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World Central Kitchen Delivers in Israel & Gaza [1]

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Date: 2023-11-03  

My wife & I wondered, shortly after the terrorist attack in Israel, whether our favorite get-it-done non-profit might find a way to get food to people in Gaza, as they have done gloriously in Ukraine. Within days we got our first bulletin, then increased our monthly donations. Here’s the latest update.

From their bulletin to donors last night:

I’m reaching out with an update on World Central Kitchen’s relief efforts in the Middle East. This is a challenging response, and we’re grateful for your support to serve meals to anyone in need.

In Israel, we have now served over 309,000 meals and are providing approximately 31,000 meals a day. Assessing accurate numbers and locations of internally displaced persons is proving to be a challenge, but as our presence grows, our team is able to make stronger connections with the community to build trust and networks. We are currently partnering with 18 restaurants, six catering companies, and three NGOs to serve meals in many locations throughout the country where evacuees are sheltering.



In addition to hot meals, we’ve partnered with a local NGO, Pitchon-Lev, to assemble and distribute food kits to communities that are able to cook for themselves. These kits weigh about 33 pounds and are intended to feed a family of five for one week. More than 600 of these kits have been distributed, which include shelf stable ingredients, such as coffee, tea, pickles, and couscous. We continue to routinely check in with our partners to ensure that all meals are kosher.



Through Anera’s local team, our partner on the ground in Gaza, we have now served over 473,000 hot meals, 37,000 food kits, and 16,500 vegetable baskets. In order to feed families of varying sizes, 42 pound and 35 pound food kits are being distributed, and are intended to feed families for several days. In total, the food kits have provided approximately 1.2 million meals. Through our vegetable baskets, we’ve been able to provide approximately 726,000 meals to Palestinian families and anyone else in need. We hope our team can join Anera on the ground as soon as possible, as the need for our support becomes more critical.



In the meantime, our team is positioned in Egypt to prepare for a humanitarian corridor to open into Gaza or Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. Distribution of hot meals in the Sinai peninsula began on October 24. We have secured a warehouse in Cairo and are evaluating the best way to utilize the space as we await authorization to work via the Egyptian government. I encourage you to check out our Director of Emergency Response, Sam Bloch’s update from Cairo.



On October 24, WCK served meals in Tyre, Lebanon, after recent air strikes hit the area. Since then, WCK has served more than 8,500 meals in Lebanon, where meals and food kits are requested by families who have fled from the Israel-Lebanon border. We are working alongside WCK Chef Corps member Aline Kamakian and her team—with whom we worked back in 2020 after a massive explosion ripped through Beirut and, most recently, in Armenia during our response to the refugee crisis. WCK’s strategy for expanding our relief to neighboring countries is pending and will depend on the level of food needs.



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