Italian TV Chef Serves up Cooking Lessons at Gaza Prison

Gabriele Rubini (L), known as Chef Rubio, said he wanted to share cooking tips with Palestinian prisoners during his Gaza visit. (AFP)
Gabriele Rubini (L), known as Chef Rubio, said he wanted to share cooking tips with Palestinian prisoners during his Gaza visit. (AFP)
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Italian TV Chef Serves up Cooking Lessons at Gaza Prison

Gabriele Rubini (L), known as Chef Rubio, said he wanted to share cooking tips with Palestinian prisoners during his Gaza visit. (AFP)
Gabriele Rubini (L), known as Chef Rubio, said he wanted to share cooking tips with Palestinian prisoners during his Gaza visit. (AFP)

An Italian TV chef is serving up a taste of home cooking in the unlikeliest of places: a Gaza jail.

Gabriele Rubini, a former rugby player who reinvented himself as Chef Rubio, is teaching 10 inmates at the prison near Gaza City how to make the perfect pasta -- as well as learning about Palestinian cuisine.

"My target is to share with them all I know and I want to learn from them all they know," he said during his 10-day trip to the enclave with an Italian NGO.

He said Palestinian food shares many similarities with that of Italy.

"Around the Mediterranean Sea all the cultures were mixed," he said, according to AFP. Chefs "use not many ingredients, good quality and it is all about sharing the food."

A longtime supporter of the Palestinian cause, Rubini has been sharing his experience in Gaza with more than 750,000 fans via his Facebook page.

Speaking to AFP, Rubini said he worked in prisons because "jail is a place where there is a lot of humanity".

"Someone made a mistake and can in jail (be) reborn and be a better man in the outside world," he said.

Rubini's pupils, serving time for non-violent crimes, said they took inspiration from the cooking lessons.

"This is a great training opportunity," said Sami Baraka, who has served most of a two-year sentence.

"I'm going to open an Italian restaurant in Gaza."



Iceland Engulfed by Volcanic Cloud

Smoke and lava rise from a volcano eruption near Reykjanes, Iceland, 19 July 2025. EPA/JAKOB VEGERFORS
Smoke and lava rise from a volcano eruption near Reykjanes, Iceland, 19 July 2025. EPA/JAKOB VEGERFORS
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Iceland Engulfed by Volcanic Cloud

Smoke and lava rise from a volcano eruption near Reykjanes, Iceland, 19 July 2025. EPA/JAKOB VEGERFORS
Smoke and lava rise from a volcano eruption near Reykjanes, Iceland, 19 July 2025. EPA/JAKOB VEGERFORS

Iceland experts on Monday blamed a lack of wind for a volcanic cloud that has lingered over much of the island since an eruption last week.

Two craters of a volcano on the Reykjanes peninsula spewed out the sulphur-packed cloud on Wednesday, AFP reported.

The thick haze has left the capital Reykjavik and the southwest of the country in a pollution red alert, the highest level in Iceland's monitoring system.

Hylnur Arnason of the Icelandic Energy and Environment Agency said that volcanic eruptions normally cause air pollution, mainly from the sulphur dioxide that is emitted. The gas becomes sulfate in the atmosphere, creating a volcanic fog.

"It's completely misty in large parts of the country," said Arnason.

"Usually in Iceland we have lots of wind, which would carry the pollution away, but right now we don't," the expert added. "Now it's kind of just sitting over the whole country."

Arnason said the gas was not toxic but could be an "irritant".

The environment agency has recommended that vulnerable people should remain at home and take precautions against the pollution. The wind was expected to start strengthening again late Monday.