The Electronic Intifada 27 February 2025
Bakers pull bread out of the oven in Deir al-Balah, Gaza, 16 October 2023.
APA imagesThe al-Baqa Cafe along the coast of Gaza, near the port, was shelled by Israel during the war. Because of that, the cafe was mostly empty this past New Year’s Eve when my friend Saeed took his fiancee Safaa there for a date.
The upper floor no longer exists, in its place are rows of iron rebar. The lower floor, though, was only partially damaged; it is just missing all of its windows.
Yet Saeed was in good spirits. He had made a cake for Safaa to celebrate the new year.
It was a simple cake baked over a fire, made out of the ingredients he could obtain: flour, one lemon, two eggs, sugar, a little bit of yeast.
Missing were vanilla and baking powder and other additional ingredients that one would want to bake a cake.
Saeed wanted to decorate the table with some flowers, but there were no flowers available.
He brought with him two cartons of orange juice, and they had a good time together despite the starvation they are experiencing in the north.
The cake that Saeed had baked was the best present that one could receive in Gaza: food.
Making bread out of pasta
Saeed worked as a marketer and proposed to Safaa two years ago. Safaa and her family live in the destroyed building that once held their home in the al-Rimal neighborhood in Gaza City.
Safaa and her family had no flour for a month.
A 25 kilogram bag of flour costs $200, and they didn’t have enough money to purchase one. They spent all their savings on overpriced canned food to not starve to death.
Safaa’s father Samir owned several clothing shops throughout the Gaza Strip, but all of them were completely destroyed by Israeli attacks.
The family decided they would make bread out of pasta. They bought three packets of pasta and ground it back to its original essence, flour.
These packets made enough bread for three days. They did this for about two weeks, but then they could no longer find pasta in the store.
Since then, they have subsisted on canned food, no bread.
Safaa recently felt fatigued and dizzy; she had a severe headache and looked pale. She fainted.
Safaa was diagnosed with anemia and advised to eat any available iron-rich food, such as leafy green vegetables, peas, eggs, bread and pasta.
But she could find nothing but canned peas. Even then, when they were available, they were too expensive to purchase.
Saeed brought her some bread from his daily share. His family has flour that is hardly sufficient for them till the end of the month.
New Year’s Eve, 2023
Back at the al-Baqa Cafe on New Year’s, Saeed and Safaa reminisced about some of their favorite snacks and meals.
Back in 2023, they had gone to al-Mathaf Hotel by the sea to celebrate the start of the year. But this hotel has since been severely damaged by Israeli attacks, like most of Gaza’s hotels and restaurants.
It was an unforgettable evening. The hotel’s restaurant served a buffet that included a variety of cookies, grilled meat, stuffed grape leaves, kibbeh (spiced meat and bulghur wheat), pasta and salads. A local singer performed and entertained guests all night.
They stayed until 3 am, celebrating and having fun.
The following day, Saeed and his family were invited to lunch by Safaa’s family. They ate the traditional Palestinian dish, chicken maftoul, with chickpeas and pumpkin.
Safaa prepared some desserts: orange pudding, apple pie and lemon cake.
After lunch, Safaa’s father played music and his mother sang and everyone danced. Saeed presented Safaa then with a silver necklace that he had bought in the United Arab Emirates.
She still wears the necklace.
This New Year’s Eve, Saeed presented Safaa with the cake and then the next day, he presented her with another gift: a wrapped box of avocados, oranges, apples and bananas, in addition to molokhia leaves and six eggs. It cost him over $50.
He gave her the gift in her family’s house after they had spent the day wandering the destroyed streets.
He put a small card inside the box, saying, “Happy New Year, my love.” She was so happy she began to cry.
Safaa hadn’t tasted the fruit for more than a year. She also recognized the strangeness of the gift and what their lives had become. Safaa stood there, wearing the silver necklace and holding the box, the best present one could receive in Gaza: food.
Ismael Aljaja is a writer in Gaza.
