CAIRO: Palestinian Bassem Abu Aoun serves Gaza-style turkey shawarma at his unique restaurant in an eastern Cairo neighborhood, where many businesses opened by those fleeing Gaza war have many calling the area “Little Gaza.”
“It was a big gamble,” stated the 56-year-old regarding opening his restaurant, Hay Al-Rimal, named following his neighborhood in Gaza City, now devastated by Israeli brutal strikes.
So less than four months after fleeing with his entire family to Egypt from the besieged Gaza, he opened his restaurant in Cairo’s Nasr City neighborhood, according to AFP.
The setup is one of the many cafes, falafel joints, shawarma spots and sweets shops being introduced by newly arriving Palestinian businesspersons in the area — despite only being granted brief stays by the authorities in Egypt.
These areas have become a refuge for the traumatized Gazans in Cairo, offering a livelihood to business owners, many of whom lost everything in the ongoing war.
“Even if the ongoing war stops now in the Gaza Strip, it would take me at least two years to get my life back on track,” Abu Aoun told AFP. “Everything has been completely wiped out there,” he added. His customers are mainly fellow Gazans, chatting in their distinct dialect as they devour sandwiches that remind them of home. On a wall next to his shop was a mural of intertwining Palestinian and Egyptian flags.
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“I have a responsibility to my family and kids who are in university,” said the restaurateur, whose two restaurants in the Gaza Strip have now been destroyed.
Abu Aoun and his entire family are among over 120,000 Palestinian people who arrived in Egypt between November last year and May, Palestinian officials in Egypt said.
They had crossed through the Rafah border crossing; Gaza’s only exit point to the rest of the world until Israeli troops seized the side in early May and closed it ever since.
Although Egypt says it won’t do Israel’s bidding by permitting permanent refugee camps on its territory, it had permitted in medical evacuees, dual passport holders and others who managed to leave.
War broke out in the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, after Hamas’s surprise strike. Israel’s military campaign has also killed more than 43,374 people in the Gaza Strip, most of them civilians, Gaza health ministry said.
Gazan-style Sweets
Opening the eatery was not an easy decision for Abu Aoun, but he says he is glad he established it. “I’ll open a second branch of his café and extend,” he added with a smile, while serving a family from Central Asia.
Nearby is Kazem, a subdivision of a decades-old, much-loved Gaza establishment serving iced dessert beverages. Its Palestinian proprietor, Kanaan Kazem, opened the branch in September following settling in Cairo, Egypt.
The shop also offers ice cream on top of a drink spread with pistachios, a Gazan-style treat known as “bouza w barad,” which has become a fast favorite among the Egyptian customers satisfying the shop.
Kazem expresses hope to return to the Gaza Strip, but his son Nader, who manages the shop, wants to stay in Egypt. Nader said that there are more opportunities, stability and safety here.
Palestinian patron Bashar Mohammed, takes comfort in the prosperous Palestinian businesses and said, “Little Gaza recaps me of Gaza’s beauty and spirit and makes me feel like I’m really in the Gaza Strip.”
After more than a year of conflict, the Gaza Strip has become uninhabitable due to extensive destruction and damage to infrastructure, the United Nations said.
“It’d be very hard to go back to the Gaza Strip. There is no life left there,” he added, taking a deep breath. “I have to build a new life in Egypt.”
