PARIS (AFP) — A brand new restaurant opened its doorways in Paris on Saturday, based by a Palestinian from Gaza and a Franco-Israeli, aiming to advertise reconciliation by meals.
The Palestinian, French and Israeli flags fly from the ceiling of “Sababa, the Style of Peace,” the place the primary prospects packed in to eat hummus, falafel or Gazan salad.
Radjaa Aboudagga and his workforce have been toiling since 6:00 a.m. to create the Center Jap dishes for households and pals of all ages seated on mats or at tables.
“Every thing is handmade,” stated Aboudagga, a Franco-Palestinian initially from the Gaza Strip, within the restaurant’s crowded kitchen, as he prepares “manakish,” a flatbread topped with cheese, floor beef and herbs.
The restaurant, which shall be open 4 nights every week till June subsequent 12 months, was conceived with Franco-Israeli Edgar Laloum, in partnership with the “Nous reconcilier” (We Reconcile) group.
“I’m blissful about today as a result of it comes at a time when there may be lastly hope there too,” stated Laloum as Aboudagga regarded on, referring to the newly-agreed first section ceasefire deal in Gaza and the anticipated return of Israeli hostages and launch of Palestinian prisoners.
Laloum, who lived for 30 years in Jerusalem, stated the restaurant’s menu is made from “dishes that Israelis and Palestinians eat in the identical means.”
“The 2 peoples, Palestinian and Israeli, have the identical customs, the identical desires, the identical tears and the identical unhappiness,” added Aboudagga.
“We share the identical land, all of us need to stay collectively on it,” he added, welcoming the latest resolution of the French authorities and others to acknowledge a Palestinian state.
Patrons eat on the restaurant “Sababa, le goût de la paix” (Sababa, the Style of Peace) through the opening of the restaurant in Paris on October 11, 2025. (Antoine BOYER / AFP)
‘Sababa – Joie de vivre’
The restaurant is housed on the Consulat Voltaire, an outdated electrical energy sub-station turned cultural middle, within the eleventh district of Paris close to the place de la Bastille.
One buyer, Raphael, who didn’t wish to give his final title, advised AFP that the three flags have been “symbolic.”
“It’s very lovely and I used to be explaining to my son that, in the long run, we will all stay collectively,” he stated.
One other diner, Henri Poulain, 57, stated he noticed it as an indication of “reconciliation” and “a hyperlink between the French Republic on the one hand” and “these two states, one among which has but to be born.”
Even when the battle have been to renew within the Gaza Strip, he stated he was satisfied “it wouldn’t weaken a spot like this.”
Psychosociologist Joelle Bordet, 72, stated she thought the phrase “reconciliation” was “too robust.”
“Simply being collectively in the identical house, whenever you’re successfully enemies, is extraordinary,” she stated. “I can’t do it immediately in my community with Russians and Ukrainians.”
Subsequent to Bordet was Nour-Eddine Skiker, head of the “Jalons pour la paix” affiliation, a few of whose volunteers got here with a neighborhood youth council group to assist.
“On this very small house, there may be room for everybody,” he stated.
One of many younger volunteers, Mboreha Ahamed, 23, added: “Being right here below these three flags is tremendous symbolic… over a meal the place we consider different issues.”
At about 2:00 p.m. the queue to order mezze was lengthy.
Readings of poems in Hebrew, Arabic and French, dialogue teams and concert events have been all deliberate, all, within the phrases of the restaurant’s founders, within the spirit of “joie de vivre” — the that means of “Sababa” in each Israel and the Palestinian Territories.
