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- Palestinian food blogger and content creator Hamada Shaqoura has been awarded the 2025 James Beard Broadcast Media Emerging Voice Award for his viral cooking videos from Gaza, where he prepares meals for children using ingredients salvaged from humanitarian aid packages.
“I’m speaking to you today from Gaza—not from a kitchen or a studio, but from a place filled with silence, fear, and uncertainty,” Shaqoura said in a pre-recorded video aired during the awards ceremony at Chicago’s Lyric Opera House.
Shaqoura had already been sharing creative content online before Israel escalated its genocide in Gaza in October 2023. But as Israel flattened neighborhoods and starved entire communities, he turned his grief into a mission: cooking for displaced children and turning food into an act of love, defiance, and survival.
“In a time when everything collapsed, food became my way of expressing love and safety,” he said.
His videos—often recorded in the ruins of bombed-out homes—show him preparing simple, warm meals for children amid scarcity and ruin. The sound of children’s laughter often pierces through the hum of Israeli surveillance drones overhead.
“I tried to give the children something warm, something with flavor, something that felt like home,” he added.
As the genocide dragged on, and with Gaza under siege and starvation used as a weapon, Shaqoura co-founded Watermelon Relief—a grassroots initiative led by Palestinian volunteers to provide food and support to displaced families across Gaza.
Though honored at one of the culinary world’s most prestigious events—held during the James Beard Foundation’s 35th anniversary—Shaqoura couldn’t even attend the ceremony online. A complete communications blackout, the result of another Israeli strike on Gaza’s already shattered infrastructure, left him entirely cut off.
Still, he spoke of the award as a profound acknowledgment—not just of his work, but of Palestinian voices struggling to be heard, even under siege — even from under the rubble.
Israel’s blockade continues to choke off life in Gaza, including humanitarian aid, food, and medical supplies. Even creators like Shaqoura aren’t spared. After three months of total siege, Israel allowed only partial deliveries of aid through the US-Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
Since its launch on May 27, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) have killed more than 330 Palestinians, turning the aid corridor into what Palestinian families and international observers recognize a death trap. Yet, with no other options, families risk everything for a bag of flour.
As Israel’s genocide in Gaza enters its second year, Palestinians continue to be recognized in Western cultural institutions that refuse to name their killer. Shaqoura’s award is a testament to Palestinian resilience—but it also exposes the hypocrisy of a world that applauds their survival while arming and endorsing their destruction.
