More than six months after Israel invaded Gaza, the Strip’s ability to produce food and drinking water has been severely hampered.
Israeli airstrikes and bulldozers have razed farms and orchards. Crops abandoned by farmers seeking safety in southern Gaza have withered and livestock have been left to die.
Ashraf Omar Alakhras owned a family farm in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza, near the border with Israel. In late January, he said, Israeli bulldozers plowed up it, along with its greenhouses and solar energy projects, to clear space for a militarized buffer zone.
“We worked on our big farm that we inherited from our ancestors,” he told the Washington Post, sharing photos and videos of a now-gone life. “We grew oranges, lemons, potatoes, eggplants, tomatoes and cucumbers. »
The fate of the Alakhras farm has become the story of agriculture in Gaza.
A post-analysis of agricultural data, satellite images and interviews with experts and Palestinians in the Strip reveals how close an already vulnerable agricultural system is to collapse.
Asked about the level of destruction in Gaza’s agricultural sector, the Israeli military said: “Hamas and other terrorist organizations illegally integrate their military assets into densely populated civilian areas. The Israeli army added that its actions are “based on military necessity and consistent with international law.”
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Even before the war, most of Gaza’s fruits and vegetables were imported into the enclave. Gaza’s ability to feed its population was limited for nearly two decades due to a severe blockade by Israel and Egypt, put in place after Hamas seized power in 2007. Israel controlled all posts border workers except one; limited electricity and water supplies; prohibited access to deeper offshore fishing waters; and restricts the import and export of goods.
As a result, farming and fishing were often small-scale but essential activities. Gazans farmed and fished where they could, building rooftop greenhouses, harvesting rainwater for irrigation, and rigging boats to run on cooking oil or motor engines. car. Small olive groves and fruit trees dotted the landscape.
Local produce – tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplants, herbs and red and green peppers – were destined for markets or straight to kitchen tables. Households relied on local production for more than 40 percent of their fruits and vegetables in 2022, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.
Damaged agricultural land
Under international humanitarian law, civilians caught in conflict cannot be denied access to food or water by warring parties, legal experts have said. This also extends to targeting food infrastructure.
“With few exceptions, it is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove or render useless these objects,” said Tom Dannenbaum, associate professor of international law at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.
Dannenbaum added that when civilians face starvation, water and food infrastructure – such as irrigation works and agricultural fields – do not lose their protected status simply because combatants carry out their operations within a civilian population.
He Yin, a satellite image analyst and assistant professor at Kent State University, found that nearly half of the Gaza Strip’s olive and fruit trees had been damaged or destroyed as of April 3. In northern Gaza, he said, losses could reach up to 71 percent. It used machine learning – a type of artificial intelligence that identifies visual patterns in data – to detect damage to tree crops and greenhouses using satellite imagery.
Damaged tree crops
Yin found that nearly a quarter of the enclave’s 7,000 greenhouses were destroyed; 42 percent were damaged and will likely be unusable.
Damage to greenhouses
Damage to greenhouses south of Gaza City
Gaza residents – historically dependent on aid from UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees – are now even more dependent on the limited aid allowed. Many seek out edible plants and some, according to the United Nations, have been reduced to eating grass and animal food. . In northern Gaza, residents told the Post they survive on khubiza, a green leaf that grows naturally in winter. But when spring came, this source of sustenance disappeared.
Maximo Torero, chief economist at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, said the level of food insecurity was at a critical stage.
“It’s entirely artificial,” he said. “And thousands of lives, and potentially hundreds of thousands of lives, are now at risk. »
In addition to the impact of the war, parts of Gaza have lost much of their water infrastructure. According to Torero, 50 percent are unusable in northern Gaza, 54 percent in central Gaza, 50 percent in Khan Younis and 33 percent in Rafah. Furthermore, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, only two of the three desalination plants are partially functional and many Gazans survive on brackish water.
Desalination damage
Repairing all this damage could take decades.
Georgina McAllister, assistant professor at Coventry University in England, highlighted the unprecedented path ahead for rebuilding Gaza.
“In 30 years of working as a specialist in food and agricultural systems in times of conflict, I have never encountered this level of devastation and precarity. »
Methodology
To assess the extent of the damage to Gaza’s food infrastructure, the Post examined photographic and video evidence, analyzed satellite imagery and spoke with experts.
He Yin, a satellite image analyst and assistant professor at Kent State University, identified the impact on tree crops and greenhouses using a machine learning program to locate and assess damage visible in images satellite.
Satellite images included in this story were provided by Planet Labs.
Design and development by Talia Trackim. Further development by Frank Hulley-Jones. Edited by Reem Akkad, Leila Barghouty and Elyse Samuels. Design editing by Junne Alcantara. Photo editing by Olivier Laurent.
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