Inspired by their time working in an Israeli prison canteen, two Palestinians have launched a food truck in the West Bank city of Ramallah, in a first for the occupied territories.
It is not quite the captive market they were used to, but Khaldun al-Barghuthi and Abderrahman al-Bibi’s brightly colored van is drawing attention — and hungry patrons — on the pavements and in the parks of the West Bank’s political center.
Barghuti, who spent eight years in an Israeli prison, and Bibi, who spent nine, served food to fellow inmates during their time in jail.
Photo: AFP
They said they served time for “resisting the Israeli occupation,” but refused to provide further details.
Barghuti, who was freed at the beginning of this year, said it was no coincidence that he decided to open a mobile business — dubbed the “Food Train” — following his release.
“I had to get on the move after so much time spent in a small cell. I was tired of the long hours of boredom and I wanted to move all the time, like a train,” he said, filling a baguette with grilled chicken and diced onions.
Photo: AFP
The colorlessness of prison life, with its monotone brown and blue uniforms, also inspired the van’s psychedelic paint job in red, blue, orange, purple and yellow, he said.
Street stalls flogging falafel, grilled corncobs or Turkish coffee are a common part of any Palestinian street, but a restaurant in a truck with two fridges and a stove, powered by four huge solar panels, was unheard of before the Food Train.
Although such food trucks are all the rage in cities from New York to Paris, the two friends had to ask the Palestinian Ministry of Transport to issue its first license for their mobile restaurant.
Photo: AFP
Serving Middle Eastern street food alongside hot dogs and sandwiches, the truck has proven surprisingly popular.
“We didn’t expect to have so many customers this fast,” Barghuthi said.
Since opening the truck three weeks ago, the two men take turns at the stove from 8am until midnight, seven days a week.
Barghuti, sporting a neatly trimmed black beard and an apron tied around his neck, said that in general, they park next to “universities or public gardens, and sometimes employees ask us to come in to their industrial zone.”
When reporters visited, the colored minivan was posted near a vegetable market.
Anaam Sheikh, buying a sandwich, said the Food Train was positive in many ways.
“It shows how ex-prisoners can bounce back, and it is also environmentally friendly, with solar energy,” she said. “I hope it will set an example and others will be inspired.”
Since the 1967 Six-Day War when Israel occupied east Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, at least 850,000 Palestinians have passed through Israeli prisons, according to Palestinian government estimates.
More than 7,000 Palestinians are currently held in Israeli prisons, with about 600 serving life sentences, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club rights group.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure