As retaliatory rocket fire reigns down on Gaza and the roughly 2 million residents on a small strip of Middle Eastern land brace for a ground assault, another community along a strip of land in Orange County is watching in horror.
“Being on social media is really tough now,” said Mohammad Othman, manager of Sababa Falafel Shop. “Everywhere I look it’s innocent lives, kids being pulled out of rubble, people being homeless, being told to evacuate, being killed during evacuation on evacuation routes.”
Sababa Falafel shop falls just outside the technical borders of Little Arabia in Anaheim. One step into the bustling Garden Grove shop, however, makes it clear the restaurant is a community staple, and they wear their Palestinian pride loud and unapologetic.
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“We couldn’t settle there and live there, in our home country,” Othman said.
Sababa is Othman’s family business. He was born in the U.S. but his father was born in the West Bank. He said they still own a home there but found it too difficult to get a permit from the Israeli government to be able to live there.
Over the last seven days, the family business has seen an outpouring of emotion not just from other Palestinian Americans, but from people in and outside of the Little Arabia community.
“We have non-Palestinian customers communing into our store, trying to order a falafel sandwich and breaking down because of their emotions towards what’s happening to all these innocent children,” Othman said.
The Palestinian death toll has surpassed 2,700 as Israel bombards Gaza in retaliation for the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas that killed 1,400 Israelis.
