Gaza’s Food Systems Under Siege

I recently visited Gaza, where I work with partners on transdisciplinary research called Gaza Foodways with over 160 women farmers and processors (members of the Urban Women Agripreneur Forum – UWAF). After two years of working together, I was finally able to meet some of these women and the team in person – civil society partners the Palestinian Hydrology Group (PHG), the Gaza Urban and Peri-urban Platform (GUPAP) and the University College of Applies Sciences (UCAS). My privileged entry to Gaza was facilitated by local food sovereignty organisation, GUPAP, and Premiere Urgence Internationale which is working on Palestinian heritage, and with farming families dealing with injuries that result from Israel’s strategy of forcibly preventing access to productive farmlands and fisheries.

In this piece, I apply the lens of Gaza’s rich food culture to past and present attacks on its territorial food systems.