The Killing of the Gaza Chef

24:23There are all sorts of rumors swirling around about terrible things happening to detainees. things Hani can't verify, but which terrify him. What if Mahmoud disappears? What if he ends up in a secret prison? And I just did not want my brother to be gone for, you know, for no reason. It's a horrifying prospect, and the uncertainty lasts for 20 hours. Then the Israeli soldiers release Mahmoud. But Hani knows that this could happen again to his brother at any moment, and that the next time it could end up far worse. And while Hani is still trying to figure out how to protect his younger brother, something happens that will complicate everything even further.

25:10At the end of 2023, as Israel all but cuts off the flow of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip and reports of hunger multiply, acquaintances approach Hani and they hand him a cash donation. I call up Mahmoud and say, hey, Mahmoud, I have$2 ,000. What can we do with them? He said, hey, there is a guy in Jabalia market. He still cooks rice. Let me go buy some rice wraps from them. So he bought like 50 of them and just gave them away to the neighbors. This guy had rice. We go the next day, we buy more rice. So Mahmoud buys the rice and distributes it. But that only works until the third day, when the rice seller tells him, sorry.

25:48I don't have rice. That's it. We're like, shit, what do we do? Because on the fourth day, people are once again standing at Mahmoud's door. They are hungry and they want something to eat. And then Mahmoud calls Hani and says, Hani, what do you think? I have an idea. He said, I'm going to cook. How are you going to do that, Hani asks. Cook in the middle of a famine. I'll manage, Mahmoud says. And he gets hold of a few large pots, tomato sauce, canned vegetables, potatoes, peas, really anything he can find. He throws it all into the pots and cooks. And that day, around 120 families eat Mahmoud's food.

26:27It's the birth of the soup kitchen. In Washington, D.C., it dawns on Hani that something is taking shape in Beit Lahya. And he responds. He starts fundraising in earnest now, launches a campaign, and sets up a GoFundMe account. So people start donating every day, like where is$1 ,000,$1 ,500, and we send the money to Mahmoud to cook. And the campaign proves far more successful than Hani and his fellow organizers had expected at the outset. I remember watching from Berlin in April 2024 as the GoFundMe page showed that more than$100 ,000 were raised in just four weeks. These donations make it possible for Mahmoud to secure ingredients.

27:10And they allow the soup kitchen to distribute the meals free of charge. Eventually we raise a million dollars. We're like, shit, this is a real deal. In their daily phone calls, it becomes apparent to Hani how his younger brother, the aimless slacker, is finding his own mission in the middle of a war, transforming into a man of action. He found his mojo. He found his zen because he felt needed and he was able to respond. The soup kitchen is the heart of it all. But whenever Hani has a suggestion for a new project to add, Mahmoud puts it into practice at once. For instance, when Hani asks him, Hey Mahmoud, can you build a school?

27:47He said, fuck yeah. And he builds a school in two weeks and delivers it. And it's amazing. 30 children receive lessons in this makeshift school. And on the roof, they put up a sign that reads, School, please don't bomb, in English and Hebrew. Next, the team sets up a medical first aid point, for which they even hire a doctor. And now Mahmoud is constantly on the move in Beit Lahya. You got the kitchen here. Yeah. The school here and the medical point here. Okay. So Mahmoud would be like going between the three while he's cooking. What do you need? Let me buy you diapers. What do you need? Let me get you some food.

28:28So he would cook for the school as well. In the spring of 2024, the surrounding hospitals begin asking for food for their patients and staff. And Mahmoud says, sure, of course, we'll help. It's a decision that will prove consequential. From that point on, Mahmoud regularly sets aside one or two pots of food and brings them to the hospitals, above all to Kamal Adwan Hospital. So he started getting food to the hospital, especially Kamal Adwan Hospital, because they had the kids, human aids for man-nourished or a few man-nourished kids. And you could walk from our kitchen about 10 minutes by before you get there.

29:03The Gaza soup kitchen quickly becomes a success story. But Hani in Washington knows that humanitarian workers in the Gaza Strip aren't safe. Many of them have already been killed. And now Mahmoud has created a magnet in the middle of a war zone, a place that hundreds of people come to every day. If you were to advise a civilian in Gaza, you would tell them, hide, don't draw attention to yourself, keep your head down, in the hope that this offers the greatest degree of safety. Mahmoud, of course, does the exact opposite. He makes himself visible. He stands out. And the longer Hani thinks about it, the clearer it becomes to him.

