It's a gray November day in Tallinn when I meet Hani Almadhoun, whose NGO Gaza Soup Kitchen is working with the Estonian Refugee Council (ERC) to deliver meals inside Gaza. On a day like this, Estonia certainly feels a long way from Palestine, and as Almadhoun admits, it took him a while to understand why the ERC was so keen to work with him and his organization.

"At first, I was like, 'why are these guys talking to me?' Maybe you should go talk to somebody else," he laughs. "But after many conversations, I felt the [ERC] team was really invested."

And the numbers certainly back that up.

When I meet Almadhoun in Tallinn, the ERC, through its work with Gaza Soup Kitchen, had already helped distribute almost 3,000 meals to hospitals in Palestine, thanks to public donations. The food is essential not only for patients, but also for doctors and nurses working under impossible conditions to save lives.

Hospitals are key to the operation. As ERC Director Eero Janson stressed in September, in Gaza, they are often the only places to turn to for food.

"Right this minute, in Gaza, we're delivering lunch to two hospitals a day," Almadhoun explains. "There are three hospitals we deliver to altogether — about 277 meals every day for patients and medical staff. And that's been funded by the Estonian Refugee Council."

"We will continue"

Almadhoun founded Gaza Soup Kitchen in April 2024 with his brother Mahmoud.

In the beginning, the aim was modest: To ensure their neighbors in Beit Lahia, 7 km north of Gaza City, would not go hungry. But what started out as a personal mission to feed around 150 families soon grew into a much larger operation.

With the crisis continuing to escalate, Gaza Soup Kitchen now serves food to 3,000 people a day at 10 active sites. Despite severe limits on the available supplies — which depend heavily on donations and outside help — the team prepare simple vegetarian meals for people using those resources they have access to.

But it's a constant battle for survival.

On November 30, 2024, Mahmoud — the man who "made the magic happen on the ground"— was killed in a drone strike, while delivering food.

"Mahmoud worked tirelessly to make life a little more bearable for everyone around him when so many would have given up," Almadhoun wrote afterwards. Mahmoud's final word was — "Mostamreen" (مستمرين) — "We Will Continue."

Stories not statistics

Mahmoud's tragic fate, and that of so many others in Gaza, has taught Almadhoun a lot about how to communicate to the wider world about the crisis.

While reports about the scale of the catastrophe "might work on a state level," he says, "for donors, conversations about logistics and overheads are boring. When I tell people 60 or 70 percent of Gaza is starving, they don't connect with that — it just doesn't move the needle."

Almadhoun points to his experience at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA U.S.A.), where he is also senior director of philanthropy. While generally positive about the UN's work, he is clear about its limitations.

"One of the struggles at the UN is they have too many guidelines, making it hard for them to tell a simple story," Almadhoun says. "It becomes a model whereby the donations just go into a black box — we'll give you a report but will not show you what we've done."

For that reason, Gaza Soup Kitchen decided to do things a little differently — putting human stories at the forefront and showing people the positive impact their donations are having on people's lives.

Almadhoun has no doubt that approach has played a big role in their success. "Individual donors want to see the program, they want to see the hospital," he explains.

"Because people see the horrors in Gaza but very few people are able to deliver. [At Gaza Soup Kitchen] we were fortunate enough to be positioned to deliver a lot — especially in June and July and May, when the famine was the harshest."

Science fiction

ERC Director Eero Janson's opening words at the conference in Tallinn painted a bleak picture of the situation currently facing the humanitarian sector.

Janson described 2025 as a "very rough year for humanitarians and humanity in general, as global funding shrinks and wealthy countries redirect resources towards weapons instead of the most vulnerable."

Against that backdrop, I ask Almadhoun, whether it can feel like a competition for attention between so many different and worthy causes. After all, shared historical experience means Estonians feel the impact of Russia's war in Ukraine more keenly than most. But when it comes to Palestine, it's been a different story.

"Early on, people gave Ukraine priority," Almadhoun points out. "I don't feel envious. No Ukrainian should be a refugee. But I think the options that are available to many Ukrainians are science fiction to Palestinians."

"Russia has done a lot, and they've been called out," he continues. "It seems we're more reluctant to call Israel out after two years of this."

A brighter future

After all he's experienced, it would be easy for Hani Almadhoun to give in to the "heavy cloud of sadness" he says he feels inside.

"I could lose myself in grief and that could suck me into a very dark place," Almadhoun admits. "But I keep myself busy with these projects. When I dedicate my time to helping people that gives me purpose."

But he's under no illusion that "a larger response is needed" and Gaza Soup Kitchen cannot do everything alone. "I'm not Superman. I'm just one person who's able to get money to Gaza and maybe there are [only] 20 people who are able to do that right now."

Nevertheless, Almadhoun is encouraged by the Estonian Refugee Council's "consistent" support for Gaza Soup Kitchen. Their co-operation, part-funded by the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, shows no signs of slowing down and now aims to distribute as many as 9,000 meals.

He's impressed, too, with how "civically minded the community is here [in Estonia]," adding that he's "really grateful" for the peaceful pro-Palestinian protests that have taken place in Tallinn in recent months.

"You cannot unsee the nightmare in Gaza. History is watching and people want to do the right thing," Almadhoun says. "That's what inspires this work and that's why they run fundraising campaigns here."

But above all, despite everything, Almadhoun insists on believing in a brighter future. "I want my kids to grow up [in a world] where Israelis and Palestinians can live together. We don't have to marry each other. But we can work together," he says.

With the help of the Estonian Refugee Council, Almadahoun and Gaza Soup Kitchen are doing what they can to keep that hope alive. And his brother Mahmoud's final words — "We Will Continue" — remain their guiding principle.

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More information about the Estonian Refugee Council's work can be found here.

More information about Gaza Soup Kitchen is available here.

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