Cake in wartime, Gaza

RAFAH, Gaza Strip — There is war in Gaza, and now, for some, there are cakes too – with peanut butter cream, coconut flakes and sprinkles.

Batool Cakes, a professional bakery with three branches across Gaza, began baking cakes at its Rafah branch a month ago, for the first time since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas. It’s surprisingly busy with orders in a city of tent camps, shelters and lines for bread.

“We were shocked by the huge demand,” says Ibrahim Abu Hani, head baker and co-owner of the family business.

This may seem shocking: a pastry shop in Rafah, the southernmost town that has swelled with the majority of Gaza’s population, many of whom eat only one meal a day, and which faces the Israeli threat of send troops for a final battle against Hamas. .

Selling cake – while at the opposite end of Gaza, in the battered north, Palestinians suffer extreme hunger.

But the children need to cheer themselves up. Birthdays only happen once a year. And couples won’t let a war delay their marriage.

“We Gazans love life. People push each other to hope,” says Abu Hani. “Because there are no other options.”

The first cake orders

Abu Hani did not plan to bake cakes during this war. He had to flee his home, like most residents of Gaza.

As Rafah welcomed more than 1.5 million Palestinians fleeing fighting, he kept the pastry shop open, without cake, just to allow people to charge their phones for free. There is no more electricity in Gaza and the bakery runs on solar energy.

Image tk: Anas Baba for NPR

A month ago, a man entered the bakery. He told Abu Hani his His son had been injured in the war, had gone to the hospital, woke up from the anesthesia and said, “My birthday has come. Where is the cake you promised?

“Should we work on the cake?” » wondered Abou Hani. He didn’t have to think twice. He started by using leftover ingredients from the bakery from before the war started.

As he was baking his first cake, another man entered the store. His little daughter was afraid of war and he wanted to throw her a party. He became Abu Hani’s second client.

Little by little, the baker started cooking again.

Every cake has a story

“Every person who came had their own story,” he said.

A cake made by Abu Hani at Batool Cakes. Image: Anas Baba for NPR

One evening, as Abu Hani was closing for the day, a man asked for a cake for his wedding that evening.

“It’s the night of my life and I’m living in a tent,” Abu Hani recalled the groom saying. The baker couldn’t resist.

Some customers request a to-go bag that isn’t see-through, so other people in their tent camp won’t be jealous of their cake.

“Two hours ago,” says the baker, “someone called me and said: ‘I’m embarrassed to come to the store. I’m in a shelter. Since we passed in front of your store, my child ask for a cake.'”

Maher Al Faraa, 18, bought a chocolate cake from Batool Cakes to surprise his aunt for her birthday, in Rafah, Gaza. “We wanted to make her happy because of the war and her bad mood, all our moods,” he says. Image: Anas Baba for NPR

The caller could not afford a whole cake and asked if he could buy a smaller one. The baker told him to pay what he could.

Abu Hani treats each cake and each customer with care.

Black market flour

During the war, supplies to Gaza are low and prices are high. Sugar and eggs cost a fortune: a kilo of sugar went from $1 to $20 in Rafah, and a large crate of eggs that normally sells for $10 can now cost more than $50, he says.

Batool Cakes now sells its standard “mini-medium” cakes for 70 shekels, or nearly $17, up from its pre-war price of 35 shekels, or nearly $10, due to the hike of the cost of ingredients during the war. Abu Hani makes no profit from his bakery.

He buys flour belonging to the United Nations on the black market and intended to be distributed as aid. He says he feels bad, but it’s worth it to see the joy in his customers’ eyes.

Abu Hani has difficulty finding other ingredients. He can no longer find the cream he bought. He has buttercream, but he says people in Gaza don’t like it. They prefer a lighter cream, so he tries to recreate it from scratch.

He closes the bakery every time he needs to test a new recipe. He doesn’t want to sell something that isn’t top quality. He says the people of Gaza deserve it.

Abu Hani struggles to find ingredients and buys flour on the black market to continue cooking for his clients in Gaza. Image: Anas Baba for NPR

Even in their worst despair, he says, they have standards, and he has standards too. The war didn’t change that.

“We’re not a dump. We’re not a place where people eat anything,” Abu Hani says. “People in Gaza have very refined tastes.”

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