Rushdie (4:42)

We can drink together a cup of coffee.

Shruk (4:44)

A simple request for Rushdie and Shru, coffee is a love language.

Rushdie (4:50)

We both are coffee addictors. And the coffee that he fixes is the best coffee ever. And sometimes he says, like I say I love you when I fix you a coffee.

Shruk (5:02)

So he told her, what about calling.

Rushdie (5:05)

The reception of the hotel and you know, you can ask who for coffee for both of us. And also sweet.

Shruk (5:12)

Shrooq protested a little because room service, it's going to be pricey.

Rushdie (5:16)

He said something in Arabic. I'm just trying to put it in English. It is like it is in Arabic. It means like we do savings for this moment. So don't think about money, just order what you want.

Shruk (5:35)

This would be the last cup of coffee that they would enjoy together in peace. October 7, Shrukh, Rushdie and Dania were fast asleep high up in that hotel room in Mecca.

Rushdie (5:51)

Rushdie wake me up in the morning, I think 7am and he said, we're going back to Gaza. I was like, what is going on to Gaza? What is happening? Your family's okay, My family's okay. And they said, yes, but there will be a massive war in Gaza.

Shruk (6:13)

Shrug got out her phone and started scrolling. News reports said Hamas had launched a surprise attack on Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages.

Rushdie (6:27)

We better just run to Gaza. Before they closed the border, both Rushdie.

Shruk (6:32)

And Shrug had lived through numerous conflicts and wars.

Rushdie (6:36)

We know that when it comes to wars and you are out of Gaza, you die every single minute because you keep scrolling down the news and it breaks you down.

Shruk (6:53)

They knew it was coming. Egypt would close its border crossing to Gaza and then it would be nearly impossible for them to get home.

Rushdie (7:01)

So we ate our breakfast and was looking for tickets just to leave immediately to Gaza.

Shruk (7:08)

As they're booking plane tickets, Rushdie gets a call from a co worker. He says that when Israel started bombing Gaza, he and three other journalists had gone out to film fighting that had broken out at a border crossing. One of them had been shot and killed. Two others were now missing.

Rushdie (7:26)

So it was really a shock, like Rushdie collapsed. They are like a family. They are like brothers for us.

Shruk (7:37)

Rushdie and Shrukh are journalists. More than a decade ago, Rushdie founded Ayn Media, a well known production company in Gaza.

Rushdie (7:46)

So Richdie was unaware what is happening around him. And I tried as much as I can just to focus. I was having Dania at that time and I went to change her diapers. And he brought me coffee from the airport. I didn't drink it and he didn't drink his coffee as well because we are not in the mood. The flight was after midnight.

Shruk (8:18)

From Cairo. They jump in a van toward Gaza. It's early morning, still dark, and it feels like they're the only ones going in that direction. But Shrukh and Rushdie are determined to go home.

Rushdie (8:33)

If something happened to your family, if one of them got injured or killed, you will never forgive yourself. So when it comes to war, you stay with the family.

Shruk (8:46)

They arrive at Rushdie's family's house almost at once. Rushdie picks up a camera and heads out into the street to cover the attacks. He goes alone. They've already lost three colleagues and he doesn't want to lose more. He films paramedics bringing the dead and wounded men, women and children to hospitals. He documents airstrikes. He gets drone footage of bombed out neighborhoods. And during breaks, Rushdie films himself on his phone and posts the videos to Instagram.

Rushdie (9:18)

The situation here is very bad. It's miserable. We talk about disaster. There is no water anymore. There is no electricity at all. Even the network and Internet was down. I had that feeling that I'm afraid that he's going outside to do the kafirj. But I wasn't able to say no for him because this is his work and also this is his duty, you know? So it feels like I'm betraying my country when it comes to say no for my husband.

Shruk (9:54)

And of course Shrup wants to go out too, to film and document. But they have Dania and she's still breastfeeding. So every day before he leaves, Shrukh makes Rushdie tell her exactly where he's going to be. And she calls him constantly.

Rushdie (10:12)

Just to check on you. How are you doing? How are you feeling? This is what we agreed on.

