Palestine –Once scorned wood-fired neighborhood bakery oven now crucial lifeline for Gaza’s Zeitoun district

Language: Arabic

Duration: 00:03:14

Voice: Natural

Source: A24 Gaza

Restriction: A24 subscribers

Date: 08/08/2022

Storyline:

With Gaza’s only power plant shut down due to an Israeli-imposed fuel shortage, Gazans head to old neighborhood bakeries to secure their most basic staple -bread.

Just hours after an airstrike hit the central Gaza City Zeitoun neighborhood on Friday, residents brought their home-prepared loaves to Abu Saleh’s bakery.

His often scorned wood-fired oven is now essential for Zeitoroun residents who had come to rely on the gas-fired and electric stoves in their kitchens for everyday baking.

Despite the hardships and loss of life imposed by war, the communal bread-baking brings the neighborhood together.

Shot list:

Soundbite (Abu Salah – bakery owner):

“War, power cuts for long hours, and gas shortages have pushed people to go to bakeries that use wood-burning ovens, just like mine, to bake their dough. Bread is the most important staple food families strive to secure.”

Soundbite (Abu Naim – Gazan man):

“Since people have neither electricity nor gas because of the war, they are forced to come to the wood-burning ovens. In the difficult conditions and lack of cash flow, people are forced to secure their needs and live on minimum standards, preparing dough themselves and bringing it to be baked.  Residents of Gaza are facing harsh living conditions amid raging war and a shortage of gas and electricity.”