Customers sit in a women-only restaurant in the southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Younis, on Nov. 11, 2019. (Photo by Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua)
by Sanaa Kamal
GAZA, Nov. 18 (Xinhua) -- With a charming smile and warm greetings, Eman Abu Ali is used to welcoming her clients on their arrival to her own first-ever restaurant that was recently inaugurated in the Gaza Strip for women only, a step contrary to the common traditions in her town.
The 34-year-old lady, mother of four, has insisted to establish the restaurant in her remote village of Abassan, east of the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis.
She said the aim of opening the restaurant was to encourage others women to go beyond old traditions that limit their daily activities.
Her restaurant, colored with pink, has been crowded by costumers, some of whom told Xinhua that they are feeling more comfortable in such a restaurant that was opened especially for women.
"In general, it's not easy for women to establish their own job in the blockaded coastal enclave," the young lady told Xinhua, while she was preparing a meal for a client.
She added that she had tried several times to find a job after she graduated from college in 2012, but she failed.
Israel imposed a tight blockade on the Gaza Strip right after the Islamic Hamas movement seized control of the enclave in 2007.
Since then, the political and economic situations have been deteriorating with a hard-living situation, which led the Palestinians to organize weekly anti-Israel rallies and protests on the eastern border that separate the Hamas-ruled enclave with Israel.
When the idea of starting her own business came to her mind, she did not know what kind of project would be successful in the impoverished Gaza Strip.
"Then I got an idea of opening a restaurant only for women because there are no such restaurants in our small village," she said.
The young lady said that she made a questionnaire for women in the village to ask about their opinions about the idea, and she got a great encouragement from them.
Abu Ali shared with the ladies all the details of the restaurant, such as the color, furniture's types, and the kinds of meals that they would be interested in.
"This place will be their second home," she said.
"As you know the housewives have lots of free times, and I hang out with my friends here to enjoy a good and funny time," Suhaila Qudaih told Xinhua, as she was checking the restaurant's menu.
Amany Halaq, a 30-year-old woman, who works at the restaurant as a waitress and a cook, said she is proud of her job despite the negative comments she had faced in the beginning.
"It's strange to have a restaurant only for women in a village, but we should change the misbelief towards this kind of places," Halaq said, adding that the restaurant provides jobs to seven people.
The youths in the Gaza Strip are suffering from high rate of unemployment, according to official figures.
The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics recently published a report, showing that the unemployment rate in Gaza have reached 52 percent in 2018, compared with 44 percent in 2017.
