Héctor Alejandro Arzate / DCist/WAMU
Alicia Talamas waits just outside of the Green Zone, a Middle Eastern bar in the heart of Adams Morgan. The air is cold but she and a friend are early enough to get ahead of the crowd that stretches down the block of 18th Street NW. Like many others, she says she came for the comfort of Palestinian food and to support humanitarian aid in Gaza.
“Honestly, I’m looking forward to a taste of home,” says Talamas, who is half Mexican and half Palestinian. “Just looking for community. Looking to find solidarity and resistance in the moments of harsh times – of struggle.”
On Sunday evening, local Palestinian chefs Jinan Deena and Marcelle G. Afram organized an event where 100% of the proceeds from sold food would directly benefit UNRWA. Also known as the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, UNRWA is an agency that operates throughout Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank.
While the agency has existed since 1949 (following the end of a war that established Israel and displaced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians), it is now on the frontline providing food, water, and shelter to people in Gaza since the outset of a war that was prompted by a surprise attack on Oct. 7 against Israel from Hamas militants, which killed over 1,000 Israelis and seized at least 100 other people as hostages. That attack has led to an ongoing airstrike campaign and siege from the Israeli Defense Forces...
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