Egypt's $1 billion marvel: Arts24's exclusive look inside the Grand Egyptian Museum
Join arts24 presenter Eve Jackson on an exclusive journey inside the Grand Egyptian Museum – a colossal cultural masterpiece just a mile from the Great Pyramids of Giza. The museum's grand debut has faced multiple delays and was set to open this July, but ongoing tensions in the Middle East have pushed back the opening once again, making this your rare opportunity to explore its wonders ahead of time.
After two decades and a billion-dollar build, this stunning museum showcases over 100,000 artefacts, including the full collection of Tutankhamun's treasures – reunited under one roof for the very first time.
With cutting-edge restoration labs, sustainable design that cuts energy use by 60 percent and panoramic views of the ancient pyramids, this is more than a museum — it's Egypt 's bold statement to the world, bridging 7,000 years of history with modern ambition.
Watch Eve uncover the stories behind colossal statues, revolutionary architecture and the experts bringing the past back to life.
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Mind the gap: tourists drawn to Oman's giant sinkholes
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France 24
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Egypt sets opening of $1 bn Pyramids museum for Nov 1
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France 24
2 days ago
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No, these videos of restaurants do not prove that there is no famine in Gaza
In several threads posted on X, the pro-Israeli account Gazawood shares images of Gazan restaurants where food is in abundance: pancakes, waffles, cakes, and cocktails. These videos are accompanied by sarcastic comments, insinuating that the famine in the Gaza Strip is a hoax. "Stuck after filming a dramatic empty-pot scene and feeling a sudden appetite? Worry not – all that's left is to choose your favorite spot!", wrote the account in a post with more than 150,000 views. The account lists several shops that are "still open", which it presents as proof that food is still easily accessible in Gaza – and accuses international media of manipulating reality. However, these videos lack context and in no way prove that there is no famine in Gaza. Restaurants closed or operating in extreme conditions Many of the establishments highlighted by the Gazawood account have, in fact, been forced to close due to supply shortages or rampant inflation, which makes it virtually impossible to buy raw materials. Examples include the O2 restaurant, which has been closed since June 21, and the Pistachio café, which has been closed since June 24. Other establishments remain open, but are operating under very difficult conditions, far from the comfortable image conveyed by the videos. Among the restaurants still operating cited by the Gazawood account is the Athar café, run by Mohammed Shabana in Gaza. Contacted by the FRANCE 24 Observers team, he described a reality very different from that suggested in the viral videos: 'I opened the café at the beginning of May 2025 (...). I'd lost my job due to the deteriorating situation, so I decided to start a small project that would allow my family and me to live. The café was that hope. These videos were shot at different times, some several months ago, others more recently, but it's important to point out that they don't reflect the whole picture. Even in the most difficult conditions, we try to show ourselves in a decent and respectable light, but this does not mean that life is normal or that food is available. What appears in the video does not reflect the extent of the effort and suffering required to obtain a few dishes. We don't sell like we used to. Most of the dishes we currently offer are local substitutes or modified recipes due to the shortage of raw materials. We are suffering from a serious shortage of supplies because of the blockade imposed on Gaza. We get our supplies on the black market or from the remains of warehouses, often at exorbitant prices. Before the war, a pancake cost 15 shekels (around 3.80 euros). Today, they are sold for between 90 and 100 shekels (25 euros). Coffee has risen from 5 to 7 shekels (1.50 euros) to 50 or 60 shekels a cup (15 euros). These prices are not a luxury, but a direct consequence of the rising cost of raw materials and the difficulty of obtaining them. Customers are mostly students or families who share the price of a single dish to eat something simple, or sometimes wealthy people, who are few in number. We work against a backdrop of blockades, destruction, electricity and Internet cuts, and shortages of basic necessities. I work to support my family. Most of us have lost our homes or our source of income, myself included, and all those who work for me are in the same situation. This project is my way of keeping hope alive. The photos and videos that are published do not reflect reality; they are used in a fragmentary and misleading way. It is unfair for our efforts to survive and resist to be used as proof that there is 'no suffering'. We are fighting to live, not to show the world that we are fine!' Open restaurants are not enough to deny famine, says humanitarian expert Our team spoke to François Grünewald, an agricultural engineer specialising in food security. Co-founder of Groupe URD (urgency - rehabilitation - development), an independent research centre dedicated to evaluating and improving humanitarian action, he has carried out more than 15 missions in the Palestinian Territories, including in the Gaza Strip, most recently in 2021. For him, the fact that restaurants are still open in no way contradicts the existence of famine. 'The fact that restaurants are open and still serving food is absolutely no indicator that there is no famine,' he says. "Even in famine situations, there are always people who manage to find ways of taking advantage of the situation. There are always richer people who manage, and others who organise themselves to create economic activity. This has always been the case, even during other famines, such as in Ethiopia. It's not at all contradictory with a famine situation." The official criteria for declaring famine are much more precise. They are defined by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), an internationally recognised tool used by agencies such as the UN, FAO, and WFP. According to the IPC, a famine is declared when at least three conditions are met in a given area: when 20% of households face extreme food shortage with no possibility of recovery without external assistance, when 30% of children are acutely malnourished, and when the crude mortality rate exceeds two deaths for every 10,000 people each day, due to outright starvation or its consequences. Grünewald acknowledges the rigour of these criteria, but qualifies their applicability to Gaza. "These are good indicators for assessing a food situation, but in the case of Gaza, they don't reveal the real seriousness of the situation. It's much more serious than the indicators suggest," he says. The lack of medical infrastructure, destroyed by the bombardments, also prevents the collection of data on malnutrition and mortality. These figures are essential for activating the mechanisms for declaring famine according to the IPC criteria. Behind 'Gazawood', a co-ordinated strategy to discredit Palestinians A contraction of "Gaza" and "Hollywood", the expression "Gazawood" is commonly used by pro-Israeli circles to accuse Palestinians of staging their suffering or deaths in videos broadcast online. It is a variant of 'Pallywood', which we covered back in October 2024. The Gazawood account, which has been active on X since November 2023, claims to be a 'fact-checker' tasked with exposing these alleged staged events. But according to a joint investigation by Forbidden Stories, RFI, and the Israeli media outlets The Seventh Eye, Shakuf, and FakeReporter, this verification activity concerns only a tiny proportion of its publications: out of more than 200 videos analysed, less than 6% were actually verified. The rest, made up of content taken out of context or interpreted in a tendentious way, serves above all to discredit Gazan civilians. FakeReporter 's digital investigations, combined with eyewitness accounts, have identified the administrator of the account as Idan Knochen, an ultra-Orthodox Jew from Jerusalem, previously known as an author of fantasy novels for teenagers. The account is also said to be fed by a private Telegram group of around thirty members, some of whom are close to Israeli far-right figures. Their co-ordinated production of viral content helps to propagate a conspiratorial counter-narrative, widely taken up in international pro-Israeli circles, and to deny the scale of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
