Gaza Farmland Is Destroyed, But Some Are Growing Food Even While Displaced

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https://truthout.org/articles/gaza-farmland-is-destroyed-but-some-are-growing-food-even-while-displaced/

Gaza Farmland Is Destroyed, But Some Are Growing Food Even While Displaced

In Gaza, war is not measured only by the number of airstrikes, but by the number of trees that no longer bear fruit.

By Ghada Abu Muaileq , TRUTHOUT
Published April 5, 2026

Mohammed Ansir, a 43-year-old Palestinian, tends to his small garden in Gaza City on January 17, 2026. Declared dead from a leg injury at the Indonesian Hospital, only to be found alive moments before burial, he now cultivates the land where his tent once stood to provide for his family of seven.

Before the war, our home garden was more than just a patch of green. It was a refuge I retreated to whenever the world felt too heavy. Bougainvillea climbed the walls, and flowers in every color filled the corners — tended by my mother as if they were her own children. In one corner stood a pomegranate tree we had brought from a nursery in Beit Lahia in northern Gaza — a city long known as the Strip’s food basket, with its fertile agricultural lands.

When the war began, our priorities shifted entirely. There was no longer space for beauty. Survival became the only goal. The flowers withered, and the once-vibrant garden turned into a silent gray space. We uprooted the blossoms and planted onions in their place, trying to ease the burden of hunger and soaring prices. Only the pomegranate tree remained — an enduring reminder of an agricultural city whose lands were bulldozed and whose residents were denied return.

Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun, which once supplied much of Gaza with fruits and vegetables, have been reduced to devastated terrain. By late 2025 and into early 2026, satellite analyses from the Food and Agriculture Organization and the UN Satellite Center show that up to 98 percent of fruit-bearing tree cropland — including olives and pomegranates — has been destroyed, while more than 87 percent of overall cropland and more than 80 percent of greenhouses have been damaged or wiped out. Only a tiny fraction of Gaza’s agricultural land — somewhere between 1.5 percent and 4 percent — remains both accessible and undamaged, mostly in limited southern areas, leaving the north largely off-limits due to restrictions, contamination, and military zones. This was not merely collateral damage. It was a direct assault on food security and livelihoods that continues to unfold even after the fragile ceasefire began in October 2025.

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