The organization World Central Kitchen (WCK), led by Spanish chef José Andrés, has announced that it has been forced to close its last mobile bakery in the Gaza Strip due to a lack of flour, as a consequence of the Israeli blockade that has prevented the entry of food, medicine, water, and fuel since March 2.
According to a statement published on the organization’s official account, trucks with food and fuel are stranded at the Israeli border with Gaza, ready to cook, but cannot enter without Israel's permission, which has resulted in WCK running out of the necessary ingredients to prepare daily meals and breads.
WCK's large-scale field kitchens have run out of supplies, leading to over 80 percent of the community kitchens supported by the organization lacking reserves. In light of this situation, WCK teams in the two remaining open kitchens have been cooking with wooden pallet fires, food scraps, and abandoning rice dishes in favor of stews with bread, as these require less fuel.
In recent months, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has also alerted about the difficulty in delivering humanitarian aid to Gaza, with 3,000 of its trucks held at the divider. Since January, about 10,000 cases of acute malnutrition have been reported in children in the region, 1,600 of which are considered severe.
World Central Kitchen has provided aid to Gaza for 18 months, serving over 130 million meals and 26 million breads, in a context where the population is affected by violence and extremely precarious living conditions.
