “low confidence.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, “These leakers are professional stabbers.”

The intelligence assessment was first reported by CNN on Tuesday.

The Israel Atomic Energy Commission said its assessment was that the US and Israeli strikes have “set back Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons by many years.” It did not give evidence to back up its claim.

Trump special envoy Steve Witkoff, who said he has read damage assessment reports from US intelligence and other nations, reiterated Tuesday that the strikes had deprived Iran of the ability to develop a weapon and called it outrageous that the US assessment was shared with reporters.

“It’s treasonous so it ought to be investigated,” Witkoff said on Fox News Channel.

Trump has said in comments and posts on social media in recent days, including Tuesday, that the strike left the sites in Iran “totally destroyed” and that Iran will never rebuild its nuclear facilities.

Netanyahu said Tuesday in a televised statement: “For dozens of years I promised you that Iran would not have nuclear weapons and indeed ... we brought to ruin Iran’s nuclear program." He said the US joining Israel was “historic” and thanked Trump.

Outside experts had suspected Iran had likely already hidden the core components of its nuclear program as it stared down the possibility that American bunker-buster bombs could be used on its nuclear sites.

Bulldozers and trucks visible in satellite imagery taken just days before the strikes have fueled speculation among experts that Iran may have transferred its half-ton stockpile of enriched uranium to an unknown location. And the incomplete destruction of the nuclear sites could still leave the country with the capacity to spin up weapons-grade uranium and develop a bomb.

Iran has maintained that its nuclear program is peaceful, but it has enriched significant quantities of uranium beyond the levels required for any civilian use. The US and others assessed prior to the US strikes that Iran’s theocratic leadership had not yet ordered the country to pursue an operational nuclear weapon, but the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency has repeatedly warned that Iran has enough enriched uranium to make several nuclear bombs should it choose to do so.

Vice President JD Vance said in a Monday interview on Fox News Channel that even if Iran is still in control of its stockpile of 408.6 kilograms (900.8 pounds) of enriched uranium, which is just short of weapons-grade, the US has cut off Iran's ability to convert it to a nuclear weapon.

“If they have 60% enriched uranium, but they don’t have the ability to enrich it to 90%, and, further, they don’t have the ability to convert that to a nuclear weapon, that is mission success. That is the obliteration of their nuclear program, which is why the president, I think, rightly is using that term,” Vance said.

Approximately 42 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium is theoretically enough to produce one atomic bomb if enriched further to 90%, according to the UN nuclear watchdog.

What experts say Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi informed UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi on June 13 — the day Israel launched its military campaign against Iran — that Tehran would “adopt special measures to protect our nuclear equipment and materials.”

American satellite imagery and analysis firm Maxar Technologies said its satellites photographed trucks and bulldozers at the Fordo site beginning on June 19, three days before the Americans struck.

Subsequent imagery “revealed that the tunnel entrances into the underground complex had been sealed off with dirt prior to the US airstrikes,” said Stephen Wood, senior director at Maxar. “We believe that some of the trucks seen on 19 June were carrying dirt to be used as part of that operation.”

Some experts say those trucks could also have been used to move out Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile.

“It is plausible that Iran moved the material enriched to 60% out of Fordo and loaded it on a truck,” said Eric Brewer, a former US intelligence analyst and now deputy vice president at the Nuclear Threat Initiative.

Iran could also have moved other equipment, including centrifuges, he said, noting that while enriched uranium, which is stored in fortified canisters, is relatively easy to transport, delicate centrifuges are more challenging to move without inflicting damage.

Apart from its enriched uranium stockpile, over the past four years Iran has produced the centrifuges key to enrichment without oversight from the UN nuclear watchdog.

Iran also announced on June 12 that it has built and will activate a third nuclear enrichment facility. IAEA chief Grossi said the facility was located in Isfahan, a place where Iran has several other nuclear sites. After being bombarded by both the Israelis and the Americans, it is unclear if, or how quickly, Isfahan’s facilities, including tunnels, could become operational.

But given all of the equipment and material likely still under Iran’s control, this offers Tehran “a pretty solid foundation for a reconstituted covert program and for getting a bomb,” Brewer said.

Kelsey Davenport, director for nonproliferation policy at the Arms Control Association, a nonpartisan policy center, said that “if Iran had already diverted its centrifuges,” it can “build a covert enrichment facility with a small footprint and inject the 60% gas into those centrifuges and quickly enrich to weapons grade levels.”

But Brewer also underlined that if Iran launched a covert nuclear program, it would do so at a disadvantage, having lost to Israeli and American strikes vital equipment and personnel that are crucial for turning the enriched uranium into a functional nuclear weapon.