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.
Renad’s older sister, Nourhan Ataullah, is 25 and a pharmacist. She manages her younger sister’s content and Instagram account. She feels a certain responsibility to ensure Renad’s content is not upsetting to people who have little or no access to food and water – especially those in the north of Gaza which has been largely cut off from the rest of the enclave by Israeli forces.
The two sisters recall the early days of Israel’s war on Gaza, when Deir el-Balah ran out of flour, canned goods and vegetables altogether and all the bakeries had been bombed or were not functioning. All they had left to cook with was some flour to make basic loaves of bread themselves.
People had to learn the art of rationing very quickly. “Everybody would bake in a mud oven and divide the bread,” says Nourhan. “We are a family of 10. If there are 20 pieces of bread, each person would have two loaves of bread and for that day you either eat them all at once or eat them throughout the day.”
The arrival of food aid boxes was “like treasure”, she says. Now, many of Rehad’s cookery videos focus on making meals with the ingredients they get from those.
Many of Renad’s videos address the issues that displaced people in Gaza are facing – such as the shortage of water and essential grocery items.
“For example, in one of the videos on the topic of fresh water, it was very hard to fetch, so Renad mentioned that. When there is an event we try to mention it in Renad’s videos,” Nourhan explains.
Food shortages
According to a recent report by Refugees International, the Israeli authorities cut off northern Gaza in November from the south and restricted access to the north for the United Nations and other aid agencies.
Food shortages in Gaza have reached acute levels, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase 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.
A lack of adequate food and water is particularly deadly for children. Indeed, nearly 45 percent of deaths of children under the age of five around the world are linked to malnutrition, according to the World Health Organization.
According to a report from UNICEF, as of July 31, nearly 19,000 children under the age of five had been admitted to hospitals for treatment for wasting in varying degrees in Gaza in 2024. Data from the State of Palestine as of September 10 backs up these figures. It shows that more than 18,000 cases of malnutrition in children under the age of five have been confirmed in Gaza since January.
Over the longer term, a lack of adequate nutrition leads to “wasting” in children, which occurs when a child has a very low weight for their height. It is a condition in which the body begins to draw nutrients from muscles because it cannot source them from food or naturally stored fat.
According to UNICEF Palestine, about 8 percent of children in the north of Gaza and 5 percent in the south are currently being treated for wasting.
This involves administering “micronutrient” powder and giving ready-made food called RUTF (ready-to-use therapeutic food). Treatment is given according to the child’s needs and scale of weight loss.
Kazem Abu Khalaf, a communications specialist at UNICEF Palestine, told Al Jazeera that about 4,000 of the 19,000 children treated for wasting were “severely malnourished”.
The effects can be severe. “Cognitive development and physical development can be affected [due to malnutrition] but the effects can be reversed if we can get proper nutrition to them – proper vitamins and minerals, sufficient calories – but only for children under two. After that, the changes are not reversible,” Abu Khalaf warned.
The first 1,000 days of a child’s life, which includes during pregnancy and up to two years of age, are said to be critical for a child’s healthy development, medical experts say.
But even if there were enough nutrient-enhanced meals to treat all the children suffering from undernourishment in Gaza, the restrictions on movement imposed by Israeli forces mean that aid agencies such as UNICEF may not be able to reach them.
In the face of this, Nourhan and Renad try to ensure that the videos they make are about food that is the most widely available for everyone and try to use recipes involving canned goods. She does not use chicken or meat in her recipes as these are too scarce or non-existent for most people in Gaza.
Renad herself is keenly sensitive about the fact that so many people in Gaza have access to so little. “Whenever I upload a recipe, I do feel guilty that we are eating and making recipes and that some people cannot even drink water,” she says.
Surviving a war responsibly
Nourhan says she believes Renad has become immensely important to the people of Gaza.
“Through her page, she offers something to her country, to not be detached from reality. It gives me a sort of responsibility to try to keep Renad grounded,” she says.
“Because of Renad … our lives changed in many ways. First we started having this responsibility, that we have to deliver a message through Renad,” Nourhan says.
The importance of the account, she believes, is that it shows the perspective of a child but the messages through the videos come from Renad and her wider family.
“It was necessary for us to show the world what is happening through Renad’s account. The second thing is that it was so hard for us to provide the ingredients: we really had to cancel many recipes because something is not available or many things are expensive.
“At the same time, we also try to not put things that are hard, or impossible to find, or reflect something distant from reality,” says Nourhan.
Renad has become well known in Gaza as a result of her videos and, despite the war, receives many visitors.
“Renad has become a familiar face in the neighbourhood. People say, ‘Renad, what will you cook for us?’ or ‘Hey, chef Renad!’. Even on the [polio] vaccination day, the ambulance driver passed by and said ‘Hi Renad!’.”
In the longer term, Renad longs to return to school. Before the war, she attended a local UNRWA school close to the sea, and says she misses being there and being able to study. Unlike many others, she hasn’t resorted to burning her school books to provide warmth yet. Her books are too precious, she says.
“We keep consoling ourselves with these feelings but nothing we hope for happens. But I hope that the war ends and we go back to our studies, really. I miss it,” says Renad.
The war has not prevented her from dreaming. As well as wishing to get back to school, Renad hopes one day to travel and even own her own restaurant.
“When I grow older, I want to have a small restaurant for my dishes. I want to put all my dishes in this restaurant.”