Gaza farmers brave Israeli gunfire to revive fields

As the fragile “ceasefire” in Gaza took hold in October, Palestinian farmer Mohammed al-Slakhy did not wait. With the dust of war still hanging over the shattered skyline of Gaza City, he and his family made their way back to their land in Zeitoun — to fields once lush with promise, now strewn with rubble and silence, the Al Jazeera reported.

For more than two years, war had consumed the Gaza Strip, flattening homes, greenhouses and dreams alike. When the guns quieted enough to permit return, Mohammed found little left standing. Three hectares of greenhouses had been crushed. His irrigation network lay in ruins. Nine wells, two solar systems and two desalination plants — the lifelines of his farm — were gone.

Yet the soil remained.

With scarce tools and dwindling savings, the family cleared debris by hand. They salvaged what metal they could, repaired what pipes were still usable and prepared the earth for planting. Their first crop was modest: courgettes, sown with hope that by early spring the land might yield once more.

But farming in Gaza now means farming under fire.

Just a few hundred metres from Mohammed’s lone accessible hectare — one out of the 22 hectares his family once cultivated — Israeli tanks idle behind what locals call the “yellow line”, demarcating a sweeping buffer zone that now engulfs vast tracts of Palestinian farmland. The crack of gunfire is no distant echo; it is part of the rhythm of daily life.

“We were working in the field when suddenly a tank approached and opened fire,” Mohammed told the Al Jazeera, recalling a 12 February incident when Israeli armour advanced along Salah al-Din Street. Two Palestinians were killed that day. Mohammed managed to survive by taking cover behind a destroyed building, remaining there for over an hour before he was able to flee westward.

According to a July 2025 report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, more than 80 per cent of Gaza’s cropland has been damaged, with less than 5 per cent remaining available for cultivation. Meanwhile, Israel maintains control over roughly 58 per cent of the territory as a security buffer, much of it agricultural land. Many Palestinians fear these zones could become permanent.

In central Gaza, 75-year-old Eid al-Taaban shares the same unease. His land in Deir el-Balah lies barely 300 metres from the buffer zone. After the ceasefire, he planted eggplants in open fields, but advancing restrictions soon made harvesting impossible.

“The sound of heavy machine guns is heard every day,” Eid said. “Every time my sons go to irrigate the crops, I pray they return alive.”

On 6 February, Eid’s neighbour, farmer Khaled Baraka, was shot and killed while tending his land. “He dedicated his life to cultivating the soil,” Eid said quietly. “Now he is gone.”

If bullets are one threat, blockade is another. Since 7 October 2023, Israel has severely restricted the entry of agricultural equipment and supplies into Gaza. Seeds, fertilisers, pesticides and irrigation materials are scarce, often expired, and sold at exorbitant prices. Farmers gamble their remaining savings on uncertain harvests.

Eid recently spent heavily to grow tomatoes in his greenhouses. After three months of painstaking care, the crop failed — the fertilisers and pesticides he had managed to obtain proved ineffective. He had no choice but to replant.

Even when crops survive, the market does not guarantee salvation. Gaza’s shattered economy leaves consumers with little purchasing power. At times, Israeli authorities close crossings; at others, markets are flooded with cheaper imported produce, undercutting local farmers.

Waleed Miqdad, a produce wholesaler, says local goods are often superior in quality and taste. But price prevails in a devastated economy. Mohammed has been forced to sell vegetables below production cost to avoid watching them rot. “We haven’t received any compensation or support,” he said.

And yet, amid the devastation, the farmers remain.

“Agriculture is our life and our livelihood,” Mohammed told Al Jazeera. “It is part of our identity. Despite the destruction and danger, we will replant all the land we can reach.”

For Eid, farming is an inheritance that predates borders and wars. His grandfather tilled fields in Beersheba before the 1948 Nakba. The knowledge passed to his father, then to him, and now to his grandchildren.

“I’m 75 years old, and I still work in the fields every day,” he told Al Jazeera. “The love of the land is passed down from generation to generation. It cannot be taken away.”

In Gaza, where buildings crumble and boundaries shift, the farmers’ quiet defiance endures — in every seed pressed into scarred earth, in every fragile green shoot that dares to rise toward the sun.