Name: Gaza food kitchens still missing essential products despite ceasefire | BBC News
Uploaded: 2025-11-24T17:06:50.000Z
Duration: 5 min 58 s
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It is six weeks since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

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While more aid is now entering Gaza, the World Food Program says it's been getting in only about two thirds of the volume of food it hoped to and that there are still access constraints.

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Back in May, as food stocks ran out due to an Israeli blockade, the aid organization American Near East Refugee Aid showed the BBC how it was struggling to feed families at its last community kitchen in Gaza.

Well, now we've gone back to see what's changed.

Here's our Middle east correspondent, Yolandnell, stirred with care.

What's being prepared here isn't just lunch.

This community kitchen opened in central Gaza after the ceasefire.

It now cooks daily for thousands of displaced people who rely on it.

We increase to up to 120 pots in a day, serving more than 4,000 families, compared to just 900 families six months ago.

But while more food is getting into Gaza than it did before, this aid organization, Anira, says it's missing vital ingredients to improve people's diets.

We work hard to include vegetables like sweet peppers, onion and potatoes.

We need to secure protein, essential protein like meat and chicken on the menu.

Today it's spaghetti with a tomato and vegetable sauce.

An increase in fuel allowed into Gaza means Anira can use a truck to get the meals to those waiting.

During two years of war, Israel restricted the food entering Gaza.

The UN declared famine in part of the Strip.

Many, helped by Anira, have lost their homes and have no money.

We eat the food available from the soup kitchen.

I swear, nothing's changed since the ceasefire.

We were only happy because the constant bloodshed had stopped.

When I have five kids living in two tents, what's new for me?

We live in a total catastrophe every day.

With the onset of winter, life is getting harder.

Aid agencies are pressing for Israel to open all of the border crossings into Gaza to bring in more supplies.

The conversations we have with the family in the camps are heartbreaking.

Most of them are focused on survival from one day to the next.

The ceasefire in Gaza remains shaky, and Palestinians are skeptical about the international peace plan.

But with no other good options, they desperately need it to work.

And we can talk to Yolande live now because she joins us from Jerusalem.

Just in terms of the ceasefire, we'll get an update in a moment, but

we can see that the World Food Programs saying that there's still restrictions in terms of getting access and getting terms of, in terms of getting aid into Gaza.

And you know, people are so reliant on these community kitchens.

The UN is saying that with different organizations involved, they have been reaching about 1.4 million people across Gaza with these hot meals.

But there are more than 2 million people who are living in Gaza in total.

And then there have been surveys done by the World Food Program and they show that really it's about a quarter of households are still eating just one meal a day.

Two thirds of households say that they cannot afford to buy the food that is now available that's coming through to private sellers, available on the local markets.

Because people, of course, after two years of war, they have no income, they have no savings left in many cases.

And then we're also hearing about some improvements being made in terms of children accessing school, in terms of patients being able to access hospitals.

But still much, much more needs to be done.

And in terms of the ceasefire itself, six weeks on now, where are we?

Another big test for this fragile ceasefire came at the weekend.

We had more than 20 people killed, according to hospitals in Gaza, more than 50 injured, including children, in Israeli strikes that took place in the center of the Strip and in Gaza City as well.

This came after Israel said that a Hamas fighter had crossed the so called yellow line into the part of the Gaza Strip where its forces are still on the ground, the part that it controls.

It said there was shooting, none of its troops were hurt.

But it said this was a severe, extreme, sorry violation of the ceasefire and that is why it responded in this way.

Hamas have come out of officials accusing Israel of fabricating pretexts to evade the ceasefire agreement.

We've got a Hamas delegation currently meeting with Egyptian mediators from the intelligence service in Cairo that was confirmed by Hamas to discuss the state of the ceasefire and what can be done.

And just a reminder that still on a daily basis, we are getting reports of artillery shelling, of Israeli strikes, and

the Palestinian news agency Wafa saying that four people have already been killed in Gaza in the past few hours.

Yolande, as always, thanks so much for that update.

Yolande Nell, our Middle east correspondent joining us from Jerusalem.