29:42There is only one thing he can do to help protect his brother. Make Mahmoud even more visible. Make Mahmoud and his soup kitchen as well known as possible. Internationally, ideally. His hope is that the Israeli army will think twice about where it bombs if there is a risk of hitting a prominent aid initiative. Hani al-Madun is Mahmoud's brother and based in the US. So Hani begins speaking to Western and international media about the soup kitchen. A lot of people failed the Palestinians, but the land did not. You know, he'd be cooking, whatever he can find. Is it enough? No. Hani says those interviews felt like walking a tightrope.

30:21He was raw, with grief at the scale of the destruction in Gaza, and furious. You wake up every day and somebody punches you in the face with all the horrible news. No, this person is dead. This person is killed. And you're like, it's a gallery of trauma. But he also knew that he had to restrain himself. I can't be shouting slogans and shit. I can't say like Israel is killing my people and they're committing war crimes. Instead, he had to look into the cameras and politely answer questions for uplifting stories about the soup kitchen. What does a hot meal mean to somebody? It means survival. It means somebody sees you.

30:55And that was not easy. In some of these interviews, I wanted to scream. But his campaign works. In April 2024, Hani manages to get an opinion piece by Mahmoud published in the Washington Post. In it, Mahmoud describes the famine in the north of the Ghada Strip. Over the past weeks, we have seen infants die of hunger, their bodies shrunken into skeletons and once thriving children reduced to skin and bone. He also speaks about a friend who was killed by a drone while trying to reach aid supplies dropped from an aircraft. Mahmoud describes his own role in simple terms, like this. I have nothing to do with the fighting in Gaza.

31:33I am a shopkeeper. But in the north of the Gaza Strip, at that point, no one sees Mahmoud as a shopkeeper. He's the face of the Gaza soup kitchen. And little by little, he becomes a local celebrity. He's even given a nickname, Asad Ashmal, Lion of the North. But is that enough? Hani has his doubts. Are there other ways to make him safe? Perhaps. Or is it a completely mad idea to inform the Israeli army about the Gaza soup kitchen?

32:10Hani decides to try exactly that. He takes the precise GPS coordinates of the soup kitchen, the first aid point, and the school, the three places between which Mahmoud moves, and sends them to people he believes may have an in with the IDF. With the idea that they would pass them on. Yeah, that's the point. There is a UN coordination office that we got in touch with. Hani informs one person who works on the National Security Council at the White House and another person who is involved in coordinating humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip for the United Nations. And finally, he turns to an institution called COGAD.

32:50COGAD stands for Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories. COGAD is part of the Israeli Ministry of Defense. And in this war, it is tasked with coordinating the entry of humanitarian aid and making arrangements with aid organizations. So, okay, I need to get this. Sure. Was Koga ever made aware of the operations of the Gaza Suits? Oh, yeah. Yeah. A few times. When did it start? Who did it go through? So, I have an Israeli friend of mine here. He's a peace activist, a good human being. I've approached him and said, hey, here is the Kogat number. Can you get in touch with them and tell them who we are, what we're doing and where we're located?

33:38I have spoken to Hani's friend. He wishes to remain anonymous. So in this podcast, I will simply refer to him as Ron. And Ron told me that the entire time he was exchanging messages with Kogat, he never really knew who exactly he was talking to. staff members kept changing. But to him, it sounded as though the Kogat people were guiding him through some sort of accreditation process so that the soup kitchen might perhaps be formally recognized as an institution. So when Kogat wanted to know who exactly worked at the soup kitchen, how it was funded, and what equipment it had, Hani and Ron told them.

34:16So, the United Nations, the White House, Kogat. Three channels. If even one of them works in the way that Hani was hoping, then the IADF would know how to reach Mahmoud and where the soup kitchen and its offshoots are located. The message Hani is sending is clear. We have nothing to hide and Mahmoud poses no threat. Whether the Israelis believe him, he doesn't know. In October 2024, the war enters its second year and conditions in the north of the Gaza Strip are now becoming truly catastrophic. Israel is pounding northern Gaza. Its airstrikes described by the UN as relentless. Mahmoud and his family experienced the horrors at close quarters.

35:05For example, when the small makeshift school built by the soup kitchen team, whose coordinates they had given to Kogat, is hit. Fortunately, no one is injured.

