‘Keeping people alive': the bakery forced by Israel to move around Gaza
Palestinians witnessed a large white trailer being laboriously towed through the bomb-pitted roads of southern Gaza by a red tractor earlier this month, though it is unclear how many realised it was one of their last humanitarian lifelines in the face of a total Israeli blockade.
The trailer contained Gaza's last working bakery, forced by Israeli evacuation orders to move around the territory so it can keep functioning. Aid workers say the amount of bread it can produce is only a fraction of the needs of the people of Gaza.
The mobile bakery run by the World Central Kitchen (WCK) had to leave its base in Khan Younis after an edict from the Israeli army for the population of the southern city to move out to make way for military operations, which have been intensifying since Israel ended a ceasefire in mid-March. Aid agencies say that such evacuation orders now apply to 65% of the territory on the Gaza strip.
The bakery was towed to a new location near Deir al-Balah on 1 April, and two days later was producing 25,000 loaves a day. That is just a third of the bakery's capacity, but its production is limited by a shortage of flour as a result of Israel's blockade.
WCK's head of operations in Gaza, known only as Shadi, said the aid organisation would try to increase production as far as possible.
'This bread will be distributed to the medical sector by the WCK team and to the displaced families in Gaza Strip, and to emergency staff … and volunteers,' Shadi said in a video shot at the new location in Deir al-Balah.
He added that the mobile unit, supplied by Jordan in December, is the last functioning bakery in Gaza, after the World Food Programme (WFP) was forced to close all 25 of its bakeries this month due to the Israeli blockade on humanitarian aid including flour. The bakeries had been supplying 800,000 before they had to shut, deepening the humanitarian crisis.
'The demand for the bread is far greater than our current capacity, but we remain committed to do as much as we can for the people of Gaza until this crisis comes to an end,' Shadi said.
Abeer Etefa, the WFP's Middle East spokesperson, said the food crisis in Gaza had only worsened in the two weeks since the organisation had to shut its bakeries for lack of flour and fuel.
'A couple of days later we ran out of the supplies for the food parcels that we give to families. We distributed the last of that,' Etefa said. 'For anything that is left in the market now, there is so little of it, the prices have skyrocketed.'
The humanitarian blockade was imposed by Israel when it ended a two-month ceasefire and resumed its attacks on Gaza, some six weeks ago. The UN's office of coordination of humanitarian affairs (OCHA) has estimated the humanitarian situation on the coastal strip is the worst it has been in the whole 18-month conflict.
As well as blocking the supply of aid, Israel has been destroying 'the remaining infrastructure that's needed to keep people alive', according to the UN. On Sunday, it said a UN warehouse in Gaza city and a community food distribution point in Khan Younis were hit by strikes.
The WFP says that two million people, almost all of Gaza's population, are dependent on food assistance, and that 90% of Gazans face acute levels of food insecurity.
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