Meet The 10-Year-Old Palestinian Girl In Gaza Bringing Joy To Millions With Her Cooking Videos
In the face of daily bombardments and the sounds of drones, Renad Attalah brings hope and joy to her hundreds of thousands of Instagram followers through her cooking videos.
A 10-year-old Palestinian girl in Gaza has won the hearts of millions of people on Instagram with her love of cooking despite Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza.
In the face of daily bombardments and the sounds of drones, Renad Attalah brings hope and joy to her hundreds of thousands of Instagram followers through her cooking videos.
Renad has garnered more than half a million followers on Instagram, where she shares daily cooking videos and recipes, using the simplest ingredients she can find due to the war in Gaza.
In one of her videos, Renad shared a clip of fried tomatoes, a dish her family ate during Eid Al-Adha – a Muslim holiday where Muslims usually eat meat, wear new clothes and exchange gifts, revealing that she hasn't tasted meat, rode in a car or bought new clothes in the past eight months.
“The fried tomatoes were a family’s lunch on the day of the Eid. I haven’t ridden in a car since the beginning of the war, and I haven’t bought Eid clothes. After the last cooking video, I developed an allergy in my lungs because of the smoke”, Renad wrote in the caption.
Despite this, her excitement shines through in every video as she presents her audience with easy recipes, adding her own unique touch.
“Today, I made Mabroosha. Despite all the tragic circumstances that we are living in and that we have been through in the last two days, I am trying to find hope somewhere here or there,” Renad wrote in another post shared on her Instagram account.
While speaking with Al Jazeera, Renad said that she always loved cooking but didn’t know if she had the skills for it before the war started.
“I am trying to escape the agony of war, bring joy to myself and to make others happy, and to wash away grief and sadness,” she added.
Food and water are running out in Gaza due to Israel’s complete blockade of the strip, and Renad is dependent on donations and aid to buy her ingredients.
Renad, along with thousands of others in Gaza, faces not only a shortage of food but also the constant threat of bombs, warplanes, and drones, as well as an unstable internet connection.
Despite these challenges, she eagerly waits for the internet to be restored so she can keep herself occupied through her content creation.
Renad's family has consistently supported and encouraged her passion for cooking.
Her mother, Nourhan Attalah, said she was surprised at Renad's rise to social media fame.
"The war was a factor. The war is ferocious; children are living in fear, trapped at home. She, like many, suffered greatly, but we found an opportunity to give her a space to express herself,.," she said. she said.
Renad said in another video with CTV News that she has two lifelong dreams: one is to become a famous chef, and the other is to escape Gaza and live a quiet and peaceful life with her family.
Israel is intentionally and systematically targeting schools and camps sheltering civilians, designated as “safe zones” by Israel in Gaza and carrying out a “starvation campaign” against people in Gaza that has led to the killings of at least 33 children due to malnutrition, according to the UN.
In Gaza, about 495,000 people – more than one-fifth of the population–are grappling with the most “catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity, according to data from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) in data released in June.
Since Oct. 7, Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza and relentless bombardment have killed more than 38,600 Palestinians, including over 15,000 children, and injured more than 89,000.
More On Israel's Genocide In Gaza
Cherry Mohamed
Cherry Mohamed
Cherry Mohamed