Shruk (10:17)

One day, Rushdie's out working for longer than expected. Shrup calls once, twice too many times.

Rushdie (10:26)

And I was like ringing and calling and he's not responding. I was like, what happened to him? Like he's responding. But then he returned with all the dust on his clothes. And then I found out that they bombed a place that was close to him and he ran to extract the bodies and the people injured under the ripples. So he left the camera and helped in extracting the bodies and the casualties from under the ripples. So he was not a journalist at that time. I'm always proud of this.

Shruk (11:09)

Day 16 Shrukh wakes up to Dania crying.

Rushdie (11:13)

She just wanted to keep doing the breastfeeding all the time. And I got annoyed because it hurts when it takes so long of doing the breastfeeding. And I'm tired. So I was talking with her this morning. And then Rushdie wakes up. And Rushdie said, okay, I will take her outside. And you, you sleep, you relax.

Shruk (11:37)

After a few hours, Rushdie checks back in with Shru. He needs to get ready to go out and film paramedics for the day.

Rushdie (11:44)

And I was like, rushdie, I'm having a bad feelings because every day they are attacking appliances. And I'm having like, I'm having negative energy about this. I was telling him this way and he was like, if I did not, who will do it?

Shruk (12:01)

Before he leaves, Rushdie asks his whole family to sit down and eat breakfast together.

Rushdie (12:06)

And he insisted on this. And this actually kept him late.

Shruk (12:10)

So they all sit down, all nine of them. Shrukh reaches her hand across the table to grab a piece of bread.

Rushdie (12:18)

Once I just hold it. We hear a fairy nearby explosion that made the table moving. You know, all of us got terrified because it's very close. And then we decided to run downstairs. Rushdie, like, he was beside me, I was holding his hand, and in the other hand I was holding Dania. And like you can say in a half of a second, he moved and stood in front of me like he gave me a shield.

Shruk (13:02)

She doesn't hear the rocket at all.

Rushdie (13:07)

At this very moment, everything went into dust. Like I was only seeing dust, only the gray. And then I started to smell the. Smell the. The weapon, the smoke of the weapon. I have Daniel on my, like carrying her. I tried to put my, you know, to feel her. And I felt like she's fine. And I never thought that they are attacking us because I hear nothing. The first thing that I heard a voice of his mom when she said, where's Roshdi? And I started to. I was feeling that there is something heavy on my legs. And then I tried to see what is that heavy thing on my leg. It was Rush day. I grabbed him from his leg and he collapsed like he's not resisting. So we carried him and moved because they are still pumping the area. The house is collapsing. They pumped us. They hit us directly with two rockets. And I was even. Not even able to Understand how we made it alive.

Shruk (14:39)

Rushdie's mom, dad, sister, and brother are okay. Dhanya is okay, and so is Shru. But Shru can see that Rushdie's severely injured. His skull is broken.

Rushdie (14:56)

We called the appliances several times, and the appliances said, I'm sorry, we cannot come because the area is very dangerous. They are not stopping, attacking the area, so we cannot take the risk and come. So we decided to carry him.

Shruk (15:13)

The house is crumbling around them, and they move Rushdie to the street. His breath is labored, wheezing. The emergency workers can't make it, but Shroop knows the hospital is just a few blocks away. Maybe they can carry Rushdie there themselves. So they place him into a blanket. They each grab the edges of the cloth and hoist him up and over the rubble.

Rushdie (15:44)

And we carried him, you know, using the blanket. So I tried my best to be focused, like, you know, because otherwise I will not forgive myself if I didn't. If I didn't did so I. I was, you know, comforting myself and saying, totally fine. He will be disabled. Disabled. Thank God. He's. He's gonna be disabled, and he will be alive. Disabled. I will. I love him all the ways, even if he's disabled. I was, you know, convincing myself with this idea, but I never imagined that he will gone.

