Janajah: Bare feet pressed against the rough trunk of a palm tree, his back supported by a metal and fabric harness, Ali Abed begins the climb to the dates above.
In Iraq, the date palm and its bounty are national icons, but they are being battered by drought.
Once known as the country of “30 million palm trees,” Iraq’s ancient date-growing culture had already suffered from upheaval, especially during the 1980-88 war with Iran, before climate change became a major threat.
In the still lush countryside of central Iraq, near Janajah village in Babylon province, hundreds of date palms stand tall and majestic, surrounded by vines and fruit trees.
During harvest season, the branches are heavy with clusters of yellow and red dates.
Rising at dawn to avoid the searing heat, harvesters climb the palms using only their upper body strength, aided by a harness and rope wrapped around the trunk.
“Last year, the orchards and the palm groves were thirsty; we almost lost them. This year, thanks to God, we had good water and a good harvest,” said Abed, a 36-year-old farmer from Biramana, a village a few kilometers (miles) from Janajah.
Once at the top, they pick the ripe dates, filling baskets that are lowered to the ground and emptied into basins, which are then loaded onto lorries.
Abed noted, however, that the harvest is much smaller now — about half of what it used to be. He once collected more than 12 tons but now brings in just four or five.
Abed criticized the lack of government support, saying aerial insecticide campaigns are not enough.
Iraq has spent over a decade trying to revive the date palm, a vital economic asset and national symbol.
Authorities and religious institutions have launched programs and mega-projects to encourage tree planting and growth.
An agriculture ministry spokesperson told the official INA news agency last month that, “for the first time since the 1980s,” the number of date palms had risen to “more than 22 million,” up from a low of just eight million.
During the Iran-Iraq War, palm groves were razed in vast areas along the border to prevent enemy infiltration.
Today, dates are Iraq’s second-largest export product after oil, which dominates export revenues and generates more than $120 million, according to the World Bank.
In 2023, Iraq exported around 650,000 tons of dates, official statistics show.
Yet around Janajah, many palm trees lie dead and decapitated.
“All these palm trees are dead due to the drought; the whole region is suffering,” said 56-year-old farmer Maitham Talib.
“Before, we had water. People irrigated abundantly. Now, we need complicated machinery,” he said, observing the harvest.
The United Nations has labelled Iraq one of the five countries in the world most vulnerable to some of the effects of climate change.
The country has endured four consecutive years of drought, though this year saw some relief with winter rainfall.
Alongside rising temperatures that have hit 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit) in summer and declining rainfall, Iraq also faces falling river levels, blamed on dams built upstream by Iran and Turkiye.
Kifah Talib, 42, lamented the slow devastation wrought by the drought.
“It used to be paradise: apple, pomegranate, citrus trees and vines — everything grew here,” he said.
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Iraqi date farmers fight drought to protect national treasure
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Iraqi date farmers fight drought to protect national treasure
- Dates are Iraq’s second-largest export product after oil, which dominates export revenues and generates more than $120 million
- The date palm and its bounty are national icons, but they are being battered by drought
US touts ‘New Gaza’ filled with luxury real estate
Davos, Switzerland: US officials on Thursday presented their vision for a “New Gaza” that would turn the shattered Palestinian territory into a glitzy resort of skyscrapers by the sea, saying the transformation could emerge in three years.
The war in Gaza, sparked by Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel, left much of the Palestinian territory damaged or destroyed and forced most of its residents to flee their homes.
A US-brokered ceasefire took effect last October, reducing the level of bombing and fighting, but for most Gazans, the humanitarian disaster has endured three months on.
“We’re going to be very successful in Gaza. It’s going to be a great thing to watch,” President Donald Trump said while presenting his controversial “Board of Peace” conflict-resolution body in Davos.
“I’m a real estate person at heart... and I said, look at this location on the sea. Look at this beautiful piece of property. What it could be for so many people,” he said at the World Economic Forum.
His son-in-law Jared Kushner, who has no official title but is one of Trump’s envoys for the Gaza ceasefire, said his “master plan” aimed for “catastrophic success.”
With a slide showing dozens of shiny terraced apartment towers overlooking a tree-lined promenade, he promised a Mediterranean utopia rising from the scarred Gaza landscape.
“In the Middle East they build cities like this, you know for two or three million people, they build this in three years,” Kushner said.
“And so stuff like this is very doable if we make it happen.”
He touted investments of at least $25 billion to rebuild destroyed infrastructure and public services.
Within 10 years, the territory’s GDP would be $10 billion, and households would enjoy average income of $13,000 a year thanks to “100-percent full employment and opportunity for everybody there,” he said.
“It could be a hope. It could be a destination, have a lot of industry and really be a place that the people there can thrive.”
’Amazing’ opportunities
Kushner said the so-called National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) had enlisted help from Israeli real estate developer Yakir Gabay.
“He’s volunteered to do this not for profit, really because of his heart he wants to do this,” Kushner said.
