Ten-year-old Renad Ataullah from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza has more than 450,000 Instagram followers worldwide. Her cooking stations are a huge success in Gaza itself – her resilience and infectious, bright smile are seen as a beacon of hope for Gaza’s children caught in the brutal chaos.
Renad always loved cooking, she said. Even before the war started in October last year, she watched cooking videos avidly. But when war broke out, she began cooking with her family using whatever ingredients were available – often those from relief boxes containing mostly dried goods and canned goods.
Renad, who should now be in fifth grade, missed an entire year of school because of the war. She currently lives 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 the Israeli bombing.
“I became famous by accident!” she said.
A viral video of Renad unboxing an emergency box and discovering it contained sugar – and his reaction of utter joy at finding a previously missing basic ingredient – has captured worldwide attention.
Renad’s older sister, Nourhan Ataullah, is 25 years old and a pharmacist. She manages her younger sister’s content and Instagram account. She feels a certain responsibility to ensure that Renad’s content does not disturb people who have little or no access to food and water – particularly those in northern Gaza, which has been largely cut off from the rest of the enclave by Israeli forces.
The two sisters remember the first days of the Israeli war on Gaza, when Deir el-Balah was short of flour, canned goods and vegetables and all the bakeries had been bombed or were not operating. They only had a little flour left to cook for themselves.
People had to learn the art of rationing very quickly. “Everyone cooked in a mud oven and shared the bread,” explains Nourhan. “We are a family of 10. If there were 20 pieces of bread, each person would have two loaves of bread and for that day, you either eat them all at once or you eat them throughout the day.”
The arrival of the food aid boxes was “like a treasure,” she said. Today, many of Rehad’s cooking videos focus on making meals with the ingredients they get from them.
Many of Renad’s videos address issues facing displaced people in Gaza, such as lack of water and essential groceries.
“For example, in one of the videos on the topic of fresh water, it was very difficult to collect, which is why Renad mentioned it. When there is an event, we try to mention it in Renad’s videos,” explains Nourhan.
Food shortages
According to a recent report by Refugees International, Israeli authorities cut off northern Gaza from the south in November and restricted access to the north for the United Nations and other humanitarian agencies.
Food shortages in Gaza have reached acute levels, according to the Integrated Food Security Classification, with more than two million people facing acute food insecurity. In June, a group of independent UN experts jointly warned that famine had already arrived in Gaza.
Lack of adequate food and water is especially deadly for children. Indeed, nearly 45 percent of deaths among children under five worldwide are linked to malnutrition, according to the World Health Organization.
According to a UNICEF report, as of July 31, nearly 19,000 children under the age of five had been admitted to hospitals for treatment for varying degrees of wasting in Gaza in 2024. State of Palestine data as of September 10 confirm these data. numbers. It shows that more than 18,000 cases of malnutrition among children under five have been confirmed in Gaza since January.
In the long term, a lack of adequate nutrition leads to “wasting” in children, which occurs when a child has a very low weight for their height. This is a condition in which the body begins to draw nutrients from the muscles because it cannot obtain them from food or naturally stored fat.
According to UNICEF Palestine, around 8 percent of children in northern Gaza and 5 percent in the south are currently being treated for wasting.
This involves administering “micronutrient” powder and giving ready-to-use foods called RUTF (ready-to-use therapeutic foods). Treatment is administered based on the child’s needs and the extent of weight loss.
Kazem Abu Khalaf, communications specialist at UNICEF Palestine, told Tel Aviv Tribune that around 4,000 of the 19,000 children treated for wasting suffered from “severe malnutrition”.
The effects can be serious. “Cognitive development and physical development can be affected (due to malnutrition), but the effects can be reversed if we can provide them with adequate nutrition – proper vitamins and minerals, enough calories – but only for children less than two years old. After that, the changes will no longer be reversible,” Abu Khalaf warned.
The first 1,000 days of a child’s life, which includes pregnancy and up to the age of two, are considered crucial for a child’s healthy development, according to medical experts.
But even if there were enough nutrient-enriched meals to treat all the undernourished children in Gaza, restrictions on movement imposed by Israeli forces mean that humanitarian agencies such as UNICEF may not be able to able to achieve them.
Faced with this, Nourhan and Renad strive to ensure that the videos they produce focus on the food that is most widely accessible to all and try to use recipes based on canned foods. She does not use chicken or meat in her recipes because these products are too rare, or even non-existent, for most Gazans.
Renad herself is extremely sensitive to the fact that so many people in Gaza have access to so little. “Every time I upload a recipe, I feel guilty that eating and preparing recipes and that some people can’t even drink water,” she says.
Surviving War Responsibly
Nourhan says he believes Renad has become extremely important to the people of Gaza.
“Through her page, she offers something to her country, so as not to become detached from reality. It gives me a kind of responsibility to try to keep Renad grounded,” she says.
“Thanks to Renad… our lives have changed in so many ways. We first started to take on this responsibility, that of transmitting a message through Renad,” explains Nourhan.
The importance of the story, she believes, is that it shows a child’s point of view, but the messages through the videos come from Renad and his extended family.
“It was necessary for us to show the world what is happening through Renad’s story. The second thing is that it was very difficult for us to supply the ingredients: we had to cancel many recipes because something was not available or many things were expensive.
“At the same time, we also try not to put things that are difficult or impossible to find, or that reflect something far from reality,” says Nourhan.
Renad became famous in Gaza thanks to her videos and, despite the war, she receives many visitors.
“Renad has become a familiar face in the neighborhood. People say: “Renad, what are you going to cook for us?” or “Hey, Chef Renad!”. Even on the day of the (polio) vaccination, the ambulance driver passed by and said ‘Hi Renad!’
In the longer term, Renad aspires to return to school. Before the war, she attended a local UNRWA school near the sea and says she misses being there and being able to study. Unlike many others, she has yet to resort to burning her textbooks to keep warm. Her books are too precious, she says.
“We continue to console ourselves with these feelings but nothing that we hope for happens. But I hope the war will end and we will really return to our studies. I miss it,” says Renad.
The war did not stop her from dreaming. In addition to wanting to return to school, Renad hopes to one day travel and even own his own restaurant.
“When I grow up, I would like to have a small restaurant for my meals. I want to put all my dishes in this restaurant.
