Gaza Strip’s Ministry of Agriculture: IOF Destroys 180,000 Dunums of Agricultural Land

The Ministry of Agriculture in the Gaza Strip announced that the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) have destroyed all agricultural lands in the Strip, which amount to 180,000 dunums that were planted with vegetables, fruits and field crops. In an exclusive statement with Qatar News Agency , Spokesperson for Gaza's Ministry of Agriculture Muhammad Abu Odeh explained that the IOF deliberately destroyed the agricultural sector completely, either through direct airstrikes on agricultural lands or by bulldozing them using heavy machinery and tanks, causing food insecurity in the Gaza Strip. He stressed that the Israeli army's occupation of the border areas led to the destruction of agricultural lands and the elimination of animal husbandry, in addition to preventing fishing in the Gaza Sea, which means the complete destruction of the agricultural, animal and marine production system. The engineer indicated that the IOF has prevented the entry of agricultural products, seeds, fertilizers and pesticides into the G aza Strip since the beginning of the genocide, which reflects its insistence on starving the population and preventing any efforts to revive the agricultural sector. Abu Odeh noted that a limited number of farmers in the northern Gaza Strip, who suffer in their area from the occupation's ban on the entry of vegetables and fruits, tried to reclaim some agricultural lands, but they were able to cultivate only one percent of the agricultural lands in northern Gaza, which were estimated at sixty thousand dunams. He pointed out that the IOF has rejected all attempts by international organizations to bring in seeds and fertilizers to help farmers restore the wheel of production, with the aim of cultivating 1,000 dunams in the northern Gaza Strip. He warned that the occupation's failure to allow the entry of these requirements until mid-September means the failure of the autumn and winter planting season, which will lead to deepening the food crisis in the Strip. The Ministry of Agriculture in Gaza indicated in a statement that the occupation systematically targeted olive trees, and these trees constitute about 60 percent of the garden trees in the Strip. Source: Qatar News Agency