[Music] Hello, hello. Hello. Good to see you. Good to see you. How's it going over there in New York? It's going well. It's like, you know, the part of summer where you remember that you forgot to go outside all summer. And the two things I need to do before summer's over is like, go to the beach and eat some fresh tomatoes. And I did both this week. [Laughter] That's awesome. That's nice. [Music] This is my dear old colleague, Tim Howard, a person who does not need to be reminded about the importance of a good summer vacation, it's practically as religion. A sometime activist for the National Four-Day Work Week and a full-time radio genius. I worked with Tim for many years at a previous show called for a pie-all. He was the show's editor. Tim was the person who gave a pie-all its signature weirdness, who built stories that ran on an engine of absurdity and adventure. When I think about episodes I love from that little show like Boy in Photo or Long Distance, I see Tim's bong-hit sense of adventure plastered all over them. But we were talking this week because over the summer I've been listening to a new series that he'd edited which had captivated my attention. It was for the big German newspaper where Tim works now, "Death Site." The series was an investigation into a mysterious death in Gaza. So I wanted to talk to you about your series like I guess the first thing is just like give me the origin story of this series existing. Yeah, totally. So it's reported by a really excellent reporter named Yasin Musharbush, who I met like a week before I started at "Death Site." A friend of mine who also works here invited me to lunch with two of his colleagues, Britta and Yasin. And Britta tells me about a podcast that she's working on and I was like, "Ah, that kind of reminds me a little bit of John the Caray." Great spy novelist. And Yasin was like, "Well, you know, I knew John the Caray." I was like, "What?" And he was like, "Not only did I know John the Caray, I worked with John the Caray." And I'm like, "Where did I lay it?" "What is going on here?" "It's what capacity." Well, Yasin has been reporting on the Middle East for like 25 years and he is an expert on a lot of things Middle East and he's also an expert on Islamist terrorism. And at one point, John the Caray reached out to him and was like, "I'm looking for somebody who can help me with the novel that I'm working on, basically I need somebody who is an expert on Islamist terrorism in Europe." And so Yasin starts like working with him and I guess they had a pretty good and active working relationship to the extent that when John the Caray died, Yasin even spoke at his funeral. Wow. It was like a minute later, Yasin was like, "Yeah, and I think you're going to be editing my podcast." I was like, "Oh, okay, cool, that's great." And he told me about this story that he had already started reporting. This is a wonderful mind of Tim Howard, where every question provokes a story, which usually reminds him of another even better story, it's a place that I very much enjoy hanging out. Anyway, Tim told me how Yasin had found himself curious about this one particular story, the one that had launched this investigation. That investigation would take them to some surprising places, some of them very dark. Starting in early 2024, Yasin and other colleagues at the site had been hearing these rumors of horrific malnutrition in Gaza and of children dying of malnutrition because not enough food was getting in, but it was also a really difficult thing to report because journalists not allowed to go to Gaza. So they start calling around looking for people that they can talk to, just to like report out this story about malnutrition. And the, by far best source who Yasin meets in the process is this guy, Mahmoud Ahmadoon, who is the head of a soup kitchen in the north of Gaza in a place called Bidlahia. So he reaches out and Mahmoud is totally willing to talk to him and Yasin was also really just surprised that Mahmoud spoke really openly about everything that was happening in a way that is not what he was used to have happening with other people there, with doctors, with nurses, with ordinary people living in Gaza. What do you mean, like, because I imagine there's a lot of people would be open about? How is his openness different? Primarily about Hamas. He was willing to talk critically about what was happening with the aid deliveries that were coming to Gaza, that were supposed to be going directly to people. He spoke very openly about the black market there, which meant like food was coming in, but you could only get it if you had a lot of money. And the average people didn't have money, which is part of the reason there's so much malnutrition. And Yasin stays in touch with Mahmoud as a situation in Gaza, gets way, way worse. More bombings, way more people dying, people fleeing. And then Mahmoud dies. And Yasin doesn't know how he's killed. There's no eyewitnesses, he has nobody who can tell him what happened. All he is able to get his hands on after a lot of calling around is a video of Mahmoud's corpse. And Yasin, he wanted to basically know, could he solve this? Why exactly was Mahmoud killed? And that is what the podcast is. It's this attempt to solve this mystery through this tiny little keyhole. Yeah, what I, it felt to me, both morally and formally audacious to say, if a true crime story treats the fact of someone's death as a really important thing that needs to be understood, this was a true crime