A Gaza restaurant run by women, for women
GAZA CITY: A Palestinian woman has realised her dream of becoming a chef in the maledominated Gaza Strip thanks to a new eatery where she heads an all-female staff looking ater an all-female clientele.
Opened last month and offering light meals like chicken sandwiches and pizza, “Sabaia VIP” has been doing brisk business in a conservative and congested enclave where some women complain of lacking private and safe leisure venues.
The chef, Amena Al Hayek, trained at a hotel restaurant where she worked for free. Although there were openings there for new chefs, she was never considered. “The administration rejected (me). They said they wanted a male chef, not a female,” Hayek told Reuters.
Sabaia means “Lasses” in Arabic, a playful choice of words for a clientele made up of women of all ages - and no men.
“The idea stemmed from our need to have something private, where we can enjoy our independence and our privacy, a place only for women,” said the owner, Reham Hamouda.
Hamouda employs eight women on staff and others who prepare food from their homes. That provides much-needed income in Gaza, where unemployment hovers around 50%.
“We proved to the world that we were able to open a restaurant and succeed without a man’s supervision,” said Hayek.
Meanwhile, a Palestinian man who is seen in an amateur video lying face down, bloody and motionless, as an Israeli policeman kneels on his neck, said on Sunday that Israeli forces beat and detained him without provocation as he headed to pray at Jerusalem’s chief Muslim shrine.
Yousef Adi, 36, said that he suffered a broken nose and required four stitches on his forehead ater last Thursday’s beating nearby the Al Aqsa mosque.
The incident is the latest in a series of violent acts by Israeli police against Palestinians. Israeli police said the video distorted the facts and they had used “reasonable force.”
Adi, a West Bank resident who works as a technician at Palestine TV, said he had all the necessary Israeli permits to enter Jerusalem.
Inside the Old City, he said officers arbitrarily detained him and dragged him against a wall and began to beat him.
“I did nothing except shout at them to leave me alone and stay away from me,” he said.
“But then more policemen came and began hiting me everywhere on my body.”