By Eman, MECA staff in Gaza

May 7, 2025:

Serving Sahlab with my colleague Ahmed

“The moments I spend with children in every project I visit are the reason why I am holding on and waking up each day.”

A few days ago, I visited one of MECA’s kitchens at Deir al-Balah. We organized an activity to distribute sahlab – a traditional drink made from orchid tuber powder – and rice pudding to the children there.

As I stepped out of the car at around 9:30 am, I wasn’t okay.

I felt heavy.

The full blockade that has been choking us for over two months since Israel’s last closure of the crossings, the food shortages, and the constant fear of forced eviction and displacement – all felt unbearable for me to carry.

But as I entered the area of the kitchen, I was surprised with the endless rivers of emotions that I received from the children around. About twenty children ran smiling toward me like a wave of light. They took my hands in theirs and welcomed me warmly.

Only then I felt seen and heard. Less alone, I felt rooted, grounded, and peaceful.

In a place like Gaza where fear is the king and famine is the queen, those cups of sahlab and rice pudding became tiny treasures. Food is scarce, sugar is gone, and the ghost of famine hovers over us all, gnawing at our souls and bodies.
We did not serve only desserts but rather cups filled with our shared and simple wishes of a warm home and peaceful life.
Those cups were some of the most delicious ones I’ve ever tasted – not for their flavor, but for the “temporary” relief I just felt for a little bit when I saw the children’s facial expressions.

When I was serving sahlab with my colleague Ahmed, a boy said to us: “I love sahlab, but I love you much more.”

With his tiny right hand, the boy gestured on shaping a half heart, waiting for me to complete the other part.

Then while Ahmed and I were sitting next to the children, a little girl named Ahlam offered me her own treat with a glowing smile and said, “Drink the sahlab with me because I love you.”

These two moments melted my heart and made me forget some of the stress and horror we are enduring.

I admitted to myself that maybe I am the one who needs those children more than they need me.

All of us need them. We need to feel their suffering, to stay connected to our own humanity, to relearn the true meaning of love and sharing from them. However it’s not their responsibility to teach us these life lessons, yet they do. With their beautiful hearts and souls, they remind us of the values our world so often forgets.

What Ahlam did reminded me that the spirit of giving in Gaza never dies, despite all this deprivation.

My deepest gratitude to our partners and staff  who save no effort to make food a source of dignity and warmth. And to you guys, who keep donating and raising awareness about us.

Children with MECA staff and volunteers

These moments are the essence of our work: not the numbers, not the reports, but the way a child’s eyes light up.

From Gaza, from the heart of Najwa Kitchen, I write to the world that life is still growing here. The children are still trying to laugh. And we are with them – trying to laugh, and doing our best to protect their laughter with all the strength and love we have.

Your donations don’t just feed a family; they wrap a child in warmth, in love, in the feeling that someone out there cares. And that feeling, sometimes, is EVERYTHING.

May 8, 2025:

After I finished writing this piece, one of our colleagues who helped with the special day, Muhammed, was severely injured by an Israeli airstrike.

At first, I hesitated to share this with you. I didn’t want to speak about hope and love, as this piece was set out to be, while living through quite the opposite.

That little sense of relief that I wrote about evaporated the moment I came face-to-face with reality once again when I received the news of Muhammed’s severe injury.

Only one week later, I feel that those moments with the children are too distant – though it was genuinely what I felt at that time. Yet here in Gaza, happiness is just a mirage – always out of reach.

Between one moment and another everything changes, even our feelings.

I can’t push away the feeling of helplessness and emptiness. My eyes are running over a happy memory that turned into a dark tragic one – a curse haunts and threatens me with a new loss.

My heart aches as it prays for Muhammed’s critical situation to get better and that he wakes up from his coma. The shrapnel has severely affected his brain and maybe he will lose his right eye forever.

I don’t want to lose him. I’m afraid that by the time this is published and reaches you, he might no longer be with us – nor will he be with his two children and wife.

Please pray for Muhammed and do everything you can to help stop this genocide – to end the endless loss of fathers and the orphaning of children.

We lose our people – and with them, we lose ourselves, our laughter and memories. I urge you to act by all means possible to stop this killing machine.

I urge you. ALL OF YOU.

May 9, 2025:

The nightmare I feared the most has just happened. It’s Friday, 9th of May at 9:00 am. Our colleagues are now on their way to bury Muhammed. He has just succumbed to his wounds and left us…

There’s a silly memory that has just popped into my mind now. Muhammed, the last time we met, shared with me a piece of chocolate. This treat is too expensive and rarely found in Gaza during the famine. He was generous enough to share such a hard-to-buy thing with me. Muhammed always offered me something. He always had something to give. Yet the world failed him and gave him nothing in return.

I wrote yesterday I hoped that maybe we could save him. Now I have no hope. No laughter.

Please forget about the first part of this story. I was lying.

From Gaza, from my tent, as I am now gazing at that chocolate wrapper I kept for no logical reason – just a memory maybe – I write to the world: death is still growing here.

Now I’m overthinking: Should have I saved that cartoon cup of sahlab that Ahlam shared with me, too?

I don’t know. But I am crying right now.