2026-06-15
The Agricultural Sector in Gaza: From a Besieged Food Basket to Devastated Farmland — The Story of Agricultural Collapse Since October 7, 2023
When the war erupted in the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, agricultural land was far more than green fields producing food. Agriculture represented one of the last pillars of economic and social resilience in a territory that had endured more than seventeen years of blockade. For decades, farming provided food, employment, and income for tens of thousands of Palestinian families, contributing nearly 10 percent of Gaza’s economy. More than 560,000 people depended directly or indirectly on agriculture, livestock, and fishing for their livelihoods. What followed during the war transformed this vital sector from a source of life into one of the most devastated sectors in Gaza’s modern history.
Before the war, Gaza contained approximately 15,053 hectares of agricultural land, equivalent to more than 150 million square meters devoted to field crops, vegetables, fruit trees, orchards, and greenhouse cultivation. The governorates of North Gaza, Khan Younis, and Rafah formed the agricultural heartland of the territory, hosting olive groves, citrus orchards, almond trees, vegetable farms, strawberry fields, and thousands of dunums planted with wheat, barley, and seasonal crops. These same areas later became major military operation zones, where farmland was subjected to bombardment, bulldozing, burning, and widespread destruction.
During the first months of the war, satellite imagery began revealing the scale of the catastrophe. By February 2024, approximately 42.6 percent of Gaza’s agricultural land had already sustained direct damage. Just three months later, the figure rose to 57.3 percent. By September 2024, the proportion of damaged agricultural land reached 67.6 percent of all cultivated areas in Gaza, representing more than 10,000 hectares that had been destroyed, bulldozed, or severely damaged. Satellite-based assessments further showed that 71.2 percent of orchards and tree-covered areas had been affected, alongside damage to 67.1 percent of field crops and 58.5 percent of vegetable-growing areas.
As the conflict continued throughout 2025, the destruction deepened dramatically. According to the latest joint assessment conducted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the United Nations Satellite Centre (UNOSAT), more than 80 percent of Gaza’s agricultural land had sustained direct damage by April 2025. This amounted to 12,537 hectares out of the territory’s total 15,053 hectares of agricultural land. Furthermore, 77.8 percent of farmland had become inaccessible due to military operations, buffer zones, or security risks, leaving only 688 hectares available for cultivation—just 4.6 percent of Gaza’s agricultural area.
The crisis did not stop there. By July 2025, new United Nations assessments indicated that more than 86 percent of agricultural land had suffered damage, while 98.5 percent of Gaza’s farmland was either damaged, inaccessible, or both. In practical terms, only 232 hectares remained available and suitable for cultivation out of more than 15,000 hectares that had been farmed before the war. This meant that merely 1.5 percent of Gaza’s agricultural land remained operational.
One of the most visible aspects of the destruction was the extensive bulldozing of farmland. Satellite imagery documented the removal of thousands of dunums of orchards and agricultural fields, particularly in North Gaza, eastern Gaza City, eastern Khan Younis, and Rafah. Palestinian estimates suggest that more than 178,000 dunums of agricultural land suffered varying degrees of destruction, bulldozing, or severe damage, representing over 80 percent of Gaza’s total agricultural area. Vegetable cultivation alone experienced a dramatic collapse, with cultivated areas shrinking from approximately 93,000 dunums before the war to only about 4,000 dunums during certain phases of the conflict.
Agricultural infrastructure suffered equally devastating losses. FAO data indicate that 71.2 percent of greenhouses had been damaged or destroyed by spring 2025, with the figure rising to nearly 80 percent later that year. In some areas, particularly Gaza Governorate and North Gaza, greenhouses virtually disappeared from the agricultural landscape.
Agricultural water wells, which serve as the lifeline of farming in Gaza, also sustained extensive damage. By April 2025, approximately 82.8 percent of agricultural wells had been damaged or completely destroyed, compared with 67.7 percent at the end of 2024. This destruction deprived thousands of farmers of the ability to irrigate their fields, even in areas that had escaped direct bulldozing.
The livestock sector experienced a similarly catastrophic decline. Bombardment, shortages of feed, limited water supplies, and the lack of veterinary medicines led to the death of large numbers of animals. International reports described a near-total collapse of the poultry sector, while cattle, sheep, and goat farms suffered severe losses. Palestinian assessments indicate that hundreds of livestock and poultry farms were either destroyed or forced out of operation during the war.
By 2026, the crisis had evolved from an agricultural disaster into a full-scale food security emergency. Land that once produced vegetables, fruits, grains, and other essential food products had largely become inaccessible, destroyed, or unsuitable for cultivation. Agricultural infrastructure built over decades had been devastated. Various assessments showed that less than 5 percent of Gaza’s farmland remained available for cultivation during parts of 2025, while later evaluations found that only 1.5 percent of agricultural land was both intact and accessible for productive use.
The losses suffered by Gaza’s agricultural sector cannot be measured solely in terms of bulldozed land, uprooted trees, or destroyed greenhouses. They must also be measured by the food production capacity that has been lost. Every dunum destroyed once produced food. Every damaged well once irrigated fields. Every uprooted tree represented years of investment and cultivation. Today, more than two and a half years into the war, Gaza’s agricultural sector stands as one of the most severely affected sectors of the economy and as a symbol of one of the largest agricultural disasters witnessed in the modern Middle East. Rehabilitating farmland, rebuilding irrigation systems, restoring greenhouses, and reviving agricultural production will require years of sustained effort and billions of dollars before even a fraction of Gaza’s former productive capacity can be recovered..