Young chef Renad inspires Gaza with viral cooking videos

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, 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.

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.

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.