Displaced Gaza farmer grows vegetables amid dire shortages

Amid Gaza’s ongoing humanitarian crisis, Ibrahim Abu Jabal, a displaced farmer, is cultivating a small vegetable garden outside his tent in Gaza City. Surrounded by tens of thousands of Palestinians uprooted by the Israel-Hamas war, Abu Jabal tends to rows of tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers on a sandy 120-square-meter plot.

With food scarce and aid difficult to access, Abu Jabal has turned to farming once again to help sustain his family. “Our bodies need tomatoes, cucumbers,” he said, emphasising that these vegetables are either unavailable or prohibitively expensive in Gaza’s war-torn markets.

His nine-year-old daughter, injured in a recent crowd while trying to get a hot meal from a charity kitchen, helps harvest the crops, highlighting the desperate struggle for daily sustenance.

Water supplies in Gaza are also dangerously low, forcing Abu Jabal to carry heavy jugs from a pipe that runs only one hour each day to keep his garden alive. Despite the overwhelming challenges, Abu Jabal remains determined. “I planted this garden so my children and I can survive another day, or a little longer,” he said.

As the crisis deepens, Gaza’s displaced families like Abu Jabal’s continue to find resilience and hope in the most minor patches of earth.