{"id":28485,"date":"2025-10-16T13:34:24","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T13:34:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=28485"},"modified":"2025-10-16T13:34:24","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T13:34:24","slug":"in-gaza-95-percent-of-farmland-is-in-ruins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=28485","title":{"rendered":"In Gaza, 95 Percent of Farmland Is in Ruins"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__figcaption-p\"><span class=\"article__caption\">Wreckage on cropland in the Gaza Strip.<\/span><br \/>\n          <span class=\"article__credit\">Yousef Alrozzi \/ FAO<\/span><\/p>\n<p>As a tenuous ceasefire takes hold in the Gaza Strip, an analysis of satellite imagery reveals 95 percent of cropland has been damaged in the course of the war.<\/p>\n<p>The Israeli campaign has inflicted massive civilian casualties, with some 67,000 Palestinians dead, including more than 20,000 children. Some 84 percent of buildings in Gaza have been destroyed in the fighting, the U.N. estimates, and fields and orchards have been devastated.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__figcaption-p\"><span class=\"article__caption\">Tree crops in November 2023 (left) and May 2024 (right).<\/span><br \/>\n          <span class=\"article__credit\">Yin et al.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>He Yin, a geographer at Kent State University, has tracked the loss of vegetation as Israeli forces razed, bombed, and shelled farms, destroyed irrigation works, polluted soils, and forcibly displaced or killed farmers, leaving fields abandoned.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In two years of war, he told Yale Environment 360, 89 percent of annual crops and 98 percent of tree crops have been damaged. As most farms in Gaza span less than two acres, Yin said earlier this year, \u201cthe loss of a single tree can be devastating.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__figcaption-p\"><span class=\"article__caption\">Damage as of October 8, 2025. Adapted by Yale Environment 360.<\/span><br \/>\n          <span class=\"article__credit\">He Yin<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The U.N. Environment Programme says that uprooting by military equipment \u201chas moved, mixed, and thinned the topsoil cover over large areas,\u201d while \u201csoil has been contaminated by munitions, solid waste, and untreated sewage.\u201d According to the agency, \u201cProduction of food is not possible at scale.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Before the war, farming accounted for 11 percent of Gaza\u2019s economy and nearly half of its exports. According to UNEP, \u201cRestoration of tree cover, soil and land will be critical\u00a0for recovering food security, health, and resilience for people in Gaza.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2><strong>ALSO ON YALE E360<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><strong>In War Zones, a Race to Save Key Seeds Needed to Feed the World<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wreckage on cropland in the Gaza Strip. Yousef Alrozzi \/ FAO As a tenuous ceasefire takes hold in the Gaza Strip, an analysis of satellite imagery reveals 95 percent of cropland has been damaged in the course of the war. The Israeli campaign has inflicted massive civilian casualties, with some 67,000 Palestinians dead, including more<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28486,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[11805,1233,2977,2551],"class_list":{"0":"post-28485","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-farmland","9":"tag-gaza","10":"tag-percent","11":"tag-ruins"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28485\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}