

“Genocide Kitchen” is a diary from the earliest days of Israel’s campaign of extermination, documenting the occupation’s use of starvation and famine as weapons of war. In her collages, Samaa Abu Allaban, an artist living and working in Gaza, contemplates the efforts of her people to exercise agency over the means of their sustenance. Next to a picture of a makeshift mud oven, or bread lying in a pool of blood, she writes in pencil about the challenges of finding basic necessities, like flour, gas, and wood under conditions of war.
Since the beginning of the genocide, the Zionist entity has attempted to achieve by famine what it cannot achieve by military force alone. This depraved brand of warfare — mass death by starvation — has only escalated since Allaban made these images. And the occupation forces have seized on people’s desperation by turning aid distribution sites into killing fields. In just the last month, these daily aid massacres have martyred at least 549 people.
“Genocide Kitchen” is an archive of a besieged people’s efforts to preserve not only life, but a way of living. Even as the occupation bombs and poisons the water reservoirs and weaponizes the delivery of flour, the people of Gaza refuse to be reduced to bare life. As we were closing this issue, we read that Gazawi community leaders have launched an effort to protect aid convoys and those seeking aid, and have already shepherded dozens of UN aid trucks and ensured safe access.
You can support the life sustaining efforts of The Sameer Project, a grassroots organization that works to distribute aid and provide shelter to Gazawi families. Last month, the organization’s camp manager — Mosab Emad Ali — was martyred in a targeted airstrike. His work continues. Please give what you can to help save lives.
Samaa Abu Allaban is an artist living in Gaza. This diary entry appears in the eighteenth issue of The New York War Crimes, out July 4, 2025.