Shruk (16:23)

It takes them 15 minutes to get to the hospital, but it's too late. Rushdie is dead. The same day, Shrut goes back to the house, the house that's just been bombed. She manages to dig through the debris and find a bag. It's actually her daughter's diaper bag. In it are some clothes, diapers, of course, some gold cash, her laptop, their passports. She and Rushdie had wanted to go abroad, to study for PhDs in Europe, maybe to grow the media company. In an instant, Shrug's life has shrunk down to a size she doesn't recognize. She's a widow. Her daughter is fatherless. In the days after Rushdie's killed, she looks down at her phone and thinks.

Rushdie (17:34)

Why he's not, you know, calling me, like he always called me all the time, like, how are you doing? How are you feeling? And till now, I can say that I cannot just look at his photos. I don't feel like, let me say I'm ready to see him. No. And also, I believe, like, if I focus, like, looking at his face, I will collapse. And I'm not allowing myself to. To collapse because I believe it's not a suitable time to grieve.

Shruk (18:16)

Day 30 shrugs moved in with her sisters. But then her sister's neighborhood is hit by a rocket, so they all have to flee together. An hour south to Rafa.

Glenn Washington (18:40)

Without her husband, without a home, where will Shoop go? How will she protect her husband's legacy? Stay tuned. Welcome back to Snap Judgment. Our story today follows real people in wartime and as such, contains violence. When we left, Shoruk's husband had been killed in an airstrike, and she and her daughter fled toward the south.

Shruk (19:28)

And it's here for the first time in weeks, Shruk has Internet. She's flooded with messages from sources, clients, contacts. They write how sorry they are about Rushdie. His death has been all over the news. And their messages mourn the apparent end of Ayn Media. In a span of around two weeks, two of their journalists have been killed. They've lost their founder. Surely the company can't go on.

Rushdie (20:00)

They are just assuming ending the murder first.

Shruk (20:06)

Shru's upset. She writes their clients back. We're still here.

Rushdie (20:14)

Because if we did not, who. Who's going to document and recode this history? And you know, it's a duty. Even if we are not doing anything for clients, for business, we have to document it for ourselves, because it is a history.

Shruk (20:33)

Since the invasion, Israel has restricted and controlled outside journalists access to Gaza, and 55 reporters wrote an open letter asking to be allowed inside. So the work that Ayn Media is doing in Gaza has never been more important.

Rushdie (20:48)

The only thing that I can do is to work and to get busy because I don't have the privilege to grieve.

Shruk (20:57)

The company only has one camera. It's too dangerous to get their gear from the office in the north, which is under constant attack by the Israeli army. So they rent gear and start filming. Shrug teaches herself to operate a camera. Sometimes she goes out with another producer.

Rushdie (21:18)

The stories that we're trying to cover is the displacement camp, basically, and how every tent has a story inside.

Shruk (21:35)

They interview displaced families, families that sleep on the beach in tents, tents that flood when the tide comes in. They document aid workers giving out food and clothing. They try to stay away from red zones and areas where there have been airstrikes.

Rushdie (21:55)

You know, we all believe that it's not only the marked areas that is just dangerous. It's everywhere.

Shruk (22:05)

February 9th, day 125. This is when I first reached out to Shrug. I found Rushdie's name on a list of the journalists who had been killed in Gaza. I looked him up. The first picture I saw was from Shrug's Instagram. Rushdie was snuggled with Dania in a chair looking down at her. I messaged Shruk on WhatsApp and she started sending me voice memos.

Rushdie (22:32)

Today is 131 day of this genocidal war. The war that feels. That feels forever. Yesterday night, myself, my daughter and I, we were able to sleep finally after an epic week of being sick. Anyways, it's very heavy. It's very heavy. Like sometimes I just feel numb regarding everything that is happening and also the pers feeding as well. And I don't want to stop it. I don't want to stop this pers feeding because let me say I. I'm sorry for this. So I don't want to stop this breastfeeding. My daughter now she's one one year and three months and I don't want to stop it. I can stop it, but I don't want to stop it. Breastfeeding is a good thing that keeps both of us close to each other. And also when it comes to breastfeeding for me as Shuruk, I don't know if I ever later will feel this feeling once again. What I mean after Rushdie.

Shruk (24:17)

Day 139. Dania's 15 months old. Shrug's living in a small house in Rafah with her family, her sisters and brothers and their families too.

