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The ceasefire agreed between Israel and Hamas makes provisions for the passage of food and humanitarian aid into Gaza. This support is much needed given that Gazas agricultural system has been severely damaged over the course of the war.Over the past 17 months, we have analysed satellite images across the Gaza Strip to quantify the scale of agricultural destruction across the region. Our newly published research reveals not only the widespread extent of this destruction, but also the potentially unprecedented pace at which it occurred. Our work covers the period until September 2024, but further data through to January 2025 is also available.Before the war, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and strawberries were grown in open fields and greenhouses, and olive and citrus trees lined rows across the Gazan landscape. The trees in particular are an important cultural heritage in the region, and agriculture was a vital part of Gazas economy. About half the food eaten there was produced in the territory itself, and food made up a similar portion of its exports.By December 2023, only two months into the war, there were official warnings that the entire population of Gaza, more than 2 million people, was facing high levels of acute food insecurity. While that assessment was based on interviews and survey data, the level of agricultural damage across the whole landscape remained out of view.Tree crop damage by month from October 2023 to September 2024: The months in which damage first occurred are in blue and purple, while undamaged tree crops are shown in green.[Image: Yin et al (2025)]Most olive and citrus trees are goneTo address this problem, we mapped the damage to tree crops mostly olive and citrus trees in Gaza each month over the course of the war up until September 2024. Together with our colleagues Dimah Habash and Mazin Qumsiyeh, we did this using very high-resolution satellite imagery, detailed enough to focus on individual trees.We first visually identified tree crops with and without damage to train our computer program, or model, so it knew what to look for. We then ran the model on all the satellite data. We also looked over a sample of results ourselves to confirm it was accurate.Our results showed that between 64% and 70% of all tree crop fields in Gaza had been damaged. That can either mean a few trees being destroyed, the whole field of trees completely removed, or anything in between. Most damage took place during the first few months of the war in autumn 2023. Exactly who destroyed these trees and why is beyond the scope of our research or expertise.Greenhouses and the date of initial damage between October 2023 and September 2024[Image: Yin et al (2025)]In some areas, every greenhouse is goneAs greenhouses look very different in satellite images, we used a separate method to map damage to them. We found over 4,000 had been damaged by September 2024, which is more than half of the total we had identified before the start of the war.In the south of the territory, where most greenhouses were found, the destruction was fairly steady from December 2023 onwards.But in north Gaza and Gaza City, the two most northerly of the territorys five governorates, most of the damage had already taken place by November and December 2023. By the end of our study period, all 578 greenhouses there had been destroyed.North Gaza and Gaza City have also seen the most damage to tree crop fields. By September 2024, over 90% of all tree crops in Gaza City had been destroyed, and 73% had been lost in north Gaza. In the three southern governorates, Khan Younis, Deir al-Balah and Rafah, around 50% of all tree crops had been destroyed.Agricultural damage is common in armed conflict, and has been documented with satellite analysis in Ukraine since the 2022 Russian invasion, in Syria and Iraq during the ISIS occupation in 2015, and in the Caucasus during the Chechen wars in the 1990s and 2000s.Satellite images show destruction of trees (top) and greenhouses (bottom) in north Gaza.[Image: Yin et al (2025)]The exact impact can differ from conflict to conflict. War may directly damage lands, as we have seen in Gaza, or it may lead to more fallow areas as infrastructure is damaged and farmers are forced to flee. A conflict also increases the need for local agricultural production, especially when food imports are restricted.Our assessment shows a very high rate of direct and extensive damage to Gazas agricultural system, both compared to previous conflict escalations there in 2014 and 2021, and in other conflict settings. For example, during the July-August war in 2014, around 1,200 greenhouses were damaged in Gaza. This time round, at least three times as many have been damaged.Agricultural attacks are unlawfulAttacks on agricultural lands are prohibited under international law. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court from 1998 defines the intentional use of starvation of civilians through depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival as a war crime. The Geneva Conventions further define such indispensable objects as foodstuffs, agricultural areas for the production of foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies and irrigation works.Our study provides transparent statistics on the extent and timing of damage to Gazas agricultural system. As well as documenting the impacts of the war, we hope it can help the massive rebuilding efforts that will be required.Restoring Gazas agricultural system goes beyond clearing debris and rubble, and rebuilding greenhouses. The soils need to be cleaned from possible contamination. Sewage and irrigation infrastructure need to be rebuilt.Such efforts may take a generation or more to complete. After all, olive and citrus trees can take five or more years to become productive, and 15 years to reach full maturity. After previous attacks on Gaza, the trees were mostly replanted, and perhaps the same will happen again this time. But its for good reason they say that only people with hope for the future plant trees.Lina Eklund is an associate senior lecturer at Lund University.He Yin is an assistant professor of geography at Kent State University.Jamon Van Den Hoek is an associate professor of geography at Oregon State University.This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
