Israel significantly reduced, but did not entirely stop, bombing Gaza and allowed aid to enter. MECA’s staff, partners and volunteers worked day and night during this period to distribute food, water, and more. It was still not enough to meet the enormous needs of two million people, most of whom had homes or belongings to go back to. Many were already near starvation. As hundreds of thousands of displaced people returned to where they were living before the genocide began, we moved latrines, the Maia water units, solar-powered community kitchens, and our clinics, and worked to get necessities to people wherever they were living. are moving the latrines, the Maia water units, the kitchens, and the clinics, and getting necessities to people wherever they are.

MECA’s work in Gaza has shifted and expanded significantly during the temporary ceasefire. If you would like to know more about the work our partners and staff in Gaza carry out every day for the previous 15 months and since the full resumption of the genocide in Gaza, please go to this page.

Food & Hot Meals

MECA’s three solar-powered community kitchens that were almost completely out of food before the ceasefire are now cooking at least 10,000 meals a day. We opened a fourth kitchen - our first in northern Gaza! - that cooks another 3,500 meals a day. Local women are baking fresh bread at one kitchen.

MECA’s team distributed 48,200 boxes of fresh fruit and vegetables to families in northern, central, and southern Gaza.

We have also provided 101,529 food parcels with staples like rice, lentils, canned tuna and meat and more!

Safe, clean drinking water

On the first day of the ceasefire, MECA installed a new “Maia” purification and desalination unit installed in a hospital in Gaza City that also brings clean drinking water to benefit the families in the neighborhood.

MECA operates twelve other Maia units that provide 30,000 gallons of clean water to families in the south and north every day.

We also did daily distributions of water from trucks to families in in the north and south, including for the huge number of families returning to northern Gaza.

Additional aid

MECA and our partners have also distributed 36,012 hygiene kits, 39,880 blankets, and 3,590 mattresses, 32,984 packs of diapers for children and people with disabilities, milk, and more.