story asking why and how someone had died in a place where people are being killed all the time. And there are some real questions about what exactly happened with him that are pretty strange and pretty mysterious. And I enjoyed that the story is asking them and then I enjoyed the story begins to answer them and the answers are not what I would have expected. That's how I felt too. And I ended up learning a lot more about Mahmoud as a person, but I also ended up learning about the circumstances of his death way more than you would think you could at the very beginning. And it ends up being basically a tracer fluid on the way that the war is conducted by the idea. Tim, they were coming to share the story, I hope people find his compelling as I did. It was my pleasure, yeah, thank you. After the break, the mystery of the Gaza chef. Welcome back to the show. So reporter Yassin Musharbish wanted to know why a Palestinian chef named Mahmoud Al-Madoon had been killed, specifically whether his work trying to get food to starving Palestinians had made him a target. So Yassin started making phone calls. He spoke to members of Mahmoud's family who said, look, you need to specifically examine Mahmoud's connection to the local hospital. So Yassin did. And everything he found, that actually comprises episode two of his series, The Gaza Chef, which is what we're going to play for you now. I'll let Yassin take it from here. In the fall of 2023, as the Israeli offensive begins, there are 36 hospitals in the Gaza strip. But in a way, each of these hospitals exists twice. Once, as most Palestinians see it, a place where they bring injured relatives. And once, Israeli intelligence services viewed, as a place from which danger emanates, because terrorists use it for their purposes. In fact, this is one of the most contested questions in this war. I know many ordinary Palestinians who say, these accusations are nonsense. I have never seen anything like that. The hospital was working normally and there were doctors and there were patients and all the patients were civilians. And among them are people I find credible. On the other hand, take this Israeli guy. I know, for instance, who worked for the security services for ages. He and I had a fairly heated discussion about this subject. Not least because I pointed out to him that the Israeli evidence was sometimes rather thin and that even reputable media outlets had voiced suspicions that some of it may have been manipulated. How am I supposed to deal with that, I asked him. He replied, some would irritated by my questions, Yassin. He see so much that you do not see. What he meant was that he was absolutely certain there were secret meeting points for Hamas commanders inside these hospitals. That there were routes nobody knew about through which weapons were brought in and back out again. He didn't care whether Hamas or anybody else denied all of it, he was convinced it was true. This is where hospitals are under such scrutiny from the IDF in this war. A case in point is the Kamal Adwan Hospital, which is located right in Mahmoud's neighborhood. And maybe seven or eight minute walk away from the hospital.
house where he was last living. Kamala Duan Hospital, located in Northern Gaza, has for a long period of time been a part of Hamas' strategy and used as a major terrorist struggle. The war had only just begun when in statements like this, the Israeli army declared Kamala Duan Hospital a Hamas terrorist stronghold. What followed was a month's long confrontation around this hospital, which grew ever more violent. The World Health Organization is supporting this hospital to resume services after the attack that it has sustained back in the 22nd of May. There are clashes between the IDF and Palestinian militants in the vicinity of the hospital. The IDF says weapons were discovered nearby. There are airstrikes and on several occasions the army even enticed the hospital and detained staff, including the director, who were later accused of being a Hamas operative. We saw Israeli troops at the gate. They went to the surgery department. In the autumn of 2024, this escalation reaches its peak. And here is something I genuinely had not expected. Of all places, it is here that Mahmoud, the chef of the soup kitchen, keeps showing up, right up until shortly before his death. And I wanted to know why. My name is Yasin Musharwash and you are listening to The Gaza Chef, Episode 2 Sky In Flames. In the summer of 2025, I flew to Washington, DC to visit Hany, Mahmoud's older brother, who has been living in the United States for 25 years and is the only member of Mahmoud's family I was able to meet in person because the others are all in the Gaza Strip. Hany works for Honorwa USA. It's an NGO that supports the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees. And on a very hot and extremely humid day, we met at a Korean restaurant. It's a good place, huh? Perfect. Hany's a rather quiet man in his mid-40s, serious but kind. We took a seat outside on the terrace. Okay, so this should be recording now. Brilliant. Yeah, so yeah, let's talk. I like your t-shirt. You're wearing a t-shirt of the Gaza soup. In honor of, yeah, of course, yes. Hany was wearing the t-shirt in honor of his brother Mahmoud. Mahmoud was younger than you by how many years? Easily 10 years, 11 years. 