Shawarma Restaurant in Cairo Brings Taste of Home for Displaced Palestinians

General view of buildings by the Nile River in Cairo, Egypt. Reuters file photo
General view of buildings by the Nile River in Cairo, Egypt. Reuters file photo
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Shawarma Restaurant in Cairo Brings Taste of Home for Displaced Palestinians

General view of buildings by the Nile River in Cairo, Egypt. Reuters file photo
General view of buildings by the Nile River in Cairo, Egypt. Reuters file photo

A Palestinian businessman displaced by the war in Gaza is bringing a taste of home for fellow refugees with a Shawarma restaurant he has opened in Cairo, Reuters reported.
"The Restaurant of Rimal Neighborhood" offers Shawarma, a Middle Eastern dish of thinly-sliced meat, and other Palestinian and Arab dishes.
"The name comes to eternalize Rimal, my neighborhood, and to eternalize my homeland too," said Basem Abu Al-Awn.
"It is also to replace the restaurant I once had in Gaza. Two restaurants of mine, in addition to my house and the houses of my relatives, were destroyed," he said.
Abu Al-Awn hopes his time outside Gaza will be temporary and he is determined to return to the enclave once the war between Israel and Hamas is over.
"I will return, even if I have to set up a tent near the rubble of my house. We are going back to Gaza and we will rebuild it," he told Reuters.
Rimal was Gaza City's busiest shopping center, with large malls and main bank offices before Israeli forces reduced most of it to rubble. It was also home to Gaza's most famous Shawarma places.
"The taste is the same, people tell us it tastes as if they are eating it in Gaza," said Ahmed Awad, the new restaurant's manager.
"The Egyptians who get to try our place keep coming back. They tell us the taste is nice and is different from the Shawarma they usually get," Awad said.
Gaza Shawarma spices are unique and scarce in Cairo, so credit goes to Awad's father, who mixes those available to give the dish a special Palestinian taste.
Many thousands of Palestinians have arrived in Gaza since the war began last October.

Awad, his wife, and four children arrived in Cairo three months ago. In Gaza, he used to work in restaurants specializing in oriental and Western dishes.
With an end to the war looking like a distant prospect, Awad urged Palestinians not to give up.
"I advise them to work, and take care of their lives, their houses and everything may have gone but no problem, it will come back again," he said. "Once things are resolved we will return home, work there, and rebuild our country."
Palestinians now stranded in Cairo include businessmen, students and ordinary families who say they seek some kind of temporary legal residency to pursue investment and study plans until a ceasefire is in place.
Palestinian and Egyptian leaders reject the permanent settlement of Palestinians outside their land.
Om Moaz, from Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, had been struggling to pay for a rented house and treatment for her husband and daughter in Cairo. She began working from home, offering Palestinian food through social media.
She found there was a strong demand from both Egyptians and Palestinians.
"Some were in the war and came to Egypt. So they started ordering my food. And thank God, it's a successful business and hopefully, it continues," she said.



UK Farm Swaps Milk for Cow Cuddles

Visitor Jess Tinton embraces a cow during a "Cow Cuddling" experience at Dumble Farm in Arram, Britain, June 17, 2025. REUTERS/Phil Noble
Visitor Jess Tinton embraces a cow during a "Cow Cuddling" experience at Dumble Farm in Arram, Britain, June 17, 2025. REUTERS/Phil Noble
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UK Farm Swaps Milk for Cow Cuddles

Visitor Jess Tinton embraces a cow during a "Cow Cuddling" experience at Dumble Farm in Arram, Britain, June 17, 2025. REUTERS/Phil Noble
Visitor Jess Tinton embraces a cow during a "Cow Cuddling" experience at Dumble Farm in Arram, Britain, June 17, 2025. REUTERS/Phil Noble

Years of floods and low food prices have driven a dairy farm in England's northeast to stop milking its cows and instead charge visitors to cuddle them.

Dumble Farm started as a dairy farm in the 1970s, but in recent years flooding washed out crops and killed off the type of grass the cows like to eat, while milk prices below cost of production proved an insurmountable challenge, Reuters reported.

"The amount of flooding and the pressures on our land were just making it unsustainable for us to carry on," said Fiona Wilson, co-owner of the farm.

Agriculture is one of the sectors worst-affected by climate change, with farmers in Europe and elsewhere suffering under increasing heat, drought and flooding.

In 2022, Dumble Farm sold all but a few of its dairy cows and, in a scramble to reinvent itself, began offering "cow cuddling" experiences to fund a wildlife conservation scheme.

For 95 pounds ($127.80), visitors can cuddle, brush and stroke the cows as they lie down on a straw-covered enclosure inside a barn. The experience includes a safari to see Highland cattle.

"It's been so worth it, just to get so close to the cows, and they are so loving and gentle," guest Emma Hutton, 25, said after she spent some time cuddling one of the cows.

It took over a year to train the cows to feel comfortable with cuddling, but now the animals have fully adjusted, farmer James McCune said.

"They like being pampered. They are like big dogs... It's more of a spa day for the cows," McCune said. The farm uses the proceeds to create habitats to protect wildlife and support declining species, such as lapwing birds.

"It's great that we can fund the conservation scheme by having visitors to the farm, and that's really the bigger picture," Wilson said.