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Sustainability: With Gaza ripped apart, activists, action groups from Palestine raise voice for falling agriculture, threatened food security | India News
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BATHINDA: The Palestinian food, agricultural communities and environmental groups activists joined hands for an online event on food crisis and environmental issues to give voices to ‘Unheard Palestine’, after the Israel-Gaza war named it so.
The war-induced agricultural crisis has forced activists to raise questions around food/environmental impacts, ceasefire, solidarity.While this month’s olive season should had been a cause for celebration and harvest, the situation on ground presents a different picture with the farmlands being burned, farmers/fishermen being attacked, and inaccessibility to food and water infrastructure.
“Our communities in Gaza warn that even if they survive Israel’s bombing, they worry that they will die of thirst or starvation” said Yasmeen from Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC). Yasmeen also spoke on the food security situation saying “65% of Gaza’s population was food insecure before October 7. Now the entire population is at risk of starvation. The Israel’s strategy is that it aims to ensure that those who do survive the bombs are condemned to a future without sustenance.”
Yasmeen also spoke about ground situation on food and agriculture, where she mentioned…“Just three days ago Israel bombed boats of the fisheries community. The farmers whose land has not been destroyed already, can’t access their land. Agricultural lands, poultry farms, fisheries have all been damaged to the point that they are non-functional.”
“There is a systemic attack on trees for their value for the agricultural sector. Israelis know that if they uproot these ancient trees, it is easy to uproot people”, said Mariam from Arab Group for the Protection of Nature (APN), independent civil society movement and research group that has been working on food security and agriculture.
“Palestinians are being called by many Israeli officials as being ‘beasts, animals, cockroaches – this is something that actually happened to the Jews before the Holocaust occurred. This also happened before the Bosnian genocide. So what you’re seeing now is that we’re not learning through history. We are repeating the same genocide”, she added.
Bashar of the Socio-Economic Action Collective speaking on Israeli military aggression in Lebanon said “Israel managed to burn more than 40,000 trees since Oct 7. They threw white phosphorus, they threw other types of bombs and definitely these will have a long term impact on the contamination of soil and water and the whole ecological system.”
Lina Isma’il from Palestinian Agroeclogocial Forum (PAF), which through youth-led agricultural cooperatives and development of local markets, support communities in reclaiming their culture and connection to land raised voice for marginalised communities.
Bashar Abu Saifan and Sara Salloum, who represent Socio Economic Action Collective (SEAC), Agricultural Movement in Lebanon, who work to secure the rights of farmers, and strengthen the socio-economic empowerment of agricultural communities also spoke about how agriculture and food security is in grave danger.
UAWC, a grassroots civil society organization, founded by agronomists, works in Gaza and the West Bank to rehabilitate lands destroyed by the occupation. It aims to preserve native seeds, support farming co-operatives, and also train farmers in agroecology.
The war-induced agricultural crisis has forced activists to raise questions around food/environmental impacts, ceasefire, solidarity.While this month’s olive season should had been a cause for celebration and harvest, the situation on ground presents a different picture with the farmlands being burned, farmers/fishermen being attacked, and inaccessibility to food and water infrastructure.
“Our communities in Gaza warn that even if they survive Israel’s bombing, they worry that they will die of thirst or starvation” said Yasmeen from Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC). Yasmeen also spoke on the food security situation saying “65% of Gaza’s population was food insecure before October 7. Now the entire population is at risk of starvation. The Israel’s strategy is that it aims to ensure that those who do survive the bombs are condemned to a future without sustenance.”
Yasmeen also spoke about ground situation on food and agriculture, where she mentioned…“Just three days ago Israel bombed boats of the fisheries community. The farmers whose land has not been destroyed already, can’t access their land. Agricultural lands, poultry farms, fisheries have all been damaged to the point that they are non-functional.”
“There is a systemic attack on trees for their value for the agricultural sector. Israelis know that if they uproot these ancient trees, it is easy to uproot people”, said Mariam from Arab Group for the Protection of Nature (APN), independent civil society movement and research group that has been working on food security and agriculture.
“Palestinians are being called by many Israeli officials as being ‘beasts, animals, cockroaches – this is something that actually happened to the Jews before the Holocaust occurred. This also happened before the Bosnian genocide. So what you’re seeing now is that we’re not learning through history. We are repeating the same genocide”, she added.
Bashar of the Socio-Economic Action Collective speaking on Israeli military aggression in Lebanon said “Israel managed to burn more than 40,000 trees since Oct 7. They threw white phosphorus, they threw other types of bombs and definitely these will have a long term impact on the contamination of soil and water and the whole ecological system.”
Lina Isma’il from Palestinian Agroeclogocial Forum (PAF), which through youth-led agricultural cooperatives and development of local markets, support communities in reclaiming their culture and connection to land raised voice for marginalised communities.
Bashar Abu Saifan and Sara Salloum, who represent Socio Economic Action Collective (SEAC), Agricultural Movement in Lebanon, who work to secure the rights of farmers, and strengthen the socio-economic empowerment of agricultural communities also spoke about how agriculture and food security is in grave danger.
UAWC, a grassroots civil society organization, founded by agronomists, works in Gaza and the West Bank to rehabilitate lands destroyed by the occupation. It aims to preserve native seeds, support farming co-operatives, and also train farmers in agroecology.
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