Rushdie (24:29)

I sleep in one room along with 12 children and six adults. And those all of them are my relatives. All of them are women. And what I did today that I finally I got shower after almost eight days. Thanks God I was able to to take a shower. Sorry, that's my daughter. She's hugging me. Baby Mama.

Shruk (25:09)

One day in Rafa, Shrug decides she's going to make herself a coffee like Rishti used to.

Rushdie (25:16)

And once I started to fix myself.

Shruk (25:19)

A cup of coffee, she sends me this message as she's walking down the street.

Rushdie (25:24)

I remember that I was fine at that moment. But then just something that crossed my my heart at that moment saying that Solo, I'm fixing the coffee. Solo, I'm drinking it Solo. I started to sob.

Shruk (25:45)

Her sisters come into the kitchen and they're confused because Shrukh hasn't really cried since Rushdie died. And there she is sobbing over a cup of coffee.

Rushdie (26:00)

Since then, my family decided that they're gonna fix me the cup of coffee. So since that moment till now, I'm not fixing a cup of coffee at all. It's only my family. So whenever I want a coffee, I just ask them easily. And sometimes they just fix it and give it to me. I'm not ready for this. And. And I really wonder for how long I going to stand this way.

Shruk (26:29)

One morning I wake up to a new voice message on my phone from Shrew. She's moved again. Still in Rafa. She and her sisters found an apartment just for them.

Rushdie (26:42)

So the apartment that we moved for, it's. This is Dania. She's making noise. Anyways, I hope that it is a safe place. You try your best to be as safe as you can, but at least we got lucky to find an apartment.

Shruk (27:00)

She'll have her own bedroom, so she and Dania will have some privacy. Hey.

Rushdie (27:09)

So I'm whispering. I'm sorry because Dania is sleeping and it's 2am now and I cannot sleep. Yesterday they started the invasion of the western part of the rafah city.

Shruk (27:29)

Day 213. I get this message from Shruk. Israel has begun the invasion of Rafah, where according to Reuters, over a million Palestinians have fled, including Shrug.

Rushdie (27:43)

And you cannot imagine like how or where all of these displaced people were called. And really there's no place. And I cannot sleep because we are quite close to the army soldiers. We can hear the bombings all the time. And just average like. Because I've seen what happened in the past seven months when it comes to the invasion. And what does it mean to have the soldiers quite close to you? Because I'm thinking of where the hell shall I escape along with my daughter and family?

Shruk (28:33)

City by city, the places that Shru and Dania can find refuge have disappeared. So I keep checking in to see how they are.

Rushdie (28:42)

Hey, dear. Thank you for reaching out. Actually, after the invasion of Rafah, we decided to go to the middle area of the Gaza Strip, to a city.

Shruk (28:51)

Called Deir Al Bala. Dania and Shru are now living in a tent.

Rushdie (28:56)

We are coping with the current living, with living conditions, but it's all this. There's no place like home. So that's it. So this is life. On the tour.

Shruk (29:11)

Shuk's still working, going out every day to film and document Gazan stories. Walking for hours to find Internet to upload footage. While Shruk works, Dania stays with her sisters. They have kids her same age. Actually, Shruk says the one bright spot in all of this is that Dania spends her days playing with her cousins. At night, when Shroup comes home, the sunset calms her down. She spends her evenings with Dania, who's talking now. She just turned two. Sometimes Shruk thinks of going to the sea. She thinks of the time when the beach was free of tents. She thinks of her husband.

Rushdie (30:01)

We used to go to the sea. We bring our coffee with us and we just sit. Like most of the time we don't talk, we just sit. A sunset is such an invitation. Like. Like I didn't see you today and I miss you and I wanted to see you today, like and to watch this sunset together so you know, it's a symbol of love. Like I gonna invite you for a coffee in front of the sea. This is my daughter. This is Daniel. She's smiling. We're talking about her father.

