Two years of Israeli attacks have devastated Gaza's farming sector, with more than 90 per cent of livestock destroyed, an official from the Ministry of Agriculture has said.
An estimated 95 per cent of cattle have been killed, either in air strikes or having been slaughtered in desperation during Israel's months-long blockade of supplies. Only 43 per cent of sheep survived, and 99 per cent of poultry have died.
The damage is not just measured in dollars or in tonnes of lost production, it amounts to the collapse of an economy that sustained tens of thousands of families. Farms that once provided Gaza with red and white meat, milk and eggs are now little more than craters and twisted metal.
“The war didn’t just kill animals,” the ministry official told The National. “It wiped out an entire way of life.”
Before the war, 15,000 cattle, 55,000 sheep and millions of chickens supplied local markets. But Israel's military tactics imposed famine conditions on Gaza, and the gradual return of aid lorries has failed t
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