Young chef Renad inspires Gaza with viral cooking videos
Al Jazeera
A 10-year-old girl living amid the Israeli onslaught on Gaza finds a love for cooking with ingredients from aid boxes.
Ten-year-old Renad Ataullah from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza has more than 450,000 followers on Instagram from all around the world. Her cookery posts have an immense following within Gaza itself – her resilience and infectious, bright smile are seen as a beacon of hope for the children of Gaza caught in the brutal chaos.
Renad has always loved cooking, she says. Even before the war began in October last year, she watched cooking videos with a passion. But when the war broke out, she began cooking with her family using whatever ingredients were available – often those from aid boxes containing mainly dried goods and canned food.
Renad, who ought to be in fifth grade now, has missed a whole year of school as a result of the war. She is currently sheltering with her mother and sisters, crammed with several other families into a single house in Deir el-Balah, which has been the focus of much of Israel’s bombardment.
“I became famous by accident!” she says.
A viral video of Renad unpacking an aid box and discovering that it contained sugar – and her reaction of utter glee at finding a basic ingredient that had been in short supply – caught the world’s attention.