Glenn Washington (31:08)

Rushdie was the 23rd journalist killed in this war. In November, Shorook was honored in New York by the Committee to Protect Journalists with the 2024 International Press Freedom Award. Shoruk is still living and reporting in Dhirabala. Her daughter Danya is now 2. Since the ceasefire was reached, Shrug thinks about returning home to Gaza City, but has no physical home to return to. The original score for this story was by Renzo Goriot. It was edited by Nancy Lopez and Anna Sussman. It was produced by Ashley Kleek, Regina Berriaco and Shaina Shealy. Now, after the break, we're gonna hear from a kid who's been cooking her way through the war. Stay tuned. Welcome back to Snap Judgment, the Recipe for Survival episode. My name is Glenn Washington, and Snap producer Shana Shealy was home in D.C. doom scrolling on her phone when a video popped up on her Instagram feed from Gaza. And this video was so different from the videos she was used to seeing from the region that she just couldn't stop watching.

Chef Renad (32:51)

The video is of a kid standing on a rooftop in Gaza. She's in a T shirt and flared blue jeans, and she's grating pita bread by hand into a bowl full of crumbs. Work, Nafa, she says. Let's get started.

Glenn Washington (33:11)

Chef.

Rushdie (33:12)

Chef, I'm ready. Chef Renad.

Chef Renad (33:14)

Chef Renat. She has wavy brown hair, long bangs tucked behind her ears. Sometimes she wears bandanas. Her smile is so radiant, I can't not smile back at my phone. In this video, Chef instructs her audience step by step, on how to make fake cream water, cornstarch, semolina, milk powder, mix it together. You can hear surveillance drones overhead. All the while, the dish she's making, knafeh, is conventionally made with layers of melty gooey cheese and orange oily pastry threads. But Chef does not have any of those things, so she improvises. At the end of the video, she holds a round Metal tray in front of the camera topped with crispy breadcrumbs, orange from food dye. It's amazing, she says. So delicious. The video on Instagram got 370,000 likes. Chef Renaud's videos were so different from the ones I was used to seeing from Gaza. Her content wasn't about death and destruction. It was about the sweetness of life. I needed to talk to this chef, but I knew it would be tough. For one Chef Renaud is in high demand. And it was days after the January ceasefire announcement. Her family was hosting dozens of displaced people in their apartment. Why would she talk to me? So I actually reached out to Shruk, the award winning war journalist from our last story, for advice. And Shruk was like, oh yeah, I love Chef Renaud. Within minutes I got this message from the chef's older sister.

Rushdie (35:16)

By accident. I was calling Shrukh and she told me about this. We love her so much. Renat loves Shiruk so much. And she told me about that. She will record the interview.

Chef Renad (35:44)

And now Shrukh is at the chef's apartment with Renaud and her sister and a translator. I'm on speakerphone from my house in dc. Hi, I'm Renab. Hi Renad.

Rushdie (36:00)

Guys, we are having Renat and we are having Nurhan at the same time. I'm so lucky to have both of them around me. And each time I'm looking at Renat, I feel hungry. I don't know why. Maybe because she's a chef.

Chef Renad (36:12)

Soon Chef Renaud is serving Shruk cheesecake.

Rushdie (36:15)

Wow.

Chef Renad (36:16)

And then coffee.

Rushdie (36:19)

Remember when coffee was banned? And now we have coffee. Yes. This is halaji.

Chef Renad (36:26)

And these sweet cheese rolls. Delicious.

Rushdie (36:31)

I'm lucky to do this broadcasting. I'm eating lots of like tasty dishes.

Chef Renad (36:40)

Eventually Shruk and Chef Renaud sit down together.

Rushdie (36:50)

Okay. My name is Renat. I'm from Dar el Bala. I'm 10 years old. The next month I will be 11.

Chef Renad (36:57)

And what do you want people to know about you?

Rushdie (37:02)

That I love life a lot. And I miss my school, my friends and Gaza. As before the war.

Chef Renad (37:16)

10 year old Ranod should be in the sixth grade. But she hasn't been to school in over a year. Since before the war started. And a few months into those empty, unpredictable days, she and her older sister Norhan started making these cooking videos.

Rushdie (37:31)

It's me, everyone, it's me, Norhan. This is the person in the shadow.

