In Gaza, fertile land ravaged by war

Tank tracks are still visible in the Nedal Abu Jazar field in the fertile coastal area of ​​southern Gaza, where dozens of uprooted plants lie alongside metal debris from greenhouses destroyed by Israeli tanks.

The Israeli soldiers “came, they destroyed the whole area, they continued to shoot, they destroyed all the greenhouses,” says Nedal Abou Jazar, pointing to his field in the Al-Mawasi area, with the Mediterranean Sea in the background.

“There are 40 dunams (four hectares) of land and greenhouses that have disappeared,” laments the 39-year-old farmer. “They killed the workers who were working in a greenhouse. There were five martyrs here,” he continues.

Contacted by AFP, the Israeli army affirmed that it “does not intentionally damage agricultural land” and that Hamas “often operates from orchards, fields and agricultural lands”.

In the Gaza Strip, where war has been raging since the unprecedented attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement on October 7 on Israeli soil, 57% of agricultural land has been damaged, according to an assessment published in June by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the UN satellite center, Unosat.

The damage is generally due to the passage of “heavy vehicles, bombings (…) which could also result in fires,” UNosat analyst Lars Bromley told AFP.

The destruction threatens the food sovereignty of the Gaza Strip, warns Matieu Henry, technical advisor to the FAO, specifying that 30% of the consumption of food products in the Palestinian territory comes from its agricultural lands.

In 2022, Gazan farmers exported more than $44.6 million worth of produce, mainly to the occupied West Bank and then Israel, with strawberries and tomatoes accounting for 60% of the market, according to FAO data.

– “No work, no income” –

This figure fell to zero with the war that broke out on October 7, after the Hamas attack which resulted in the death of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count established from official Israeli data.

Farmers work in a field east of Deir al-Balah in the Gaza Strip on November 18, 2023 (AFP/Archives/MAHMUD HAMS)

Israel has imposed a strict siege on Gaza, where the military reprisal campaign has left 38,098 people dead, mostly civilians, according to data from the Hamas government’s health ministry in Gaza.

The northern Gaza Strip suffered the brunt of the destruction, with 68 percent of agricultural land damaged, but the south has not been left behind since the Israeli army launched a ground offensive there in early May, according to the UN assessment.

Near Rafah, Ibrahim Dheir, a 34-year-old farmer, is devastated. He has lost the harvest from the 20 dunums (two hectares) of land he rented, as well as his farming equipment.

“As soon as the Israeli bulldozers and tanks entered the area, they began to destroy the cultivated land: citrus fruits, guavas, spinach, molokhia (vegetable keratin), eggplants, squash, pumpkins and sunflower seedlings,” the farmer lists.

“Greenhouses containing tomatoes, cucumbers, melons and peppers were also destroyed,” he laments. “We used to depend on agriculture for our daily livelihood, but now we have no work or income.”

Abou Mahmoud Za’arab also finds himself “without resources”. The 60-year-old farmer owns 15 dunums of land.

“The army crossed the land, completely destroying the trees and crops,” he told AFP. “They bombed the land, making it uncultivable.”

And the damage caused by artillery to agricultural land will continue, warns Lars Bromley of UNosat.

“Removing unexploded ordnance is a huge task. You literally have to probe every inch of the ground before farmers can return,” the analyst said.

© 2024 AFP

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