Cats calm Gaza cafe customers

Meow Cat Café has joined the growing number of such cafés all over the world. As people look for ways to deal with life's stresses, cat cafés offer a solution. Customers can relax with a coffee while they stroke the sociable animals.

That was Nehma Maabad's goal when she made up her mind to open this café in Gaza City.

Nehma Maabad: "Cats, for me, are a refuge that relieves me of psychological stress. So I thought of creating a project that combines serving people with something to cheer them up. That's where the idea of the café came from. It combines the concept of a normal coffee shop with a cute twist of having your cup of coffee while playing with a cat that will make you smile and forget about the pressures of life beyond the walls of this shop."

For locals, the café provides a chance to temporarily forget their worries. Palestinians in Gaza need such opportunities. Fighting between Israeli and Palestinian soldiers has continued for years and local people have been unable to move freely since 2007, due to Israeli forces.

Manar Abu Samra frequently stops by.

Manar Abu Samra: "It's a wonderful idea, especially for cat lovers. The quality of cats here is beautiful and sweet, so it's a wonderful idea -- despite its strangeness to society -- and when I heard about it, I felt happy."

Visitors to the cat zone pay an entrance fee of around $2.65 per hour, which goes towards the cost of caring for the animals.

Nehma Maabad:"The entrance fees for the cat zone are purely aimed at covering their food and drink. The café section functions like any other normal café in Gaza."

The fee also covers vet bills and provides activity areas for the kittens, so Manar is more than happy to pay.

Manar Abu Samra: "Someone who loves cats will come visit and won't care about the cost, but I don't think its entrance fees of nearly 10 shekels ($2.65) per hour to play with the cats is a high fee. It's appropriate."

As our understanding increases of the positive effects of stroking animals like cats and dogs, the trend in cat cafés is likely to grow as well.

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