In the ruins of Gaza, where silence often replaces the sound of life, a mobile bakery hitched to a red tractor has become the last thread between survival and starvation. It is the last of its kind still operating in the besieged territory, and a symbol of resilience in a place where hunger is now a weapon.

“Within just two days, we managed to restart operations,” said Shadi Albasayna, head of World Central Kitchen’s Gaza operations, in a recent video. “Today, we expect to bake up to 25,000 loaves of bread.” Behind him stands a white trailer—far from an ordinary vehicle. Donated by Jordan’s King Abdullah II, this mobile bakery arrived in Gaza in December, capable of producing 3,000 pitas per hour to accompany meals for displaced families and medical staff.

But even bread has no safe haven. When Israeli forces ordered mass evacuations from Khan Younis in early April, the bakery had to move. “Our maintenance team relocated the truck to a safer area in central Gaza,” said Shadi on 3 April. The UN now reports that 65% of Gaza’s land is affected by evacuation orders, making humanitarian work nearly impossible.

Baking up to 59,000 loaves a day by working 19-hour shifts, the team is operating at just one-third of its potential. A total blockade enforced by Israel since 2 March has brought flour supplies to the brink of exhaustion. Hunger has returned—not as a consequence of war, but as its deliberate tool.

CNN reports that all 25 industrial bakeries supported by the UN’s World Food Programme have now shut down due to lack of flour and fuel. “I woke up to get bread for my children and found all the bakeries closed,” said Mahmoud Khalil, a Gaza City resident, to AFP. “There’s no flour, no bread, no food, no water. The situation is unbearable.”

Gaza's last bakery is more than a trailer—it is the beating heart of a besieged people’s will to live. In a land where everything has been stolen—safety, homes, even limbs—bread is not just sustenance. It is dignity.