Tank marks are still fresh on Nedal Abu Jazar’s farm in al-Mawasi, a coastal region in southern Gaza, and he lamented the damage the war has caused to his trees and crops.
“Look at this destruction,” the 39-year-old farmer told AFP, holding a uprooted tomato plant.
He pointed to the metal frame of his greenhouse and its white plastic sheets that stretched across the plot, which was inside an area declared a humanitarian zone by the Israeli military.
“People were sitting peacefully on their agricultural land … and suddenly tanks came and fired on us, and then there were (air) strikes.”
Abu Jazar said about 40 dunams (10 acres) of land were destroyed and five workers were killed in the Israeli operation in late June.
This is not an isolated case. According to a joint assessment published in June by the UN’s agricultural and satellite imagery agencies, FAO and UNOSAT, 57 percent of agricultural land in Gaza has been destroyed since the war began.
The damage threatens Gaza’s food sovereignty, as 30 percent of the Palestinian territory’s food consumption comes from agricultural land, Matiu Henry of the Food and Agriculture Organisation told AFP.
“If almost 60 percent of agricultural land is damaged, this could have significant implications in terms of food security and food supply.”
According to FAO data, the Gaza Strip exported $44.6 million worth of produce in 2022, mainly to the West Bank and Israel, with strawberries and tomatoes accounting for 60 percent of the total.
The number dropped to zero after the October 7 attack on southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on Israeli data.
Israel’s retaliatory strikes have killed at least 38,098 people, mostly civilians, according to health ministry figures in the Hamas-run territory.
The assessment of the damage to agricultural land comes at a time when the UN Hunger Monitoring System estimated in June that 96 percent of Gaza was facing high levels of acute food insecurity.
Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military said it was “not deliberately damaging agricultural land”.
A statement said Hamas “often conducts its activities from orchards, fields and agricultural lands.”
No work, no income
The impact is more severe in the north of the Palestinian territory, where 68 percent of agricultural land has been destroyed, although the southern region encompassing parts of Al-Mawasi has seen the greatest increase due to military operations in recent months.
UNOSAT’s Lars Bromlie told AFP that the damage was generally caused by “the impact of activities such as heavy vehicle movement, bombing, shelling and other conflict-related dynamics, including setting fire to areas.”
Near the southern city of Rafah, 34-year-old farmer Ibrahim Dhir feels helpless after 20 dunams (five acres) of land he leased was destroyed, along with all his farming equipment.
“As soon as Israeli bulldozers and tanks entered the area, they began to bulldoze farmland with a variety of trees, including fruit, citrus, guava, as well as spinach, molokhia (jute mallow), eggplant, squash, pumpkins and sunflower plants,” he said. He then listed more damage, attesting to the area’s past agricultural prosperity.
Dhir, whose family exported their produce to the West Bank and Israel, now finds himself helpless.
“We used to depend on agriculture for our day-to-day livelihood, but now there is neither work nor income.”
permanent damage
Farmer Abu Mahmoud Zarrab also has “no source of income”.
The 60-year-old owned 15 dunams (3.7 acres) of land on which crops and fruit trees grew.
“The Israeli army invaded this land and completely destroyed all the trees and crops,” he told AFP.
“They bulldozed and bombed the land, turning it into barren craters.”
UNOSAT’s Bromley said the damage to agricultural land in Gaza would go far beyond tank tracks and explosions.
“With modern weapons, a certain percentage is always going to fail. Tank shells won’t explode, artillery shells won’t explode… so removing those unused ordnance is a big job,” he said.
This requires “examining every centimetre of soil, only then can you allow farmers to go there again.”
Despite the risks, Dheer wants to return to farming.
“We want the war to stop and things to return to normal so we can farm our land again.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
