La Oenegé World Central Kitchen (WCK), founded by chef José Andrés, announced Wednesday that Israel’s blockade at the entrance of humanitarian aid in Gaza forces the organization to stop giving meals to the inhabitants of the Strip because they have exhausted their supplies, where nothing enters from March 2 forced the entity to end its humanitarian work and to close its last mobile bakery.
“Wck’s large -scale campaign kitchens have run out of the necessary ingredients to prepare daily meals. Our mobile bakery, the last one in operation in Gaza, has run out of flour,” the organization said in a statement in its X account, while humanitarian groups warn of an incipient famine in this territory, where there are no food, medicines, water or combustibles.
The last mobile bakery no longer has a flour and more than 80 percent of the community meals of Wck have run out of material. “Without ingredients or fuels, these kitchens cannot feed the families that depend on them,” the organization has lamented, which in recent weeks had thrown “creativity” and “determination” to make the most of the few ingredients and the fuel it had.
Chef José Andrés also stressed that there are “trucks loaded with food and other supplies waiting in Egypt, Jordan and Israel” but remain stranded on the Israeli border with Gaza because their “vital work cannot continue without Israel’s permission for the entry of this aid.” Therefore, the Spanish chef has demanded that the Israeli authorities allow the flow of aid, in line with the requests launched in these last two months from other humanitarian organizations on the ground.
Days ago, the UN Agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), the main supplier of humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip, also warned that 3,000 of its trucks could not cross the border crossings.
In April 2024, they were killed in multiple Israeli air attacks in Gaza against the convoy in which they were traveling in Deir al Balah, center of Gaza, which forced them to suspend their work temporarily.
In 18 months of Israeli offensive, with more than 52,000 dead and about two million gazati forcedly displaced, Wck claims to have served more than 130 million meals and 26 million breads. Since January it has detected about 10,000 cases of acute malnutrition in children, of which 1,600 are serious cases. A fact that UNICEF raises 60,000 children when referring to several degrees of malnutrition, according to the UN Humanitarian Affairs Office (Ocha).
