Gaza Soup Kitchen: Mutual Aid Under Siege | Sumud Podcast

Dec 18, 2025

50:11

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🎙️ This special episode of the Sumud Podcast centers the Gaza Soup Kitchen and the people sustaining it under siege. Dr. Ed Hasan is joined by Hani Almadhoun to reflect on how a grassroots mutual aid effort became a lifeline amid blocked aid, collapsed infrastructure, and constant bombardment. The episode honors the legacy of Chef Mahmoud Almadhoun and features real footage filmed by Gaza Soup Kitchen videographers and photographers Omar Almadhoun, Leena Almadhoun, Khaled Qadas, and Mai Almadhoun, offering a direct window into life, labor, and survival in Gaza.

🌍 Hani Almadhoun is a Palestinian American humanitarian and the Senior Director of Philanthropy at UNRWA USA. He is also the co founder of the Gaza Soup Kitchen, a grassroots initiative launched in early 2024 to provide hot meals, food parcels, and water to families across Gaza amid siege and famine. Based in the United States, Hani coordinates fundraising, advocacy, and media engagement while supporting operations on the ground.

🔑 In this conversation, we explore

➡ How the Gaza Soup Kitchen began

➡ Operating under siege with cut telecom, closed banks, and constant displacement

➡ The photographers and volunteers working on the ground in Gaza

➡ Chefs, kitchens, and survival logistics including hot meals, food parcels, and water trucks

➡ UNRWA, aid access, and competing aid models in Gaza

➡ Chef Mahmoud’s legacy, his killing, and why the work continues

➡ What people outside Gaza can do to show up and sustain support

⏱ Chapters

00:00 Introduction

02:00 How the Gaza Soup Kitchen started

05:00 Operating under siege with money, telecom, and logistics

08:00 Identity and documentation

13:00 The photographers and storytellers

23:00 Courage and exhaustion

28:00 Hopes and dreams under siege

31:00 The chefs and the kitchens

38:00 Chef Mahmoud’s story and legacy

45:00 What the diaspora can do

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This video is for educational purposes only. It offers personal testimony and political analysis meant to inform and document.