35:20Allah, Mahmoud's wife, told me in several phone conversations that at the time she was pregnant and very scared. And that she said to Mahmoud, we have to flee. Let's get out of here.

35:37All right, Mahmoud replies, I'll organize a way out for you and the children. But Allah says, no, we only go together. I don't want to flee alone. But Mahmoud refuses to leave. And he carries on, even though work in the soup kitchen has by now become extremely dangerous. I also spoke by phone with Mahmoud's sister, Fatin, who'd worked in the soup kitchen with Mahmoud from the very beginning. She told me that there was constant shelling, that drones and helicopters were overhead while they cooked all the time. And then came the phone calls.

36:15The IDF spoke with me. Why are you still here in the north? Come on, go to the south. I said, I don't want to. They said, that's not up to you.

36:28This sounds crazy, but calls like these are not uncommon. They happen tens of thousands of times over. A special unit of Israeli military intelligence is responsible for them.

36:42Fatin says to Mahmoud, I'm afraid, let's go But he doesn't want to go He tells her, no one dies before their time Please stay with me, Mahmoud asks her He needs her in the soup kitchen And Fatin agrees, she keeps working Until the day that the Israeli army sends drones circling exactly over the kitchen and then drops stun grenades.

37:15Fatin says to him, how can we carry on when the whole sky is in flames? A short while later, Mahmoud too seems to accept if they continue letting those in need come to the soup kitchen, people will die. So from now on, they'll do differently. They will bring the food to where the people already are And that means to Kamala Dwan Hospital. Because by that point, hundreds of people, perhaps more than a thousand, are sheltering there. Among them are relatives of medical staff, families of patients, but also ordinary residents of Beit Lahiyah, who all hope they will be safer there. But they are not.

37:54At the beginning of October 2024, the Israeli army demands that the entire hospital be evacuated. because Hamas has allegedly re-established itself there. The acting director of the hospital refuses. In turn, on October 25th, 2024, the Israeli army forcibly enters the hospital complex. Those pictures that we are looking at there, that's Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, which has of course been under siege for 21 days by the Israeli army. The assault unfolds chaotically. Soldiers enter the hospital and detain large numbers of people, mostly staff members, all alleged terror suspects. There are reports of bulldozers driving into the courtyard, flattening tents.

38:43A fire breaks out, and there are apparently fatalities as well. Then, after two days, the IDF withdraws. From that point on, there's a kind of control ring around the hospital. Surveillance drones buzz overhead. Tanks are sometimes positioned nearby. It is now even more dangerous to get in and out of the hospital.

39:11There's a video showing Mahmoud and two colleagues from the Gaza soup kitchen during this period pushing a squeaking metal car through the ruins of Beit Lahya towards Kamal Adwan Hospital.

39:30On either side are destroyed buildings. The cart is loaded with aid supplies. And even on the video, you can hear the humming of surveillance drones.

39:44We will keep going, just as we promised, Mahmoud says. When he reaches the hospital now, he sees the aftermath of the Israeli assault directly before him. Outside the entrance, a destroyed ambulance. rubble in the courtyard, inside cables hanging from the ceilings. Walls have collapsed completely or are blackened by fire. Along the corridors and passageways lie mattresses where displaced people are seeking shelter. And Hani told me that on every one of Mahmoud's visits to the hospital during this period, he meets Dr. Hossam Abu Safiyya, the acting director, usually in his office. He would be there by 9, 10, and he would call me Hani.

40:31Dr. Hassan needs this medicine or they need this. Dr. Abu Safiyyah tells them what they need most urgently in the hospital. And Hani helps from Washington to source it, and Mahmoud then delivers it. There are photographs showing Mahmoud handing over cleaning wipes, baby formula, clothes, and blankets. Sometimes he also distributes money to hospital staff who are no longer receiving salaries. Can we say that Mahmoud becomes a lifeline for these people in terms of... I mean, you could say that 10 times over. By this point, Mahmoud, the chef, is keeping the hospital alive. Nobody else is making credit for that.

41:08And Mahmoud and Dr. Abu Safiya develop a close relationship in this time. And Mahmoud and Dr. Khosrow Abu Safiya become besties. Whenever he needs something, he calls Mahmoud. It's quite clear that Mahmoud admires the doctor. You can hear it, for example, in this audio message that Hani shared with me, in which Mahmoud praises the doctor to donors in the United States. This video, doctor, the one I sent you, the man in front of you is Dr. Hossam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital. He's a man of integrity who has dedicated his entire life to serving his people. At the end of November 2024, Dr.

