Hamada Shaqoura

A year ago, Hamada Shaqoura ran a marketing business promoting Gaza’s once thriving food scene. The Israel-Hamas war—and the destruction, displacement, and food insecurity that have accompanied it—ended that career. In the months since, the 33-year-old has found a new platform as a wartime food blogger, ­cultivating recipes from the limited ingredients coming into Gaza through aid packages.Shaqoura’s videos, showing him cooking and distributing meals, have earned him hundreds of thousands of followers and offer a glimpse of life and resilience under bombardment. Though his expression is always stern—a way, he says, of signaling his disapproval of conditions in Gaza, where inadequate humanitarian aid has created a persistent risk of ­famine—it contrasts with the excitement of the children who receive his creations, including burgers and “Gazan-style” tacos. Shaqoura says he posts his videos in part to spotlight how vital it is for the ­children around him to receive proper nutrition. This summer, ­UNICEF reported that 90% of children in Gaza suffered from severe food poverty, putting their growth, and their health, at risk. “I took it upon myself to make delicious and clean food for the children of the tents,” he says via an interpreter. “I try to have a role in helping these children.”