11 years your junior. Yeah, okay. And when he was born, you guys lived where exactly? So Mahmoud was born in Gaza immediately after we left the Emirates. Hany told me that his parents, he himself and eight of his siblings, had lived in the United Arab Emirates until 1990 where his father worked as a teacher. When the older daughters were old enough to think about marriage, the family returned. So all of us went back to Gaza. Mahmoud was born in there. He's the baby. And so Mahmoud, the youngest, was the only child born in the Gaza Strip. After they returned to Gaza, Hany told me the family were actually doing quite well. His father continued working as an English teacher and also ran a shop selling kitchen appliances and household items on the side. In Betlahia, that placed them in the upper middle class. The children attended the local public school. And Mahmoud, after he grew up a little bit, would have gone to at public school as well. Yeah, but Mahmoud is unique in our family because he hated school. He would run away from kindergarten. He was so radical and not like in school. And I would literally remember dragging him from his bed to go to the kindergarten. He wouldn't go. Mahmoud, Hany says, always had a way of doing only what he wanted to do. As a child and teenager, Mahmoud was a bit of a slacker, a chiller. Not only did he dislike school, he constantly brought new friends home. People, he had just picked up somewhere, which his parents did not approve of. And my family would get upset with them because he's too hospitable with the wrong people. They worried about the family's reputation. My parents were like, Oh, this is not good. You should only invite people to add value to your life. These guys are not it. But as for trying to get ahead in life, that was not a priority for Mahmoud. He left school after just nine years. When he was 18, he got married, even though his own mother thought him far too immature for it. And yet, for a moment, it looked as though things might be going reasonably well. Mahmoud went on to open a mobile phone shop and it actually was rather successful. But then came a setback. Mahmoud became dependent on painkillers. Yeah, it was really bad for the family. He would just take the painkiller and then just zone out, like he's there, but he's not really there. Did it start with a disease or with an injury or? Yeah, so with a back injury, he would just sit there and just not know what's going on around him. And you could tell like the guy's high. That was a bit bad. It was really bad. And then at some point, and it was bad because he would be sitting with a bunch of guys in his house and he's like, he's there, but he's just some other place. And that's just for the family. Like, what the hell? These people are strangers. Your wife is across the other room. Like, what's going on? It was only when the family stepped in and staged an intervention that Mahmoud managed to overcome this phase. What helped him in the process was a new passion he developed. Cooking. And he really went to cooking as a way to distract himself. Yeah, he was. You could tell he is like zoning out when he's cooking. He's in there just in the kitchen at 10. Often, and he's lounging in his boxers, just hanging out and cooking food. He even asked around at local restaurants about cooking techniques and special spices. And Hany told me what mattered most to him was that everyone would gather on Friday afternoons to eat together at his place. He's the guy. He's the chef. He roasts the chicken in the oven. He sees it as the rice and just really takes it like an art. If it had been up to Mahmoud, life might simply have carried on like that. He had no grand designs. But then today Israel battled to repel a surprise invasion of its territory. On October 7th, 2023, Hamas attacks Israel. And at the end of the month, the Israeli ground defense begins in the north of the Gaza Strip and everything changes in an instant. Hany is sitting in Washington, almost 10,000 kilometers away, consuming every bit of news he can find. Trying to stay in touch with his relatives. And for his younger brother, his entire world collapses. Mahmoud's phone shop, located in the center of Bidlaya, is completely destroyed by a tank. Ali can salvage his laptop in the few chairs. Overnight, Mahmoud is unemployed, with no income at all. For Hany, it is all so far away and yet unimaginably real. In December 2023, with the war only a few weeks old, Hany is scrolling through a Palestinian telegram channel he reads every morning. And he comes across a disturbing video from his hometown Bidlaya. In the video, hundreds of Palestinian men can be seen stripped down to their underwear, sitting in rows on the background, heads bent between their knees. Beside them, stand armed Israeli soldiers. The soldiers have rounded them up and detained them for questioning, searching among them for Hamas fighters. I lock and they're like, "Damn, this looks like Mahmoud." What were your emotions when you saw your brother on that video? Well, there was confusion that day because there had been other groups that released a Palestinian client folded and put in over a ditch. So we did not want to end up in a situation like that. There are all sorts of rumors swirling around about terrible things happening to detainees. Things Hany 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 Hany 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 Hany is still trying to figure out how to protect his younger brother, something happens that will complicate everything even further. At 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 Hany and they hand him a cash donation.