“So the next 100 days, we’re going to continue to just be heads down and focused on making sure this is implemented.”
Trump had earlier in the conflict floated his vision of turning Gaza into a “Riviera of the Middle East,” sparking outrage around the world.
Notably absent from Kushner’s presentation was Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, whose country had spearheaded in 2025 a reconstruction plan for Gaza supported by Arab nations and welcomed by the European Union.
According to a brief statement from his office, El-Sisi flew home at dawn on Thursday, hours after he and Trump exchanged praise in a tete-a-tete, with the US president calling him “a great leader, a great guy.”
Ali Shaath, Gaza’s recently appointed administrator under Trump’s “Board of Peace,” has said the Egyptian plan was the “foundation” of his committee’s reconstruction project.
A top UN official warned this month that Gazans were living in “inhumane” conditions even as the US-backed truce entered its second phase.
Entire neighborhoods, hospitals and schools have been heavily damaged or destroyed, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to live in makeshift shelters.
Kushner said 85 percent of Gaza’s economic output had been aid for a long time.
“That’s not sustainable. It doesn’t give these people dignity. It doesn’t give them hope,” he said.
He insisted that the full disarming of Hamas, as called for in the October ceasefire, would convince firms and donors to commit to the territory.
“We’ll announce a lot of the contributions that will be made in a couple of weeks in Washington,” he said.
“There’ll be amazing investment opportunities.”
Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people, and 251 people were taken hostage that day, including 44 who were dead.
Israel’s retaliatory assault on Gaza has killed at least 71,562 people, according to figures from the territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.
The ministry also said 477 Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire took effect on October 10.
The war in Gaza, sparked by Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel, left much of the Palestinian territory damaged or destroyed and forced most of its residents to flee their homes.
A US-brokered ceasefire took effect last October, reducing the level of bombing and fighting, but for most Gazans, the humanitarian disaster has endured three months on.
“We’re going to be very successful in Gaza. It’s going to be a great thing to watch,” President Donald Trump said while presenting his controversial “Board of Peace” conflict-resolution body in Davos.
“I’m a real estate person at heart... and I said, look at this location on the sea. Look at this beautiful piece of property. What it could be for so many people,” he said at the World Economic Forum.
His son-in-law Jared Kushner, who has no official title but is one of Trump’s envoys for the Gaza ceasefire, said his “master plan” aimed for “catastrophic success.”
With a slide showing dozens of shiny terraced apartment towers overlooking a tree-lined promenade, he promised a Mediterranean utopia rising from the scarred Gaza landscape.
“In the Middle East they build cities like this, you know for two or three million people, they build this in three years,” Kushner said.
“And so stuff like this is very doable if we make it happen.”
He touted investments of at least $25 billion to rebuild destroyed infrastructure and public services.
Within 10 years, the territory’s GDP would be $10 billion, and households would enjoy average income of $13,000 a year thanks to “100-percent full employment and opportunity for everybody there,” he said.
“It could be a hope. It could be a destination, have a lot of industry and really be a place that the people there can thrive.”
’Amazing’ opportunities
Kushner said the so-called National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) had enlisted help from Israeli real estate developer Yakir Gabay.
“He’s volunteered to do this not for profit, really because of his heart he wants to do this,” Kushner said.
“So the next 100 days, we’re going to continue to just be heads down and focused on making sure this is implemented.”
Trump had earlier in the conflict floated his vision of turning Gaza into a “Riviera of the Middle East,” sparking outrage around the world.
Notably absent from Kushner’s presentation was Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, whose country had spearheaded in 2025 a reconstruction plan for Gaza supported by Arab nations and welcomed by the European Union.
According to a brief statement from his office, El-Sisi flew home at dawn on Thursday, hours after he and Trump exchanged praise in a tete-a-tete, with the US president calling him “a great leader, a great guy.”
Ali Shaath, Gaza’s recently appointed administrator under Trump’s “Board of Peace,” has said the Egyptian plan was the “foundation” of his committee’s reconstruction project.
A top UN official warned this month that Gazans were living in “inhumane” conditions even as the US-backed truce entered its second phase.
Entire neighborhoods, hospitals and schools have been heavily damaged or destroyed, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to live in makeshift shelters.
Kushner said 85 percent of Gaza’s economic output had been aid for a long time.
“That’s not sustainable. It doesn’t give these people dignity. It doesn’t give them hope,” he said.
He insisted that the full disarming of Hamas, as called for in the October ceasefire, would convince firms and donors to commit to the territory.
“We’ll announce a lot of the contributions that will be made in a couple of weeks in Washington,” he said.
“There’ll be amazing investment opportunities.”
Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people, and 251 people were taken hostage that day, including 44 who were dead.
Israel’s retaliatory assault on Gaza has killed at least 71,562 people, according to figures from the territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.
The ministry also said 477 Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire took effect on October 10.
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