Chef Renad (37:36)

Norhan is 25, a pharmacist.

Rushdie (37:39)

But because of the war, I prefer to stay at my home and decide to save my sister mental health by keeping her busy with something she loves. So it was cooking.

Chef Renad (37:56)

Norhan is basically Renaud's producer.

Rushdie (38:00)

Okay, guys, I am the one who filmed the videos, edited the videos, published the videos.

Chef Renad (38:05)

She writes captions for Renat like, can you tell me how many times I said the word fluffy? We make the most delicious bread in the whole world.

Rushdie (38:15)

And Rena just eating. She's very good at cooking, but I'm doing all the work. I don't mind be suffering for my little sister. She's my zombie. She's my. Haradi is a cotton candy. Yeah.

Chef Renad (38:33)

She says Renaad is her cotton candy. Chef Renaud says her content includes these three main things.

Rushdie (38:43)

Three things which are cooking and talking about Gaza and my smile, of course. So people loved my smile and my cooking.

Chef Renad (38:54)

She goes for that ASMR thing too. Scraping the top of fried bread.

Rushdie (39:03)

I love that sound, that crunchy sound and crispy sound of the.

Chef Renad (39:07)

Of the food Shruk is translating for Renat here. She jumps in every so often.

Rushdie (39:12)

Always prefer to eat stuff that is just a crispy from outside.

Chef Renad (39:18)

Renaud is the kind of chef that tastes as she goes.

Rushdie (39:22)

I remember I was cooking a mushroom soup and I forgot myself. I started eating the mushroom even before I cook it. I tried to taste it and then I found myself eating the entire mushroom.

Chef Renad (39:36)

She collects recipes online and then uses them for inspiration for her own creations. Most of her recipes are based on what she receives in aid packages, what she calls boxes that fall from the sky. From other countries. There's this video where she makes something called War Sandwich. She sautes crushed garlic with onion, pomegranate syrup and canned olives. She adds chopped meat from a can she got in an aid box. Then she wraps the fried meat in flatbread. And then she douses the entire wrap in a water and flour paste and then coats the entire sandwich in breadcrumbs. Deep fries it makes sure we hear how crunchy it is and then dunks it into tahini sauce. She promises us it's nicer than shawarma or my favorite, the war lollipop. She boils sugar in a big spoon over a gas burner. She says that after it liquefies, she pours it over toothpicks. It cools into these brown, hard globs. Not the most appealing. And she knows it. At the end of the video, she says the shapes are as frightening as bombs. In every one of her videos, Chef Renaud seems so satisfied with her creations, overjoyed at what she's cooked up. But she says that eating food that comes as aid doesn't feel good. She tells us there was this one time she really missed eating cheese. Like she wanted cheese so bad that she and her sister got up really early on a cold, windy morning. And they got seats on a donkey cart and settled in for a four hour journey to get to a market in Khan Yunis.

Rushdie (41:46)

I was afraid of not having or getting the cheese because I like I would be very desperate and disappointment for not having it.

Chef Renad (41:57)

She said the trip was miserable.

Rushdie (42:00)

The donkey was really tired over walking in broken streets and the.

Chef Renad (42:10)

And when she got to Khan Younis, she could barely recognize the city. She saw sewage everywhere. The streets were so packed with tents, it was hard to maneuver the donkey cart between them. The cheese she was looking for, it's a special kind of cheddar called Greatest. And she actually found it in the market.

Rushdie (42:37)

It was never an easy journey to go and look for cheese around. And I found it. I felt like when I found it, I felt like it's not a cheese, the cheese, it's a treasure that I found. Chef finds a cheese. It feels like a patient finds a medicine. This is according to her net. So she felt very happy.

Chef Renad (43:15)

She came home and used the cheese in a noodle recipe with canned mushrooms. Chef seems pretty sure that the real reason people watch her videos is her smile.

Rushdie (43:28)

And I think that my smile is the biggest factor for my being famous.

Chef Renad (43:35)

It is a very good smile, a constant in her videos. When Chef Renaud's sister Norhan started posting her cooking videos, she got message after message about Renaud's smile. And she kept seeing this word, contagious.