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 him 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." I don't have rice, that's it. Well, like shit, what do we do? 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. It's the birth of the sub-kitchen. In Washington, DC, it dawns on Hani that something is taking shape in Bidlaya. 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. And they allow the sub-kitchen to distribute the meals free of charge. 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 module, he found his Zen, because he felt needed, and he was able to respond. The sub-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, when you build a school," he said, "Pakia, and we build 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 eight point, for which they even hire a doctor. And now Mahmoud is constantly on the move in Bidlahia. 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 Kamala-Dwan Hospital. So he started getting moved to the hospital, especially Kamala-Dwan Hospital, because they had the kids' units for Mad Norish, the recmute Mad Norish kids, and you could walk from a workout shoot in about 10 minutes, if you get there. The Gaza soup kitchen quickly becomes a success story. But Hany, 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." And 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 Hany thinks about it, the clearer it becomes to him. There is only one thing he can do to help protect his brother. Make Mahmoud even more visible. Make Mahmoud end 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. Hany, Mahmoud, is Mahmoud's brother and based in the U.S. So Hany begins speaking to Western and international media about the soup kitchen. Hany says those interviews felt like walking a tightrope. He 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 a singularity of trauma. But he also knew that he had to restrain himself. I can't be shouting slogans at shit. I can't say like Israel is killing my people at the 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. And that was not easy. In some of these interviews, I wanted to scream. But this campaign works. In April 2024, Hany manages to get an opinion piece by Mahmoud published in The Washington Post. In it, Mahmoud describes the famine in the north of the Gaza 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. I 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, Assad Ashman, Lion of the North. But is that enough? Hany 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? Hany decides to try exactly that. He takes the precise GPS coordinates of the soup kitchen, the first eight point, and the score, 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 what that's the point. It is a UN Coordination Office that we got in touch with and we gave him. Hany 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 COGAT. COGAT stands for Coordinated of Government Activities and Deterities. COGAT 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 COGAT ever made aware of the operations of the Gaza Strip? Oh, yeah. Yeah, a few times. When did it go through? So, what I have in Israeli friend of mine here is a peace activist, a good human being. Yeah. I've approached him and said, "Hey, here is the COGAT number. Can you get in touch with them, until them who we are, what we're doing, and where we're located?" I have spoken to Hany'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 COGAT, he never really knew who exactly he was talking to. Staff members kept changing. But to him, it sounded as though the COGAT people were guiding him through some sort of accreditation process, so that a soup kitchen might perhaps be formally recognized as an institution. So when COGAT wanted to know who exactly worked at the soup kitchen, how it was funded and what equipment it had, Hany and Ron told them. So, the United Nations, the White House, COGAT, three channels. If even one of them works in the way that Hany was hoping, then the IDF would know how to reach Mahmoud, and where the soup kitchen and its offshoots are located. The message Hany is sending us 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. Mahmoud and his family experienced the horrors at close quarters. For example, when the small makeshift school built by the soup kitchen team, whose coordinates they had given to COGAT, is hit. Fortunately, no one is injured. 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." All right, Mahmoud replies, "I'll organize a way out for you and the children." But Alas 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. You can't stop that. I also spoke by phone with Mahmoud's sister, Fartin, 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 cook all the time. And then came the phone calls. The 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. This 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. Fartin 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 Fartin agrees, she keeps working, until the day that the Israeli army sends drones circling exactly over the kitchen and then drops stung grenades. Fartin 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 Kamal Adwan 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 Bidlaya, who all hope they will be safer there. But they are not. At the beginning of October 2024, the Israeli army demands that the entire hospital be evacuated, because Hamas has allegedly reestablished 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 out 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 chaoticly. 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, the 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 controlling 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. There's a video showing Mahmoud and two colleagues from the Gaza sub-kitchen during this period, pushing a squeaking metal car through the ruins of Bidlaya towards Kamal Adwan Hospital. On either side are destroyed buildings. The car is loaded with eight supplies. And even on the video, you can hear the humming of surveillance drones. We 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, it 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 this place 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. Hassam Abu Safiya, the acting director, usually in his office. He would be there by nine, ten, and he would call me Hani. Dr. Hassan needs this medicine or the need this. Dr. Abu Safiya 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 me and you could spend ten times over it? By this point, Mahmoud, the chef, is keeping the hospital alive. Nobody else is taking credit for that. And Mahmoud and Dr. Abu Safiya develop a close relationship in this time. And Dr. Abu Safiya becomes the bestest 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, Dr. the one I sent you, the man in front of you is Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamaladwan Hospital. He's a man of integrity who has dedicated his entire life to serving his people. At the end of November 2024, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya 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. I'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. The doctor survives, but only a month later, the Israeli army again enters Kamaladwan Hospital. Dr. Abu Safiya 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 of the Kamaladwan Hospital, that it's a Hamas headquarter of sorts or used to be and be Dr. Abu Safiya personally? I don't really bother myself with Israel's sales. And this is from the heart, like we know that, for example, it's not a political guy, we know him very well. Hani told me that his family and the Abu Safiya family have known each other for a very long time. He's an Aber 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 to 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 Safiya 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. And Mahmoud, what about Mahmoud? What does the idea of actually see when they see Mahmoud, a humanitarian worker, or a help of Hamas? Hani says that notion is absurd. And 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 Islamist's way. The last standing person in their way is our cousin, Samih Al-Majun. This man was, in fact, the commander of the armed wing of Fatah, the party of Yasser al-Arafat. And there's 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 for Hani, 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. And 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 being a hamd.
