Bakeries smashed in Israel bombardment key to Gaza hunger crisis

Reuters - 28/02
The rubble and twisted metal of Kamel Ajour's smashed-up Gaza bakery underscores one reason starving people in the north of the bombarded enclave are reduced to eating raw cactus leaves after nearly five months of Israel's military campaign.
  • Many bakeries in ruins nearly five months into war
  • Gaza residents facing famine eat cactuses, animal feed
  • Dispute over aid access to northern Gaza
GAZA, Feb 28 (Reuters) - The rubble and twisted metal of Kamel Ajour's smashed-up Gaza bakery underscores one reason starving people in the north of the bombarded enclave are reduced to eating raw cactus leaves after nearly five months of Israel's military campaign.
Bread will be critical to any sustained effort to relieve Palestinian hunger, with one in six children in northern Gaza wasting from malnutrition, but most bakeries lie in rubble from Israeli bombardment and aid deliveries of flour are rare.
"We have five bakeries. This bakery was bombed and other bakeries have been damaged. We have three bakeries that can become functional," Ajour said in a video obtained by Reuters in Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza City in the north of the enclave.
A crane lifted equipment from the ruins that Ajour hoped to salvage. Inside, the metal ovens and trays were piled ramshackle amid the wreckage.
An Israeli truce proposal now being studied by Hamas would allow for the import of bakery equipment and fuel to revive the ovens.
"It is most important to have a ceasefire and for bakeries to function again so we can find something to eat, and for our children, our loved ones, our families," Basel Khairuldeen said in Gaza City.
With bakeries destroyed or unable to function for lack of fuel, people have had to bake bread themselves as best they can over fires ma...
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