In Pictures

Gallery|Human Rights

Gaza’s farmers on front lines of perpetual war

Farmers along border areas say their situation has worsened since the 2014 Israeli assault on Gaza.

An Israeli drone prepares to land near a military outpost on the outskirts of Faraheen, near the city of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.
By Dylan Collins
Published On 6 Mar 2015

Al-Faraheen village, Gaza –  Palestinian farmers in the Gaza Strip are struggling to recover from the 51-day war between Israel and Palestinian armed groups that ended with a ceasefire in late August 2014. 

Twenty years ago, Jaber Abu Daqqa, 61, moved from his hometown of Khuzaa to nearby al-Faraheen, a village that touches Israel’s heavily militarised border with Gaza. 

“I lost sheep and goats during the war,” he told Al Jazeera. “I came back to this house and found it mostly destroyed. It will cost me $10,000 to repair, I think. I plan on paying for it myself,” he noted, explaining that he prefers not to wait on international aid. 

Since the war ended nearly half a year ago, the international community has failed to make good on promises to rebuild Gaza. In many towns and villages across the coastal strip, reconstruction has yet to begin. 

Israel has launched three large-scale military offensives in Gaza since late 2008.

Writing on his Facebook page, hardline Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that “a fourth engagement with Hamas is inevitable, and that what’s important is to plan … now how to avoid the fifth”.

Farmers in areas on the border say their situation has only worsened since the last war ended, pointing to the Israeli military’s frequent incursions into their lands and its practice of firing live ammunition at farmers who enter the “buffer zone” between Gaza and Israel.  

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'We had to start life over after the war,' Maram Hussein told Al Jazeera, as she rode her donkey-driven cart towards her field on the outskirts of Faraheen in the buffer zone between the Gaza Strip and Israel. 'My chickens and sheep died and the land was destroyed. Now the work is much harder.'
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Abdullah Abu Daqqa, 17, stands with his donkey cart in his field in the buffer zone near Faraheen. 'The [Israeli] military shoots at us a lot here,' he told Al Jazeera. 'We're used to it. It's normal. It's worse in the morning when there's a lot of fog because you cannot see where they are firing from.'
As Abu Daqqa works in his field in the buffer zone near Israel's border, shots ring out nearby. 'Don't worry,' he says. 'They sound closer than they are. You'd know if they were firing at us.'
Jabar Abu Daqqa stands in the charred remains of his home on the outskirts of the village of Faraheen in the southern Gaza Strip. Like hundreds of homes near the buffer zone between Gaza and Israel, Abu Daqqa's house was left partly demolished, charred and shot-up after Israel's ground invasion into Gaza during Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014.
'This is a very dangerous area,' Ahmed Abu Daqqa tells Al Jazeera outside his home in Faraheen. 'All of the land near the border is dangerous. We always hear about people being shot when they're working. A lot of foreigners, activists and people from the [humanitarian] organisations come here, but nothing changes.'
A young Palestinian boy helps his father collect strawberries in their family's field, located in the buffer zone near Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip. In January, Israeli authorities decided to prohibit the sale of strawberries from Gaza in the West Bank, after strawberry boxes from Gaza were found in Israeli markets.
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A Palestinian farmer and his two sons head out for some early morning work in their fields in the buffer zone near Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip.
Mahmoud, 12, the son of Abu Khader Khatib, collects strawberries from his family's field before heading to school. 'We cannot sell our strawberries anywhere else,' the boy's father tells Al Jazeera. 'If we try to sell them in Israel, they sit at the crossing for days and rot, and we lose money.'
As Israeli forces launched a ground invasion in northern Gaza, Khatib and his family fled to a nearby UN-administered school. 'I came back from the schools after the war. I found most of my animals dead,' recalled the 50-year-old farmer, who grows strawberries.
Abu Khader Khatib inspects his strawberries for cleanliness.
A Palestinian herder guides his sheep through the buffer zone between Israel and the Gaza Strip. Palestinian farmers and herders in the buffer zone are monitored by surveillance drones, monitoring balloons and patrol towers, and are frequently shot at by the Israeli border patrol.
'When we came back [after the war], it was all destruction. The land, the house, everything was in shambles. Our melons were ruined,' said Amjad Abu Ayash as he walked across his charred patch of agricultural land on Gaza's northern border with Israel.