In 2013, Laila had the opportunity to return to Gaza to guide the late chef and food critic Anthony Bourdain while he filmed the episode that covered Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza for his wildly popular series Parts Unknown. Bourdain’s team had tried unsuccessfully in previous years to enter Gaza, but this time the stars aligned: The border was—under the short-lived Egyptian Morsi government—relatively open, allowing Laila passage. Bourdain and his team managed to secure a Gaza entry permit from Israel, and after filming in Jerusalem and the West Bank, Bourdain arrived in Gaza flabbergasted at the sheer disparity of what he had witnessed along the way.