Rushdie (43:53)

Contagious. I didn't know the meaning of this word, but when I search about it, it means like when the people see Renat's smile, she also smile. So it was. It is a kind of inviction. Yes.

Chef Renad (44:14)

Do you ever feel like it's hard to keep the smile on? All the time.

Rushdie (44:21)

For sure. I'm trying to be smiling all the time that I hide behind this smile. A lot of sadness over martyred people and my friends who have passed away during this war and I can't see them anymore. And of course my school has stopped. I always try to smile in order to lighten the suffering inside.

Chef Renad (44:51)

Behind her videos, there were times Renaud couldn't smile this past year. Times when she was hungry and had no food. And times when she had food but couldn't bring herself to cook it.

Rushdie (45:10)

I felt shy to share anything about Food at a time that my people are still starving.

Chef Renad (45:18)

The only thing that gets her posting again is when one of her experiments works. Like when she managed to get fluffy pancakes without eggs or milk.

Rushdie (45:32)

To that moment, I felt, this is such an award. Okay, let's guys, let's go to the to proof to see the location of the kitchen. The small kitchen of Renat. Yallah. Yeah, yeah, let's go. Yallah. Yallah. Yeah, let's go.

Chef Renad (45:50)

Shruk walks up three flights of stairs with Chef Renaud and Norhan to the rooftop kitchen.

Rushdie (45:55)

Wow, it's sunny today. Yeah.

Chef Renad (45:59)

They get to the roof, and Renaud sets up.

Rushdie (46:04)

So what do we have here? Are you gonna cook something for us?

Chef Renad (46:14)

She's making salad. It's the first dish Chef Renaud ever made, one of her favorites.

Rushdie (46:19)

So you added the pepper and the salad. Now you're gonna hit it. You're gonna smash it. Yeah. So she is mixing the tomato with the pepper. Try to make it more juicy.

Chef Renad (46:32)

She had spices and lemon juice.

Rushdie (46:34)

Lots of lemon. Wow. Yeah.

Chef Renad (46:38)

And finally she mixes it all together. Shruk leans in for a taste.

Rushdie (46:46)

It's very yummy. Spicy. Time to clean this mess. We're gonna miss you, Shiru. We're gonna miss you too, guys. It was a lovely day with you. Yalla is sunset now.

Chef Renad (47:17)

Shruk leaves their apartment with a full stomach and heads back home from a day of work, back to her daughter Dania.

Glenn Washington (47:49)

You can find Chef Renee Renadfromgaza on YouTube, Instagram, or wherever you get your social media. Many thanks to Chef Renaud and her sister Norhan Attalla and Ansam Ismail Kalub, who helped with this translation. Shahrukh recorded the audio in Gaza. Another special thanks to the Committee to protect journalists for sharing their extensive reporting from the Gaza Strip. The story was edited by Nancy Lopez. It was produced by Shayna Shealy. Now, if you missed even a moment, know that Snap ventures into places others dare not tread. The Snap Judgment podcast awaits your ears each and every week. And Snap recently released the brand new podcast series Fire Escape. Every fire brings Amika Mota closer to reclaiming the world she lost. Fire Escape is available wherever you get your podcast. Snap is on the Instagrammer. KQD in San Francisco is where we hide our secrets. Snap is brought to you by the team that always has. Just one more question, except, of course, for the uber producer, Mr. Mark Ristich. Your Honor, no further questions. Now there's Nancy Lopez, Pat, Mercedes Miller, Anna Sussman, Renzo Goriot, John Facil, Shayna Shealy, Teo Decat, Flo Wiley, Bo Walsh, Marissa Dodge, David Exame, Regina Berriago.

Rushdie (49:35)

And.

Glenn Washington (49:36)

Know that this is not the news. No way is this news. In fact, you could plant a grove of lodgepole pine, giant sequoia, the eucalyptus coast live oak, and when these mighty trees grow into a forest, when that forest burns, shake your head, secure in the knowledge that each and every tree needs this blaze in order to release their seeds and you would still not be as far away from the news as this is. But this is BRX.