41:51Hossam Abu Safiyah is hit during an Israeli drone attack inside the hospital, wounded in the leg and the back. And three days later, he sends an appeal for help to the international community from inside the hospital. And it is Mahmoud who records this video for him.

42:13I'm speaking to you from inside the intensive care unit after there has been a development in my condition. Bleeding at the side of my wound. I will probably need a vascular surgeon and unfortunately we must now ask for what we had previously requested for our patients.

42:34The doctor survives, but only a month later the Israeli army again enters Kamal Adwan Hospital. Dr. Abu Safiyah is abducted by the IDF and taken to a military detention facility inside Israel. The pediatrician the IDF maintains holds a rank within Hamas and is alleged to be involved in potential terrorist activity. I asked Hani about these allegations. What do you have to say about the Israeli allegations against one, the Kamal Adwan Hospital? that it's a Hamas headquarter of sorts, or used to be, and be Dr. Abu Safiyyah personally. I don't really bother myself with Israel's sales. And this is from the heart.

43:17Like, we know Dr. Hussam is not a political guy. We know him very well. Hani told me that his family and the Abu Safiyyah family have known each other for a very long time. He's a neighbor of ours, and we had a business, and he used to be a customer. Him and his wife used to come and buy gifts. Wherever you go, you don't go empty-handed into people's houses. So they're always dropping by. He's a friend of the family and we like him and he's a hero. To Hani, Dr. Abu Safiyah is a hero. To the Israeli army, well, he's a doctor, okay, but at the same time, in their eyes, he's an active Hamas member.

43:56And Mahmoud? What about Mahmoud? What does the idea of actually see when they see Mahmoud? A humanitarian worker or a helper of Hamas? Hani says that notion is absurd. In our family, we have a personal animosity against them. Because when Hamas seized power in the Gaza Strip in 2007, it was one of their relatives who stood in the Islamists' way. The last standing person in their way is our cousin Samih al-Madhoun. This man was in fact a commander of the armed wing of Fatah, the party of Yasir Arafat And there is an old YouTube video showing him being dragged through the streets of Gaza before he's killed They grabbed him, they lynched him, they murdered him June 14, 2007 So Fahani then, the matter is clear He isn't Hamas and neither is Mahmoud Now, of course, it is practically impossible to prove that someone is not something.

45:00And that is especially difficult when trying to establish that from afar. Even so, I also do not believe Mahmoud belonged to Hamas. But I believe that on the basis of other indications, indications I consider stronger than what Hani told me. First of all, and for the record, I did, of course, ask all the relevant Israeli authorities whether they had ever suspected Mahmoud of being a Hamas man. I asked the IDF, the domestic intelligence agency, Shinbit, and Kogat, but they never answered the question. Not helpful, but all right. Then, however, I learned something significant. Namely this. Mahmoud was not detained by the IDF just once.

45:44No, he was detained a second time in 2024. And according to Hani, on that second occasion, Mahmoud behaved very differently from the first time around. In the second one, he mustered the carriage and told the officer, listen, my brother is American and he goes to the White House. And in fact, this time around, the soldiers let him go almost immediately. So once again, Mahmoud is rounded up and detained twice. And both times, he's released. I discussed this with Shalom Ben Hanan, an Israeli who served for 27 years in the domestic intelligence service Shin Bet, most recently as a department head.

46:22and he says to him this does not sound like the story of a hamas member my assessment and according to my experience and without knowing really his file but if he is really was detained twice and was released after a few hours look we don't arrest people to release them and then to shoot missiles on them. It's crazy. It's not logical. He was already arrested. If he had a file, that could cost him with a long arrest, you would send to prison. As simple as that. In other words, if the IDF had possessed information indicating that Mahmoud was a Hamas man, they would have held on to him. Even for targeted killing operations, if you have the option to arrest them, you will always prefer to arrest them.

47:21The detentions by the army, the stun grenades at the soup kitchen, then the siege of Kamal Adwan Hospital. It seems as though nothing could stop Mahmoud. Even as more and more people around him are killed, including a member of the soup kitchen team, he carries on. He carries on even after the Beit Lahya market square is turned into a makeshift cemetery. Mahmoud tells his brother, I feel as though I could be next.

