Aid brings a Gaza bakery back to life

Bangkok Post Group

A bakery in Gaza City has started operating for the first time in six months with aid from the World Food Programme (WFP), providing desperately needed food in a part of the territory where a U.N.-backed report has warned of imminent famine. - REUTERS

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00:00 Long Lines snaked outside a bakery in Gaza City on Sunday, as it started operating again

00:06 for the first time in six months. It reopened with help from the World Food Program, and

00:12 is providing desperately needed food in a part of the territory where the United Nations

00:17 has warned of imminent famine.

00:20 Abdelrahman al-Jadba scored a bag of bread for his family. He says he had been forced

00:24 to feed his children bread made with flour mixed with sand.

00:28 ABDELRAHMAN AL-JADBA, Father of Children (through translator): Our feeling after bread became

00:32 available, it brought some sense of relief to be able to feed these children, fill the

00:37 hunger and be able to move on to the next day, and maybe, God willing, bring more.

00:43 JANE FERGUSON: Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip has turned much of the territory into

00:48 a wasteland, with an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe since October. That's when the

00:54 militant Islamist group Hamas ignited war by storming Southern Israel.

01:00 Israel has faced increased international pressure to let more aid into the Gaza Strip since

01:05 it targeted an aid convoy on April 1, killing international relief workers. The World Food

01:12 Program says it's been using a new coordinated route to get aid into Northern Gaza. It says

01:19 it was able to make its first delivery to the bakery on Saturday, with enough flour

01:23 to make 14,000 bread parcels a day.

01:27 A spokesperson said the hope is to expand to three more bakeries and keep up regular

01:32 deliveries.

01:34 At home, Al-Jadba says the bakery bread cost about five shekels, or just over a dollar.

01:41 Ten days ago, it would have cost 20 times as much. He says he's praying he can keep

01:49 getting fresh bread.

01:51 Israel, which denies hindering humanitarian relief to Gaza, has said that aid is moving

01:57 into Gaza more quickly. But the amount is disputed, and the United Nations says it is

02:03 still much less than the bare minimum to meet humanitarian needs.

02:07 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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