GENEVA: More than half of Gaza’s agricultural land, crucial for feeding the war-ravaged territory’s hungry population, has been degraded by conflict, satellite images analyzed by the United Nations show.
The data reveals a rise in the destruction of orchards, field crops and vegetables in the Palestinian enclave, where hunger is widespread after eight months of Israeli bombardment.
The World Health Organization warned on Wednesday that many people in Gaza were facing “catastrophic hunger and famine-like conditions.”
Using satellite imagery taken between May 2017 and 2024, United Nations Satellite Center (UNOSAT) and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) found that 57 percent of Gaza’s permanent crop fields and arable lands essential for food security had shown a significant decline in density and health.
“In May 2024, crop health and density across the Gaza Strip showed a marked decline compared to the average of the previous seven seasons,” UNOSAT said on Thursday.
“This deterioration is attributed to conflict-related activities, including razing, heavy vehicle movement, bombing, and shelling.”
The decline, UNOSAT said, marked a 30 percent increase in damaged agricultural land since it published its last analysis in April.
Israel’s ground and air campaign was triggered when Hamas stormed southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing around 1,200 people and seizing more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
The offensive has killed more than 37,000 people in Gaza, according to health authorities in the Hamas-run enclave, and has caused mass destruction and cut off routes for aid.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday there were more than 8,000 children under five years old in Gaza who had been treated for acute malnutrition.
As well as damage to crop fields and orchards, greenhouses across the Gaza Strip had also sustained significant damage, UNOSAT said.
The Gaza Strip has an estimated 151 square kilometers of agricultural land, which makes up about 41 percent of the coastal enclave’s territory, according to data from UNOSAT.
More than half of cropland in hungry Gaza is damaged, UN says
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More than half of cropland in hungry Gaza is damaged, UN says
- The data reveals a rise in the destruction of orchards, field crops and vegetables in the Palestinian enclave
- 57 percent of Gaza’s permanent crop fields and arable lands essential for food security had shown a significant decline in density and health
Saad Hariri pledges to contest May election
- Beirut rally draws large crowds on anniversary of his father’s assassination
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s former Prime Minister Saad Hariri announced on Saturday that his movement, which represents the majority of Lebanon’s Sunni community, would take part in upcoming parliamentary elections scheduled for May.
The Future Movement had suspended its political activities in 2022.
Hariri was addressing a large gathering of Future Movement supporters as Lebanon marked the 21st anniversary of the assassination of his father and former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, at Martyrs’ Square in front of his tomb.
He said his movement remained committed to the approach of “moderation.”
A minute’s silence was observed by the crowd in Martyrs’ Square at the exact time when, in 2005, a suicide truck carrying about 1,000 kg of explosives detonated along Beirut’s seaside road as Rafik Hariri’s motorcade passed, killing him along with 21 others, including members of his security guards and civilians, and injuring 200 people.
Four members of Hezbollah were accused of carrying out the assassination and were tried in absentia by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.
The crowd waved Lebanese flags and banners of the Future Movement as they awaited Saad Hariri, who had returned to Beirut from the UAE, where he resides, specifically to commemorate the anniversary, as has been an annual tradition.
Hariri said that “after 21 years, the supporters of Hariri’s approach are still many,” denouncing the “rumors and intimidation” directed at him.
He added: “Moderation is not hesitation … and patience is not weakness. Rafik Hariri’s project is not a dream that will fade. He was the model of a statesman who believed, until martyrdom, that ‘no one is greater than their country.’ The proof is his enduring place in the minds, hearts and consciences of the Lebanese people.”
Hariri said he chose to withdraw from political life after “it became required that we cover up failure and compromise the state, so we said no and chose to step aside — because politics at the expense of the country’s dignity and the project of the state has no meaning.”
He said: “The Lebanese are weary, and after years of wars, divisions, alignments and armed bastions, they deserve a normal country with one constitution, one army, and one legitimate authority over weapons — because Lebanon is one and will remain one. Notions of division have collapsed in the face of reality, history and geography, and the illusions of annexation and hegemony have fallen with those who pursued them, who ultimately fled.”
Hariri said the Future Movement’s project is “One Lebanon, Lebanon first — a Lebanon that will neither slide back into sectarian strife or internal fighting, nor be allowed to do so.”
He added that the Taif Agreement is “the solution and must be implemented in full,” arguing that “political factions have treated it selectively by demanding only what suits them — leaving the agreement unfulfilled and the country’s crises unresolved.”
He said: “When we call for the full implementation of the Taif Agreement, we mean: weapons exclusively in the hands of the state, administrative decentralization, the abolition of political sectarianism, the establishment of a senate and full implementation of the truce agreement. All of this must be implemented — fully and immediately — so we can overcome our chronic problems and crises together.
“Harirism will continue to support any Arab rapprochement, and reject any Arab discord. Those who seek to sow discord between the Gulf and Arab countries will harm only themselves and their reputation.
“We want to maintain the best possible relations with all Arab countries, starting with our closest neighbor, Syria — the new Syria, the free Syria that has rid itself of the criminal and tyrannical regime that devastated it and Lebanon, and spread its poison in the Arab world.”
Hariri said he saluted “the efforts of unification, stabilization and reconstruction led by Syrian President Ahmad Al-Sharaa.”
When asked about the Future Movement’s participation in parliamentary elections following his withdrawal from politics, he said: “Tell me when parliamentary elections will be held, and I will tell you what the Future Movement will do. I promise you that, when the elections take place, they will hear our voices, and they will count our votes.”
The US Embassy in Lebanon shared a post announcing that Ambassador Michel Issa laid a wreath at the grave of Rafik Hariri.
Hariri’s legacy “to forge peace and prosperity continues to resonate years later with renewed significance,” the embassy said.
