15.07.2026 • 25 Min.

Mahmud Almadhoun ran a soup kitchen in the North of the Gaza Strip, feeding hundreds of families every day in the midst of war and famine. In November 2024, he is killed by a projectile from the sky as he is leaving his home. In our new investigative podcast The Gaza Chef, DIE ZEIT’s Yassin Musharbash attempts to reconstruct why Mahmud Almadhoun had to die. Was he in contact with terrorists? Was it a case of mistaken identity, a mistake of some sort? The investigations leads us to a hospital said to be a Hamas stronghold, shows us the inner workings of a target room of the Israeli army – and also tries to answer the question of how journalists can investigate even if they can’t be on the scene. The podcast team can be reached at GazaChef@zeit.de. CREDITS Reporting, Script and Presentation: Yassin Musharbash. Editor: Tim Howard Story-telling consultant: Britta Stuff Producer: Pia Rauschenberger and Markus Gläser Title theme: Joscha Grunewald, based on an idea by Yassin Musharbash. Sound design: Tim Howard, with material by Joscha Grunewald, Tim Howard and Blue Dot Sessions. Additional sound design: Christian Küker, Pool Artists. Recording, editing and post-production: Markus Gläser of Die Zeit and Christian Küker, Pool Artists. The Fact-checking: Luisa Hommerich Additional research and translations: Suha Ma’ay‘a and Firas Halasseh