Gaza Strip gets its first cat cafe

Palestinians gather for the opening ceremony of Meow Cafe in Gaza City (Fatima Shbair/AP)

The global cat cafe trend, where people pay to have coffee and hang out with cats, has finally come to the besieged Gaza Strip.

In the impoverished Palestinian enclave run by the Hamas militant group and crippled by a 17-year blockade, residents seeking to escape the territory’s troubles flocked on Thursday to the new Meow Cafe – Gaza City’s answer to the quirky concept tried successfully around the world.