Less than 5 per cent of Gaza’s farmland can be cultivated, diminishing food production and increasing the risk of famine, according to the latest satellite survey by the UN‘s Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) and the United Nations Satellite Centre.
More than 89 per cent of Gaza’s total cropland has been damaged and 77.8 per cent is not accessible to farmers, leaving just 4.6 per cent available for cultivation, the survey found. The situation is “particularly critical” in Rafah in the south and in the north, where “nearly all cropland is not accessible”.
Furthermore, 71.2 per cent of Gaza’s greenhouses and 82.8 per of agricultural wells have been damaged, the report said.
Before the 19-month Israel-Hamas war, agriculture accounted for about 10 per cent of Gaza’s economy and more than 560,000 Palestinians depended on crops, herding and fishing for their living.
Oranges, lemons, dates, cucumbers, aubergines and other vegetables were produced in Gaza for local consumption while Gaza used to export strawberries and flowers to Europe.
“This level of destruction is not just a loss of infrastructure – it is a collapse of Gaza’s agri-food system and of lifelines. What once provided food, income and stability for hundreds of thousands is now in ruins. With cropland, greenhouses and wells destroyed, local food production has ground to a halt,” said FAO deputy director-general Beth Bechdol.
The FAO estimated earlier this year that the combined damages and losses inflicted on Gaza’s agricultural sector since the war began in 2023 amounted to more than $2 billion (€1.7 billion), while recovery could cost $4.2 billion. Since the resumption of hostilities on March 18th, costs have surely increased.
This assessment followed the release of the April 1st-May 10th integrated food security phase classification analysis, a multi-agency tool for assessing food security, which warned that the entire population of Gaza was “facing a critical risk of famine following 19 months of conflict, mass displacement and severe restrictions on humanitarian aid”. Current projections show that “470,000 people [will be] subject to catastrophic levels of food insecurity and face starvation”.
Gaza’s 363sq km of territory began to shrink during the second intifada, the 2000-2005 Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation, when Israel restricted Palestinian access to land between 100m and 300m from the border.
After Israel withdrew its soldiers and settlers in August 2025, a 300m “buffer zone”, known as the “access restricted areas”, was imposed along the strip’s eastern and northern borders. The UN human rights office reported at the time that this zone covered 62.6sq km, about 35 per cent of Gaza’s cultivable land.
Shrinkage has systematically increased since then. In February 2025, Israeli troops were deployed along the 700m-1.1km-wide buffer zone, expanding it to cover 10 per cent of Gaza.
The Israeli government press office did not respond to The Irish Times’s request for comment on the FAO report.
