Khan Younis, Gaza – On the pavement outdoors Jamil Abu Assi’s house within the southern Gaza city of Bani Suhaila east of Khan Younis, the 31-year-old and his cousins are busy cooking massive cauldrons of meals.

Abu Assi as soon as cooked house meals primarily based on requests from individuals. However after an Israeli air raid destroyed his kitchen in the course of the 2014 Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip, he shifted gears.

His household nonetheless cooks, however now particularly with the goal of serving to those that have been displaced by Israel’s assaults and siege on Gaza. It’s a mission that’s being examined like by no means earlier than.

In line with the United Nations, a million Palestinians within the Gaza Strip have been internally displaced since Israel started bombarding the territory on October 7. The blockaded enclave’s complete inhabitants is 2.3 million. Many have moved to the south of the Strip following repeated warnings from the Israeli army to depart the north.

Every single day, the household cooks 2,000 meals that feed a few of those that have arrived in Khan Younis, swelling the southern metropolis’s inhabitants to greater than half 1,000,000 from about 220,000 in 2021.

“I begin my morning trying to find wooden as a result of we don’t have cooking gasoline,” he informed Al Jazeera, referring to the entire blockade on gas provides to Gaza enforced by Israel since October 7. However some days, fetching wooden is dangerous, he stated, given the city’s proximity to the Israel border. On Sunday, the Palestinian armed group Hamas — which governs the Gaza Strip — stated it had pushed again an tried Israeli raid into the Khan Younis space, by which an Israeli soldier was killed.

“I don’t need to put myself at risk,” Abu Assi stated.

‘We attempt to do our half’

Abu Assi and his cousins have divided up their roles to be extra environment friendly. One particular person is tasked with chopping onions, one other with including substances and stirring the pot, and a 3rd with wrapping and packaging the meals.

A lot of the meals embody rice, lentils and freekeh, a cereal ready by roasting inexperienced grain. Meat was beforehand a staple, however is now more durable to get as many butchers have closed their retailers after being broken by Israeli bombs and amid an absence of provides.

Many Palestinians who’ve moved to southern Gaza have taken shelter at faculties run by the UN Reduction and Works Company (UNRWA) — the UN company for Palestinian refugees — believing these to be comparatively safer areas. Others are staying in cramped circumstances with host households and communities. Some left the north with solely the garments on their backs, others with small backpacks.

“The colleges are hardly locations of refuge,” he stated. “They’re cemeteries for the dwelling, with out the fundamental requirements of life. We attempt to do our half, nonetheless small, in assuaging this disaster for the individuals.”

Israel’s devastating bombing marketing campaign adopted a shock Hamas assault on southern Israel on October 7, resulting in 1,400 individuals’s deaths. The Israeli bombardment of Gaza has since flattened total neighbourhoods, and killed greater than 4,600 Palestinians in 16 days, together with 1,873 youngsters and 1,023 girls.

But, to Abu Assi — as to Palestinians throughout Gaza, Israel and the occupied West Financial institution — the most recent aggression is simply a reminder of a private historical past.

‘Lovely social solidarity’

Abu Assi is a third-generation refugee initially from Jaffa, the place his grandparents had been displaced in 1948 throughout what Palestinians consult with because the Nakba. Greater than 750,000 Palestinians had been forcibly evicted from their lands and houses, some 500 cities and villages had been destroyed, and hundreds had been killed in a strategy of ethnic cleaning carried out by Jewish militias and the army of the then-nascent Israeli state.

“Our grandfather informed us that being a refugee could be very laborious to take, and that this bitterness won’t ever be forgotten and is handed down to every technology,” Abu Assi recalled. “The ache in our hearts won’t ever make us forgive Israel for what it has finished and continues to do to us.”

The kids affected by the warfare this time round won’t ever be capable to neglect surviving with out meals, water or electrical energy, he stated.

However amid the phobia and trauma of missiles and the siege, a group has come collectively. Some individuals have approached the Abu Assi household to see in the event that they too may additionally donate meals to displaced Palestinians.

“There’s a stunning social solidarity within the metropolis of Khan Younis,” Abu Assi stated. “We can’t settle for hungry individuals not with the ability to discover meals, so there was this natural cooperation to ensure that initiative continues to function.”

‘Really feel protected among the many individuals’

To accommodate the meals wants of the rising displaced inhabitants that Khan Younis is internet hosting, Abu Assi has elevated the variety of cooking burners and divided the work amongst two groups.

Meal preparation begins at seven within the morning, and the cooking goes on till 2pm.

“We can’t go away our workplaces, however we informed those that want meals to come back from two within the afternoon till 5pm,” Abu Assi stated.

“Some residents volunteer to distribute meals of their vehicles to the displaced, which is a pleasant gesture as most of the displaced don’t have technique of transportation nor know the realm very effectively.”

Some households are grateful even only for rice — typically for his or her solely meal of the day.

Karama Musallam, a 40-year-old mom of 5, was on the lookout for meals when she stumbled on the Abu Assi household.

Her household, together with her 80-year-old mother-in-law, fled their house within the northern Gaza city of Beit Hanoon in the beginning of the warfare. They’re staying at UNRWA college in Bani Suhaila.

Musallam doesn’t know anybody or have kin in and round Khan Younis.

“Once I went out to search for meals, I discovered these younger males cooking they usually gave me two meals in order that it could be sufficient for my youngsters,” she stated.

“They informed me that I may come every single day and take no matter meals obtainable,” she added. “That’s the reason I felt protected among the many individuals.”

“We’re all one group.”