47:52And even some of the people closest to him can't understand Mahmoud's determination. Abu Khalid, his brother-in-law, for instance, who I also spoke to by phone. I said to him, what is the point of this anymore? Why are you still doing this?

48:13But Mahmoud replied that he had to distribute vegetables and help the patients until his final breath.

48:22In the end, it is two very personal experiences that shake Mahmoud's resolve. First, on November 19th, 2024, his seventh child is born, his daughter Aileen. And then, a week later, his son Omar is wounded. Omar, a teenager, was helping a man carry his belongings in the street when the two of them came under fire. Omar is taken to a hospital, given blood transfusion. He undergoes eye surgery. He survives. It is only after this that Mahmoud makes his decision.

48:59That day, November 30, 2024, begins unusually early for Mahmoud and his wife, Allah. By six in the morning, both of them are already awake. And amid the inferno of Beit Lahya, they spend a few quiet hours together as Allah remembers it. We mostly listened to the news to see what might happen. There was talk about a possible ceasefire. Allah has been asking Mahmoud for some time to flee, together, all of them. And for the first time, Mahmoud agrees.

49:40All right, he says to Allah, we are going. You, me and the children. Before that though, he says, he has just one thing left to do. He's expecting a food delivery, he says, and wants to take it to the hospital. Allah should get breakfast ready in the meantime and make tea. Allah is relieved and nervous Sometime between 9.30 and 10 a.m. that morning Mahmoud leaves the house But he doesn't get far 20 or 30 steps perhaps And then he is struck by a projectile from the sky News of his brother's death reaches Hani in Washington at dawn And I felt my knees collapsed. I was like, no, no, no.

50:39And Hani wonders whether it was a mistake to contact Kogad and share Mahmoud's phone number and coordinates with them. Roughly 48 hours before Mahmoud's death, he and his friend Ron had sent data to Kogad one last time. Had the information been used to help kill Mahmoud? Hani doesn't know. And neither do I, because Koged didn't respond to any of my questions. But of one thing, Hani is absolutely convinced that the Israeli army killed his brother Mahmoud deliberately and on purpose. Because remember, they wanted Kamal Adwan to be emptied out, and he was prolonging the process. I consider that a possibility.

51:24At any rate, I can't rule it out. The IDF does carry out targeted killings. There are numerous examples. But when I asked the IDF about this, the response was not very helpful. In September 2025, I sent the IDF spokesperson the approximate coordinates of the place where Mahmoud died and the approximate time of his death. And I asked again, did you kill Mahmoud? And if so, why? And all they said was, Like we said, the IDF is unaware of a strike in the coordinates and time provided. No one can tell me anything. No one wants to have known anything. Is that plausible? To find out, we have to look behind closed doors.

52:11We have to go into the engine room of the Israeli Army and the Israeli intelligence services. And that is what the next episode of The Gaza Chef will be about.

52:31Thank you.

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56:13The Gaza Chef is a podcast of Die Zeit in cooperation with pool artists. The story was reported and told by me, Yasin Musharwas. Tim Howard was my editor and our universal secret weapon. Britta Stoff was our storytelling consultant. Pia Rauschenberger was the producer. The title theme is by Joscha Grunewald, based on an idea by me. Sound design, Tim Howard, with material by Joscha Grunewald, Tim Howard and Blue Dot Sessions. Additional sound design was done by Christian Küker, pool artists. Recording, editing and post-production Markus Gläser of Die Zeit and Christian Küker, pool artists. The fact-checking was done by Die Zeit's Luisa Hommerich.

56:56Suha Imayay and Firas Halasse in Amman helped with the investigation and with translations. Original audio research support Carl Friedrichs and Alicia Claire. Voiceovers by Sebastian Horn, Tim Howard, Özge Inan, Jörg Lau, Daniel Müller, Marlon Schröder and Rose Tremlett. Ole Pflüger in Konstanze Kainz are the heads of the podcast department at Die Zeit. Milica Terkeljeva was the project leader at Pool Artists. Legal Advisor Jörg Nabert Hamburg. Cover by Lea Dohle. Picture Editor Michael Pfister. Special thanks go to Bastian Berbner, Hannah Grünewald,

57:39If you have any feedback, you can reach us at gazachef at zeit.de. That's gazachef at zeit.de. The Gazachef was originally published in German under the title Der Koch von Gaza. And you can find it wherever you find your podcasts.

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