‘Nothing is left’: The collapse of Gaza’s agricultural sector

October signals the start of Gaza’s olive harvest, a culturally significant season typically filled with celebrations. This year, however, the harvest is all but wiped out as a year of conflict with Israel has ravaged trees; scattered unexploded, explosive weapons across groves; and left farmers without the essential resources they need to grow or harvest their fruits. In fact, a staggering 86.2% of Gaza’s orchards and trees have been damaged over the past year, according to satellite images from the Food and Agriculture Organization and United Nations Satellite Centre. There are now only four functioning olive presses in Gaza today, compared to around 40 before the start of the conflict, Mahmoud Alsaqqa, Oxfam’s emergency food security and livelihood lead in Gaza, told Devex. The devastation wrought by the war that began with last year’s Oct. 7 Hamas attack in Israel goes beyond olive trees. The images show that two-thirds of Gaza’s cropland has been damaged, with the proportion as high as 78% in worst-hit northern Gaza. Almost 95% of cattle are dead, and around half of agricultural wells and greenhouses have been damaged during fighting over the past year — in addition to the loss of human life. “There is a huge and massive destruction of the cropland, of the orchards, of the infrastructure,” Alsaqqa said. “What we see on TV regarding civilians — what’s happening to children, women, to the people in general in terms of the attacks and injuries — this is also happening to the farmers. A lot of the farmers we used to work with have lost their lives. They have lost their family members.” “Generally speaking we are talking about the collapse of the agricultural sector in the Gaza Strip,” Alsaqqa added. This agricultural crisis threatens more than just immediate food availability in a region currently facing severe shortages — it portends long-term problems in agricultural production that could cripple livelihoods for years to come. Grappling with acute food insecurity The agri-food sector has long been a lifeline in Gaza, providing formal employment to about 13% of the workforce and informal income to over 90% of the population through the food supply chain, according to a study from the World Bank. Production is driven by crops including olives, tomatoes, and cucumbers, and the agricultural sector accounts for over half of total exports from the territory, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. The destruction of agricultural production has severely worsened food security at a time when Gaza is grappling with extreme hunger levels due to the conflict. In September, the volume of both commercial and humanitarian supplies entering Gaza reached its lowest levels since at least March 2024 as aid groups struggled to negotiate with Israel to deliver it into the territory. As of last month, 96% of Gaza’s population — 2.15 million people — were facing acute food insecurity. Among them, nearly half a million people were classified as living in “catastrophic” levels of acute food insecurity — equivalent to famine under the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, the international standard for monitoring and measuring hunger. While at the start of the conflict, some nongovernmental organizations distributing food in Gaza sourced produce from local farms, that is no longer the case. “We did that until things finished in Gaza. But in the last 4 to 5 months, the destruction has been devastating. Now, nothing is left,” Naser Qadous, Palestine agricultural program manager at the NGO Anera, told Devex. The lack of available produce also means that people, especially children, are not having basic nutritional needs met. Only 1% of children in northern Gaza and 6% in the south are receiving the recommended dietary diversity, according to UNICEF. And when produce is available, prices are exorbitant. “For potatoes or for onions in the north, the unit is the individual now. We never talk about the kilogram anymore,” Qadous said. “A big potato could go for 60 shekels [$15.94]. Everything is unbelievable.” Qadous recounted a story from a contact in Gaza: “A friend of his gave him an apple a few days ago. Then he asked … guess how many people ate from that apple? 15! Fifteen divided one small apple.” Production constraints Even for those few Gazan farms that have managed to survive the past year unscathed, food production is nearly impossible. Organizations including Oxfam are trying to support farmers with flexible financial aid for essential goods, including farming inputs, Alsaqqa said, but supplies are scarce. “Agricultural inputs in the local market are practically nonexistent,” Joaquín Cadario, agroecology and food systems expert at the humanitarian organization Action Against Hunger, told Devex. “There is almost no fertilizer, no seeds. There were already difficulties with inputs prior to the crisis, and now entry points into Gaza are overwhelmed and prioritized for humanitarian aid.” “Generally speaking we are talking about the collapse of the agricultural sector in the Gaza Strip.” --— Mahmoud Alsaqqa, emergency food security and livelihood lead in Gaza, Oxfam While Action Against Hunger is trying to coordinate the entry of seeds into Gaza with other organizations, for now its main priority has shifted to providing emergency support, Cadario explained. There is little agricultural work they can do beyond educating farmers about the threat of unexploded weapons including bombs, which the United Nations estimates could take more than 14 years to clear. In addition, the chemical composition of the bombs dropped on Gaza is expected to have long-lasting and serious impacts on Gazan farmland. “Considering the intensity of the bombardment, it is highly likely agricultural soils in Gaza are contaminated with heavy metals and other chemicals associated with military equipment and munitions,” a U.N. Environment Programme report published in June stated. “Damage to agricultural land and natural areas arising from the conflict may reduce the fertility of soil, and increase Gaza’s vulnerability to desertification,” it added. In the same report, UNEP predicted that the fisheries industry, which before the conflict directly employed thousands and provided food for many more in Gaza — will also be negatively affected going forward. Weapons debris, unexploded bombs, and marine pollution could all lead to lasting constraints when it comes to fishing. “We used to have 4,000 fishermen in Gaza City. They have now lost their source of income, their livelihoods because their boats are destroyed, they lost their tools, and there are restrictions on going to the sea,” Alsaqqa told Devex. Agriculture in the West Bank also under threat Meanwhile, farmers in the West Bank, a geographically separate part of the Palestinian territories, are not unaffected. Even before the Israeli operations in Gaza following the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, Palestinians in the West Bank grappled with land incursions by Israeli settlers, and many face recurring and severe restrictions to accessing their land. In terms of land use, according to research published by the Norwegian Refugee Council that looked at a period largely before Oct. 2023, samples collected from some Palestinian-owned West Bank farms corroborated farmer complaints that settlers were dumping E. coli-filled wastewater onto their farmlands, which can contaminate crops and water sources. Since the outbreak of war in Gaza, tensions in the West Bank have only grown as more land has been seized and clashes escalate — with farmers feeling the effects. A World Bank survey showed that roughly three-quarters of West Bank farmers have seen their revenues drop by half, on average, since the start of the war. The effects have been especially acute for vegetable farmers, 16% of whom said they stopped cultivating key vegetables altogether. “The situation in the West Bank is terrible. It is different from Gaza but the losses are also tremendous,” said Qadous, whose family is one of hundreds who have been cut off from their farmland since the start of the construction of the West Bank barrier wall in 2002. “It’s time to end this. … It's time to send something other than bombs,” he said. Alsaqqa echoed that sentiment: “When we are talking about the still-working farmers in Gaza, to be frank, they are risking their lives everyday in order to access their lands, and to be able to cultivate their lands. The situation is very dire. This just increases the reasons for the need for a cease-fire. For the farmers and for all the people.”