As Gaza’s population of 2.1 million has been hemmed into an ever smaller slice of the territory, farmers are using every last remaining patch of unspoiled earth, no matter how tiny, in their struggle to survive. With severe shortages of water, fertiliser and pesticide, and with more than 80% of greenhouses ruined, it has taken inventiveness and determination to clear land of debris and coax new seedlings into life. Moreover, venturing out into the open to tend to plants can be deadly.
Saqer Abu Rabee’s eldest son and brother were killed while at work growing food for their communities on their small agricultural plots in Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza. His son Yousef was 24 when he was killed by a drone-fired missile in October 2024. Abu Rabee was working in the fields 10 metres from his son when it happened.
Yousef was well known locally as the driving force behind a collective first called We’ll Plant It and now simply Our Land, which brought together volunteers and encouraged farmers to go back to the land to restore agriculture in the area. They shelled our area every day three or four times while I was working alongside the labourers.” Abu Rabee’s brother Bilal was killed on 2 July after he went to retrieve some agricultural supplies from a destroyed building. His death came nine months into a partial ceasefire during which Israeli forces have killed more than 1,200 Palestinians.
Abu Rabee is convinced farmers have become prime targets because of their role in sustaining Palestinian communities among Gaza’s ruins. The Israel Defense Forces deny targeting farmers or any civilians, saying they have only responded to imminent threats from Hamas since the October ceasefire. Despite the risks, Abu Rabee, 48, is still at work every day cultivating a 1.4-hectare (3.4-acre) plot in Beit Lahiya that was an orchard of orange trees before the war.
He said the orchard was bulldozed by the Israeli army. It took a great deal of time and hard work before it was ready for cultivation again,” he said. Out of that scrap of land, Abu Rabee says his family have produced hundreds of thousands of aubergine, tomato and pepper seedlings.
They raise cash by growing their own aubergines to sell to wholesale traders, while most of the seedlings are distributed to other farmers or to individual households to plant in patches of earth around their homes and tents. He says the supply has transformed the local food market. Aubergines now cost less than two shekels a kilogram, compared with 40 shekels a few months ago.
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