Ghada Abu Muaileq
Truthout / April 5, 2026
In Gaza, war is not measured only by the number of airstrikes, but by the number of trees that no longer bear fruit.
Before the war, our home garden was more than just a patch of green. It was a refuge I retreated to whenever the world felt too heavy. Bougainvillea climbed the walls, and flowers in every colour filled the corners — tended by my mother as if they were her own children. In one corner stood a pomegranate tree we had brought from a nursery in Beit Lahia in northern Gaza — a city long known as the Strip’s food basket, with its fertile agricultural lands.
When the war began, our priorities shifted entirely. There was no longer space for beauty. Survival became the only goal. The flowers withered, and the once-vibrant garden turned into a silent grey space. We uprooted the blossoms and planted onions in their place, trying to ease the burden of hunger and soaring prices. Only the pomegranate tree remained — an enduring reminder of an agricultural city whose lands were bulldozed and whose residents were denied return.
Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun, which once supplied much of Gaza with fruits and vegetables, have been reduced to devastated terrain. By late 2025 and into early 2026, satellite analyses from the Food and Agriculture Organization and the UN Satellite Center show that up to 98 percent of fruit-bearing tree cropland — including olives and pomegranates — has been destroyed, while more than 87 percent of overall cropland and more than 80 percent of greenhouses have been damaged or wiped out. Only a tiny fraction of Gaza’s agricultural land — somewhere between 1.5 percent and 4 percent — remains both accessible and undamaged, mostly in limited southern areas, leaving the north largely off-limits due to restrictions, contamination, and military zones. This was not merely collateral damage. It was a direct assault on food security and livelihoods that continues to unfold even after the fragile ceasefire began in October 2025.
In the area where I live in central Gaza, once known for its vast olive groves, landowners were forced to cut down their trees to make room for tents sheltering displaced families from Gaza City and the north. The land that produced olive oil each autumn became a temporary refuge for those who had lost their homes.
My uncle owned a dunum of olive trees that served as his primary source of income. Every harvest season, he would press the olives and sell the oil to support his family. In the early days of the war, a strike on a neighbouring house ignited a fire that spread to his land, burning the trees he had cultivated for years. Targeting the land became an extension of targeting the people themselves — both uprooted from their foundations.
Yet amid this destruction, some Gazans are attempting to rebuild their relationship with the soil, even from within displacement. Among them is Chef Mohammed Amer, a young man who drew attention on Instagram during the famine period through the meals he prepared — often cooking what he grew beside his tent.
“Some of my experience in farming I gained from my grandparents and my family, whose origins trace back to the village of Beit Daras, from which they were expelled during the Nakba in 1948. In 2023, my grandmother was destined to live through displacement and Nakba for the second time, to live in a tent and endure famine again, but in a harsher and more difficult way,” Amer said. “During this period, I began planting beside the tent and gaining experience from my father and grandmother. The main goal of my interest in agriculture was to relieve myself and reduce the stress and anxiety resulting from psychological warfare.”
Amer grows simple crops such as tomatoes and pumpkins and says he feels great comfort tending to the plants, from planting to harvesting. “I became convinced that the greatest bond a person can have is with their land — holding onto it and giving it care until a very strong connection forms. What it produces becomes a great reward for my patience and effort in nurturing it. This is what made my family and me more resilient in the face of the siege we endure in Gaza,” he said.
At first, Amer said, it was difficult to obtain seeds because they were not available in the market. He would sometimes manage to get seeds from farmers or from vegetables he bought at the market.
“The cooking style I relied on before and during the war on Gaza is a style based on self-sufficiency — obtaining simple food ingredients that do not require great complications to prepare something nutritious. The alternatives I sometimes resort to are simple substitutes I try to provide from my crops, because original ingredients are sometimes unavailable in the market due to the siege,” Amer said. “Therefore, we must have alternative reliance on substitute ingredients that resemble the original ones. I notice very good engagement from followers on the recipes I share, because they feel the simplicity and accessibility of the dishes, all of which depend on very simple things.”
One of the greatest challenges Amer faced during the planting season was access to water due to its scarcity and the lack of fertile soil.
“In the beginning, it was hard to farm barren land,” he said. “I also faced significant difficulty protecting the plants from environmental pollution caused by explosive toxins and gases in the air due to the bombardment. The biggest challenge for me was protecting the plants from the environmental contamination that spread during the war.”
According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics and the Environmental Quality Authority, three out of every four residents are drinking contaminated water, with access to safe water in the northern areas nearly non-existent. Large areas of agricultural land have been damaged, food insecurity has worsened, and wastewater treatment systems have collapsed, causing massive untreated sewage to flow into the Mediterranean. Combined with the accumulation of hazardous waste and environmental destruction from the conflict, the situation continues to worsen, reinforcing its description as ecocide.
In Gaza, war is no longer measured only by the number of airstrikes, but by the number of trees that no longer bear fruit and the number of fields that can no longer be planted. It is a war on the very conditions of life.
Yet the pomegranate tree in our garden still stands. Within its silent roots remains a promise — that what was once planted in this land will not be uprooted from memory.
Amer echoes this idea: “These recipes I have shared will remain a testament to our resilience and strength, and they show my followers around the world the authenticity of Palestinian cuisine, the simplicity of its ingredients, and its diversity.”
Ghada Abu Muaileq is an English literature and translation student at the Islamic University in Gaza