mass man. I asked the IDF, the Domestic Intelligence Agency, Shinbid and Kogat, but they never answered the question. Not helpful, but alright. Then however I learned something significant. Namely this, Mahmoud was not detained by the IDF just once. No, he was detained the second time in 2024. And according to Hane 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 soul just let him go almost immediately. So once again, Mahmoud is rounded up and detained twice. And both times, he's released. I discuss this with Shalom Ben Hanan in Israeli who served for 27 years in the Domestic Intelligence Service Shinbid, most recently as a department head. And 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. Okay. Yes. He was already arrested if he had a file. Okay. That could cost him with the long arrest. Okay. You would send to prison. Yeah. As simple as that. In other words, if the IDF had possessed information indicating that Mahmoud was a Hamas man, they would have held onto him. Even for targeted killing operations, if you have the option to arrest them, you will always prefer to arrest them. The detentions by the army, the stun grenades at the soup kitchen, then the siege of Kamala Duan 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 Bidlaya Market Square is turned into a makeshift cemetery. Mahmoud tells his brother, "I feel as though I could be next." And 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?" But Mahmoud replied that he had to distribute vegetables and help the patients until his final breath. In the end, it is two very personal experiences that Jake Mahmoud's resolve. First on November 19th, 2024, his seventh child is born, his daughter Eileen. 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. That day, November 30th, 2024 begins unusually early for Mahmoud and his wife Allah. By six in the morning, both of them are already awake. And the midly inferno of Betlahia, they spend a few quiet hours together as Allah remembers it. We mostly listen 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. All 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's relieved and nervous. Sometime between 9.30 and 10am 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 Hania in Washington at dawn. And Hania wonders whether it was a mistake to contact Koget and share Mahmoud's phone number and coordinate with them. Roughly 48 hours before Mahmoud's death, he and his friend Ron had sent data to Koget one last time. Had the information been used to help kill Mahmoud? Hania doesn't know. And neither do I, because Koget didn't respond to any of my questions. But of one thing, Hania is absolutely convinced that the Israeli army killed his brother Mahmoud deliberately and on purpose. So, remember the one at Kemal, I'd want to be emptied out, and he was prolonging the process. I consider that a possibility. At 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. We 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 Sheff will be about. The Gaza Sheff is a podcast of deep-sight and cooperation with pool artists. The story was reported and told by me, Yasin Musharbash. Tim Howard was my editor and our universal secret weapon. Britta Stoof was our storytelling consultant. Pierre Rauschenberger was the producer. The title theme is by Yosha Grunewald based on an idea by me. Sound design, Tim Howard, with material by Yosha Grunewald, Tim Howard and Bludert Sessions. Additional sound design was done by Christian Küker pool artists. Recording editing and post-production, Markus Glazer of the Zeit and Christian Küker pool artists. The fact-checking was done by the Zeit's Luisa Hummerich. So hall my eye and Fras Halaschen are man-help with the investigation and with translations. Original audio research support, Karl Friedrichs and Alicia Claire. Voice-overs by Sebastian Horn, Tim Howard, Özge Inan, Jörg Laud Daniel Müller, Marlon Schröder, and Rose Tramlet. Oleb Flüde and Constanze Keins are the heads of the podcast department at the Zeit. Melissa Terkeljeva was the project leader pool artists. Legal advisor Jörg Nabat Hamburg, cover by Lea Dole, picture editor Michael Fister. Special thanks go to Bastien Berbner-Hannag-Runewald, Janis Kame-Sien, Anne Kunze, Stefan Lebert, Katharina Lovenstein, Sabine Rückert, and Helena Schmidt. If you have any feedback, you can reach us at
[email protected]. The gazachef was originally published in German under the title "The Koch von Gaza" and you can find it wherever you find your podcasts.
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