Food for thought: Tons of iftar leftover feeds less privileged

July 8, 2015

Riyadh, Jul 8: Several young Saudis are collecting and repackaging tons of leftover food from iftar and suhoor tables this month for needy people throughout the country.

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“Did you know that there are many poor families who need food, and go to bed sad and hungry, while the leftovers at weddings and parties are thrown into the garbage,” stated a slogan at an organization named ‘Collector of Leftover Food.’

A source from Albar Association’s Faisaliah branch told Arab News that there are young Saudi volunteers ready to receive calls from those people wishing to donate food. They will collect the food and repack it for the poor, he said.

An estimated 4,500 tons of food is thrown away every day in Saudi Arabia, said a study conducted by King Saud University’s department of agricultural sciences. It stated that about 30 percent of four million dishes, worth about SR1.2 million, prepared daily in Ramadan, goes to waste.

Total food waste in Jeddah amounts to 4,000 tons a day during the year, and increases in Ramadan to 5,300 tons a day, according to Jeddah municipality spokesman Mohammad Obaid Al-Buqmi.

In an earlier statement to Arab News, Khodran H. Al-Zahrani of the agricultural sciences college at KSU, said there were no accurate statistics yet of the quantity of food wasted in the country.

However, he said there appears to be a rise in wastage. This is because there is an abundance of food imported at subsidized rates, and the idea that leftover food cannot be eaten for health reasons.

“It is not uncommon to see half-eaten sandwiches, chicken, meat, rice, bread and other food, dumped into garbage cans throughout the Kingdom. Serving good quality, sufficient food is seen as an integral part of Saudi culture, therefore wastage is inevitable,” he said.

Al-Zahrani blames restaurants and hotels for the wastage because they set up huge banquets and buffets. Individuals are also responsible for their lavish tables during Eid festivals, weddings and parties. In addition, unsold food items are dumped along with the damaged goods.

According to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 1.3 trillion tons of food waste is produced globally on an annual basis, or nearly 30 percent of total global production. This amount is enough to feed 800 million poor people in the world.

In a recent report, the FAO said all food waste in developing countries is due to poor storage and transportation procedures. As excessive waste in the world poses a significant economic problem, the organization urged all nations to guarantee that excess food is given to poor people rather than thrown away, to improve global food security.

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News Network
November 12,2024

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The Palestinian Hamas resistance movement says its fighters have killed at least 20 Israeli soldiers in northern parts of the besieged Gaza Strip in just two days, in retaliation for the occupying regime’s genocidal war on the Palestinian territory.

In a statement on Monday evening, Hamas said that fighters of its military wing, al-Qassam Brigades, “killed at least five occupation soldiers” in northern parts of the coastal territory earlier in the day.

It added that Hamas fighters also killed 15 Israeli soldiers in the war-ravaged region on Sunday.

The resistance movement’s “qualitative operation … confirms once again the failure of the criminal Zionist entity to suppress and eradicate the Palestinian resistance, which continues to direct qualitative strikes against its terrorist soldiers,” Hamas further said on its Telegram channel.

Palestinians have increased their resistance operations in the face of intensified Israeli aggression in northern Gaza that has claimed the lives of more than 1,000 over the past weeks.

“Our valiant resistance is waging a war of attrition with the criminal enemy, inflicting daily losses on its soldiers and vehicles, and all of [Israeli prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s bets and dreams of achieving any of his goals are failing,” the Gaza-based resistance movement added.

Hamas also vowed that Israel’s ongoing crimes and aggression against Gaza would be met with increased resistance and painful strikes, which will continue until the aggression against Palestinians ends and the regime fully withdraws from the blockaded territory.

As the war in Gaza enters its 14th month, the Health Ministry reports that Israeli attacks have killed at least 43,603 Palestinians and wounded 102,929 others.

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News Network
November 4,2024

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Hundreds of Israeli settlers conducted a brutal attack in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.

The settlers set fire to numerous homes and vehicles of Palestinians and then moved to the main road connecting Ramallah to other cities, targeting Palestinian cars passing by.

They stormed the city of al-Bireh, near Ramallah, and burned Palestinian property and vehicles.

A woman sustained injuries after the settlers hurled stones at her vehicle, according to Palestinian news outlets.

Tension has been running high across the West Bank because of Israel’s genocidal war in the Gaza Strip, which has killed at least 43,341 people, mostly women and children, since last year’s October.

The Monday settler attack came as the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas warned of Israel’s plans to annex the West Bank and drive Palestinians out.

“We warn of the grave danger posed by the plans led by the extremist occupation regime and illegal settler groups to displace the residents of Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank,” Hamas official Mahmoud Mardawi said.

Israel's far-right minister Bezalel Smotrich called for the full annexation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip last week.

Smotrich asserted that Israel should unequivocally declare there would be no Palestinian state.

He repeated his proposal of expanding Israeli settlements within the West Bank and other occupied territories.

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News Network
November 7,2024

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The Israeli regime has killed at least 40 people during new airstrikes against eastern Lebanese areas, besides targeting the country’s capital Beirut with fresh acts of aggression.

Lebanon’s health ministry announced the fatalities on Wednesday, saying 53 other people had also been wounded during the aerial attacks that targeted the country’s Bekaa Valley, including the city of Baalbek.

In early Thursday, the regime was also reported to have attacked Beirut’s southern suburbs, including a site adjacent to Rafiq Hariri International Airport.

The attacks came after the regime issued short-notice evacuation orders apparently directed at the residents of the areas, claiming that the areas contained facilities belonging to Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement.

Tel Aviv has been using similar claims on countless occasions since last October, when it markedly intensified its deadly acts of aggression against Lebanon, in order to try to justify the escalation. Hezbollah has, however, invariably refuted the claims.

Also on Wednesday, the United Nations warned in its most recent flash report on the humanitarian crisis caused by the Israeli atrocities targeting Lebanon that the aggression had “reached a critical point.”

The attacks have claimed the lives of more than 3,000 people, which was “58 percent more than the 1,900 fatalities” that were caused by the regime’s 2006 war against Lebanon, the report said.

“Additionally, an estimated 1.3 million people have been displaced, both within Lebanon and into neighboring countries, 33 percent more than the number of people displaced in 2006,” it added.

Women comprised the majority of those who had been rendered homeless within Lebanon as a result of the Israeli attacks, the report noted.

It also regretted that the Israeli attacks had featured 78 assaults on healthcare facilities across the country that had claimed the lives of 130 health workers and injured 111 others.

In response to the aggression, Hezbollah has been staging hundreds of retaliatory strikes against the occupied Palestinian territories and the Israeli forces trying to advance on southern Lebanese areas.

The movement has vowed to sustain its strikes until the regime ends the escalation.

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